Information Visualization for CSV Open Data Files Structure Analysis

Abstract

New and different information sources have appeared over the past years (e.g. Blogs, Media, Open Data, Scientific Data and Social Networks). The variety of these sources is growing and the related data volume does not cease to increase exponentially. Open Data (OD) initiatives and platforms are one of the current major data producers, also because the topic seems to be important for many governments world-wide. Given the many fields and sectors involved, OD brings high business and societal potential. The amount and diversity of available information is high. However, analysing and understanding OD in order to exploit is far from being an easy task. Several problems and constraints must be solved. Information Visualization (InfoVis) can help to give a graphical idea of the processed files structure. Given that OD is provided very often as tabular data, this paper focuses on OD CSV files. It presents an overview on the analysis of tabular information. Finally, the paper describes the role of Information Visualization and the way it may help the end-user to understand quickly the structure and issues of OD CSV files.