In this talk I will present a novel desktop document architecture, namely SDArch, which attempts to integrate data from heterogeneous application-specific document formats into a unified desktop information space. SDArch introduces a novel document representation model, called the Semantic Document Model (SDM), which integrates the semantic layer into the core of the document data representation structures. The model is inline with the Linked Data principles, representing documents as RDF linked data sets, in which document units are identified by globally unique URIs, semanticaly annotated by an arbitrary number of ontological concepts and interlinked via explicit semantic links. Semantic documents have only one permanent instance, which is integrated into a unified desktop data graph and stored into a desktop RDF repository. The RDF repository also exposes a publicly available SPARQL endpoint, thus enabling remote access to the desktop data and its integration into Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud the global Semantic Web.

On top of the desktop RDF repository, SDArch introduces a service-oriented middleware with a set of services such as the semantic search and navigation services, which aim to improve the search and navigation within desktop data, thus improving the effectiveness and efficiency of desktop users in carrying out their daily tasks. Together, the RDF repository, the middleware and the application software that utilizes the middleware services compose SDArch as a three-tier service-oriented architecture.

We conducted a usability evaluation of the SDArch prototype and an experimental evaluation of the semantic document search. The evaluation results were promising. I will also briefly present the analysis of these results.