Capturing Interactive Data Transformation Operations Using Provenance Workflows

The ready availability of data is leading to the increased opportunity of their re-use for new applications and for analyses. Most of these data are not necessarily in the format users want, are usually heterogeneous, and highly dynamic, and this necessitates data transformation efforts to re-purpose them. Interactive data transformation (IDT) tools are becoming easily available to lower these barriers to data transformation efforts. This paper describes a principled way to capture data lineage of interactive data transformation processes. We provide a formal model of IDT, its mapping to a provenance representation, and its implementation and validation on Google Refine. Provision of the data transformation process sequences allows assessment of data quality and ensures portability between IDT and other data transformation platforms. The proposed model showed a high level of coverage against a set of requirements used for evaluating systems that provide provenance management solutions.