Ricgraph provides an exploration tool, so users do not need to learn a graph query language. This tool is called Ricgraph Explorer. As it is a Python Flask application, it can be customized as needed. New queries (buttons) can be added, or the user interface can be modified to fit a certain use case, user group, or application area. The code can be found in directory ricgraph_explorer.
In this documentation and on this page, we use the application area research information. Ricgraph Explorer has several pre-build queries tailored to this application area, each with its own button, for example:
- find a person, a (sub-)organization, a skill;
- when a person has been found, find its identities, skills, research results.
Ricgraph Explorer offers faceted navigation. That means, if a query results in a table with e.g. journal articles, data sets, and software, you can narrow down on one or more of these categories by checking or unchecking their corresponding checkbox. An alternative view uses tabbed navigation.
This page describes what you can do with Ricgraph Explorer. It does this by showing the flow through the web application by listing the buttons available. The text below lists these buttons. For some of these buttons, a more extensive description is given. After clicking a few buttons, and entering values in the fields provided, the user will get a Results page. Since there are many possible result pages, we only show one result page as example.
On this page, you can learn more about:
- Working with Ricgraph Explorer.
- Read about how to start Ricgraph Explorer.
- The Home page of Ricgraph Explorer.
- The Search page of Ricgraph Explorer.
- The Person options page of Ricgraph Explorer.
- The Organization options page of Ricgraph Explorer.
- The Results page of Ricgraph Explorer.
- Read about browsing Ricgraph.
Return to main README.md file.
| screenshots of a usage flow through Ricgraph Explorer | example research questions |
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You can click each figure to enlarge. Some field values have been blurred for privacy reasons.
The left figure above shows screenshots of web pages of Ricgraph Explorer for answering the research question “What are the research results of person A” in figure (a) at the right.
The screenshot at the top left is the home page. After clicking “search for a person”, Ricgraph Explorer shows a search page (top right). A user types a name, and the person options page is shown (bottom left). After clicking “show research results related to this person”, the results page is shown (bottom right). In that page, the rows in the second table are (in this case) the journal article neighbors of the item in the first table (the person the user searched). This person also has other types of research results: book chapters, data sets, other contributions, books, reviews, and software (cf. row with orange rectangle, this is an example of the tabbed navigation). The “comment” column contains the titles of the journal articles. By clicking on an entry in the “value” column, in this case a DOI value, the user will go to this neighbor. Ricgraph Explorer will show a page with persons who have contributed to that journal article.
In the left figure above, after a click on a value in the “value” column in the bottom right result page, the user will get the persons who have contributed to that research result, as in figure (b) at the right. Clicking “find persons that share any result types with this person” in the bottom left person option page corresponds to figure (c), and clicking “show personal information related to this person” corresponds to figure (e).
Depending on how Ricgraph has been installed, there are various ways to start it.
- If you have installed Ricgraph yourself, using your own user id,
you have to follow the following steps, depending on your graph database backend:
- If you use Neo4j: read Start Neo4j Desktop.
- If you use Memgraph: read Install and start Memgraph.
- Run the ricgraph_explorer.py script in directory ricgraph_explorer. It will tell you which weblink and port to use, probably http://127.0.0.1:3030. Open a web browser and go to that link.
- If you use Ricgraph on a demo server, and you have used your own user id to log on to that server,
you very probably do not need to start the graph database backend.
- Open a web browser and go to http://127.0.0.1:3030.
- If you have a domain name to access Ricgraph, for example www.ricgraph-example.com:
- Open a web browser and go to https://www.ricgraph-example.com.
The figure below shows part of the home page. Click on it to enlarge.
The home page lets the user choose between various methods to explore Ricgraph:
- Button search for a person.
- in the search page that is shown after you have clicked this button, to search, type a full name or substring of a name.
- if there is more than one result, select one person.
- this person is shown on the person options page for further exploration.
- Button search for a (sub-)organization.
