There are high expectations for Linked Government Data—the practice of publishing public sector information on the Web using Linked Data formats. This slideset reviews some of the ongoing work in the US, UK, and within W3C, as well as activities within my institute (DERI, National University of Ireland, Galway).

1. The State of Linked Government Data Richard CyganiakDERI Friday Talk, August 20, 2010 http://linkeddata.deri.ie

2. High expectations … Publishing Public Sector Information on the Web Itenables the reuse of the data provided by government agencies, opening up new business opportunities. It provides citizens a direct access to public services, helping to cut costs and improve processes in the government agencies and between the agencies and the citizens. It helps increase the citizen engagement and participation Highest-profile adoption of Semantic Web tech to date

3. Open Data vs. Linked Data Open Data Equal access for all Licensing, legal issues Transparency Changing the way government works Linked Data URIs, HTTP, RDF, SPARQL, FOAF Linked, Open Data!

4. Open Data … Open Data starts with making available the data that you already have, in whatever format.

5. Raw data catalog, data.gov

6. Government data catalogs http://datos.fundacionctic.org/sandbox/catalog/map

7. TimBL’s 5-starplan for open data ★ Make your stuff available on the Web ★★ Make it available as structured data(e.g., an Excel sheet instead of image scan of a table) ★★★ Use a non-proprietary format(e.g., a CSV file instead of an Excel sheet) ★★★★ Use linked data format(i.e., URIsto identify things, and RDF to represent data) ★★★★★ Link your data to other people’s data to providecontext Source: http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/06/04/the-5-stars-of-open-linked-data/

8. All around the world … 8 of XYZ

9. United States Data.gov National raw data and geodata catalogs Data-gov Wiki project at RPI “Triplifying” tabular datasets from Data.gov Generic services on RDF data Wiki for collecting more information about datasets Demos As of 2010, Data.gov links to RPI’s RDF

10. Data-gov wiki

11. White House Visitor Search http://data-gov.tw.rpi.edu/demo/stable/white-house-visitor/top100-visitees.php

12. Dataset 10025: White House visistors

13. Dataset: White House Visitee

14. Comparing US and UK Global Foreign Aid http://data-gov.tw.rpi.edu/demo/linked/aidviz-1554-10030.html

15. Data-gov Wiki: Criticism Is this more useful than a table? <rdf:Descriptionrdf:about="#entry9053451"> <rdf:typerdf:resource="http://data-gov.tw.rpi.edu/ 2009/data-gov-twc.rdf#DataEntry"/><value>2.7</value><period>M01</period><year>1995</year><series_id>SMU55225408000000001</series_id></rdf:Description> Source: Stefano Mazzocchihttp://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/351/

16. United Kingdom

17. United Kingdom Large numbers of raw datasets at data.gov.uk Selected datasets as five-star Linked Data Doing the groundwork for high-quality LD representations URI sets Vocabularies Best Practices

18. Responsible Publishing Source: JeniTennison

19. Designing URI Sets for the UK Public Sector Best-practice report http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/301253/puiblic_sector_uri.pdf Note ironic typo! Examples http://education.data.gov.uk/id/school/78 http://transport.data.gov.uk/id/road/M5/junction/24 http://education.data.gov.uk/def/school

20. Vocabularies SDMX-RDF and the Data Cube Vocabulary DERI; Epimorphics; Metadata Technologies; Stationery Office http://linked-statistics.org/ (coming soon) An organization ontology Epimorphics http://www.epimorphics.com/public/vocabulary/org.html

21. Datasets analytics.data.gov.uk business.data.gov.uk crime.data.gov.uk education.data.gov.uk environment.data.gov.uk finance.data.gov.uk patents.data.gov.uk reference.data.gov.uk research.data.gov.uk statistics.data.gov.uk transport.data.gov.uk

22. Linked Data API Developers demand familiar formats LD API delivers developer-friendly JSON-style APIs from SPARQL endpoints http://code.google.com/p/linked-data-api/

23. Crime Statistics http://www.jenitennison.com/visualisation/crime.html

24. legislation.gov.uk – 800 years of law

25. W3C Activities: eGov IG eGovernment Interest Group (eGov IG)http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/ “The mission of the eGov IG is to explore how to improve access to government through better use of the Web and achieve better government transparency using open Web standards at any government level (local, state, national and multi-national)”

26. W3C Activities: eGov IG Documents produced so far: Use Caseshttp://www.w3.org/egov/wiki/Use_Cases Publishing Open Government Data http://www.w3.org/TR/gov-data/ Improving Access to Government throughBetter Use of the Webhttp://www.w3.org/TR/egov-improving/

27. W3C Activities: eGov IG Projects http://www.w3.org/egov/wiki/Projects Outreach Demonstration (now chaired by Michael) Best Practices for Using Web Technologies to Deliver Government Services Best Practices for Government Data Management Best Practices for Government Use of Social Media Data Catalog Vocabulary task force (Richard, Fadi)http://www.w3.org/egov/wiki/Data_Catalog_Vocabulary

28. W3C Activities: New Working Group Government Linked Data Working Group is planned Best practices, lessons learned in US and UK Strong support from W3C members Charter soon:http://www.w3.org/egov/wiki/GLD_Charter

29. Upcoming DERI activities CSO/DES Linked Data pilot Which school should I send my child to? LATC support action Work package: Publish EU-level datasets as LD http://latc-project.eu/ LOD2 IP Work package: National datasets on Austria, Germany, Ireland etc.

30. Reality check “Triplification” alone is not very useful Linked Data addresses syntax, data model, access, but does not automatically solve the hard problems Standardized classifications; identifier management; data provenance; versioning; context; data discovery Linked Data needs developers, journalists, analysts, scientists to translate it into benefits for the common citizen LD removes some technical issues, giving us a better shot at solving the organizational/political ones

31. And finally… ISWC 2010 Tutorial:Linked Data for eGovernmenthttp://latc-project.eu/events/2010/iswc-ld4egov

32. Additional image sources Kristen Taylorhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/kthread/2857259619/ Independent.co.ukhttp://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/internets-founder-attacks-scheme-to-monitor-web-usage-797133.html?action=Popup&gallery=no LowCarbonEconomy.comhttp://www.lowcarboneconomy.com/community_content/_low_carbon_blog/2596/brown_tackles_energy_bills_unemployment