The Semantic Overlay Architecture for Data Interoperability and Exchange

Today's digital landscape is characterized by diverse encodings, syntaxes, and semantics, which forces stakeholders to dedicate considerable resources to ensure smooth data exchange and interoperability. While the W3C-recommended Resource Description Framework (RDF) offers a solid solution to these challenges, many developers find i t d aunting t han conventional data structures like JSON or YML. There have been alternative solutions suggested for data interoperability, including DLite and Layered Schemas. However, these do not fully leverage existing open standards, which diminishes their overall effectiveness. To help address this issue, we propose the Semantic Overlay Architecture (SOyA), a lightweight RDF-centric approach for data interoperability and exchange. SOyA facilitates core functionalities for data interoperability and exchange while reducing the barrier of RDF adoption. Our preliminary evaluations, focusing on roles within Knowledge Graph engineering, show encouraging outcomes.