- in the search page that is shown after you have clicked this button, to search, type a full organization name or substring of an organization name.
- if there is more than one result, select one organization.
- this organization is shown on the organization options page for further exploration.
- Button search for a skill, expertise area or research area
[only available if you have nodes of category competence in Ricgraph]:
- in the search page that is shown after you have clicked this button, to search, type a skill, expertise area or research area, or substring of one of these.
- if there is more than one result, select one.
- the results are shown on the results page.
- Button search for anything (broad search) or
button advanced search.
- in the search page that is shown after you have clicked this button, type something to search, the advanced search is a case-sensitive exact match search on one or more of the Ricgraph fields name, category, or value.
- if there is more than one result, select one.
- depending on the type of result:
- if the result is a person, the result is shown on the person options page for further exploration.
- if the result is an organization, the result is shown on the organization options page for further exploration.
- for all other results, the results are shown on the results page.
In the yellow top bar, there are more buttons:
- Button Home. This button returns the user to the home page.
- Button Advanced search. This leads to the advanced search page, see section search page.
- Button Broad search. This leads to the broad search page, see section search page.
- Button REST API doc. This leads to the documentation and try out page of the Ricgraph REST API.
There are two search pages:
- A broad search page, having one input field. This search is a case-insensitive search.
- An advanced search page, having three input fields. This search is a case-sensitive exact match search on one or more of the Ricgraph fields name, category, or value.
The figure below shows these search pages. Click on any figure to enlarge.
| broad search page | advanced search page |
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There are two methods for viewing the results:
- person_view: only show relevant columns, results are presented in a tabbed format. Tables have fewer columns to reduce information overload.
- details_view: show all columns, research results are presented in a table with facets. This view shows all columns .
You only get on this page if the result of your search is a person. The figure below shows the person options page. Click on it to enlarge.
You can use one of these exploration options:
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Button show personal information related to this person.
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Button show organizations related to this person.
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Button show research results related to this person.
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Button show everything except identities related to this person.
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Button show all information related to this person.
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Button find persons that share any research result types with this person.
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Button find persons that share a specific research result type with this person.
You will need to enter a research result type from a drop-down list.
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Button find organizations that this person collaborates with.
This button gives an overview of organizations that this person collaborates with. A person X from organization A collaborates with a person Y from organization B if X and Y have both contributed to the same research result.
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Button find information harvested from other source systems, not present in this source system.
You will need to enter a source system from a drop-down list. Next, this button gives an overview of information that can be added to the source system entered, based on the information harvested from other source systems. The process of improving or enhancing information in a source system is called "enriching" that source system. This is only possible if you have harvested more than one source system.
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Button find the overlap in source systems for the neighbor nodes of this node.
In case more than one source systems have been harvested, and the information in Ricgraph for the neighbors of this node have originated from more than one source system, clicking this button will show you from which ones.
For each of these buttons, the results are shown on the results page.
You only get on this page if the result of your search is an organization. The figure below shows the organization options page. Click on it to enlarge.
You can use one of these buttons:
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Button show persons related to this organization.
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Button show all information related to this organization.
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Button find research results from all persons in this organization.
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Button find skills from all persons in this organization.
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Button find any information from persons or their results in this organization.
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Button find specific information.
You will need to enter a value for Ricgraph fields name or category from a drop-down list. Next, this button gives an overview of the persons or their results in this organization.
For all of these buttons the results are shown on the results page.
The results page will look different depending on what results are shown. The figure below shows an example of a part of the skills in an organization. Click on it to enlarge.
You can browse the graph that Ricgraph has obtained by harvesting source systems by clicking on a value in the value column. In the figure in section Results page, the search was started with organization Utrecht University (in the first table). The SKILL neighbors of Utrecht University are listed in the second table. By clicking on e.g. NVivo, you will traverse to the NVivo node, and you will see the neighbors of this node. This can be repeated as desired. It is also possible to start a new search using the buttons Home, Advanced search, or Broad search in the yellow title bar.