Using the semantic web for author disambiguation - are we there yet?

The quality, and therefore, the usability and reliability of data in digital libraries depends on author disambiguation, i.e., the correct assignment of publications to a particular person. Author disambiguation aims to resolve name ambiguity, i.e., synonyms (the same author publishing under different names), and polysemes (different authors with the same name), and assign publications to the correct person. However, author disambiguation is difficult given that the information available in digital libraries is sparse and, when integrated from multiple data sources, contain inconsistencies in representation, e.g., of person names, or venue titles. Here we analyse and evaluate the usability of person-centred reference data available as linked data to complement the information present in digital libraries and aid author disambiguation.