The highlights of the research outcomes of WDAqua which advance the state of the art in Question Answering include:
- Methods for metadata modeling and management for linked data sources
- Efficient storage and query processing of knowledge graphs from heterogeneous data sources used for Question Answering
- Extensive studies and methods for improving the searchability, accessibility and user interfaces for structured Web datasets
- A Question Answering system over geospatial linked data
- Novel neural network based approaches for speech recognition, semantic parsing, disambiguation, and answer generation for user questions
- A generic method for developing Question Answering systems over various knowledge bases covering multiple languages
- A framework for static and dynamic composition of Question Answering systems and their evaluation
The research efforts of the four-year research programme led to over 70 scientific publications, including top research venues such as the Web Conference and the International Semantic Web Conference, which won several awards. Apart from this, WDAqua delivered to the research community a novel open and adaptable Question Answering architecture and platform, and various Question Answering components, which have been made available to the community as open source projects, as well as open datasets for Question Answering. Assets that can be further exploited in the research as well as the industry include 17 GitHub projects, 3 Docker releases, 2 online demos, 12 datasets and 1 patent, and several evaluation reports about various applications scenarios.
The WDAqua project offered a high-quality training programme, including peer-based activities, extensive supervision by experts, research visits, local courses, and 12 training events (Learning Weeks, R&D Weeks, technical workshops, Innovation Week, Career Fair) offering a big spectrum of technical and non-technical skills, engaging external trainers, senior scientists, and people from the industry.
WDAqua has disseminated the results not only at dozens of international conferences at which the project researchers presented their research contributions as well as workshops and tutorials co-organized with other researchers but also to the broader public through a website, social media, and online videos.
