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2011 | Buch

Linking Government Data

herausgegeben von: David Wood

Verlag: Springer New York

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Linking Government Data provides a practical approach to addressing common information management issues. The approaches taken are based on international standards of the World Wide Web Consortium. Linking Government Data gives both the costs and benefits of using linked data techniques with government data; describes how agencies can fulfill their missions with less cost; and recommends how intra-agency culture must change to allow public presentation of linked data. Case studies from early adopters of linked data approaches in international governments are presented in the last section of the book. Linking Government Data is designed as a professional book for those working in Semantic Web research and standards development, and for early adopters of Semantic Web standards and techniques. Enterprise architects, project managers and application developers in commercial, not-for-profit and government organizations concerned with scalability, flexibility and robustness of information management systems will also find this book valuable. Students focused on computer science and business management will also find value in this book.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Publishing Linked Government Data

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. The Joy of Data - A Cookbook for Publishing Linked Government Data on the Web

Abstract

Many governments have recently mandated the open publication of more information to the public, in attempts to facilitate the maintenance of open societies and in support of governmental accountability and transparency initiatives. Publication of structured data on the World Wide Web is in itself insufficient; in order to make use of such data, members of the public can best absorb data when it can be used with other published data. Linked Data approaches address key requirements of open government by providing a family of international standards and best practices for the publication, dissemination and reuse of structured data. Further, Linked Data, unlike previous data formatting and publication approaches, provides a simple mechanism for combining data from multiple sources across the Web. This chapter provides a six-step “cookbook” to model, create, publish and announce government Linked Data. We’ll highlight the role of the World Wide Web Consortium, an international standards organization and its member organizations who are currently driving specifications and best practices for the publication of governmental data. The chapter concludes with guidance on the social contract government agencies implicitly adopt when they publish Linked Data on the Web.

Bernadette Hyland, David Wood

Chapter 2. Methodological Guidelines for Publishing Government Linked Data

Abstract

Publishing Government Linked Data (and Linked Data in general) is a process that involves a high number of steps, design decisions and technologies. Although some initial guidelines have been already provided by Linked Data publishers, these are still far from covering all the steps that are necessary (from data source selection to publication) or giving enough details about all these steps, technologies, intermediate products, etc. In this chapter we propose a set of methodological guidelines for the activities involved within this process. These guidelines are the result of our experience in the production of Linked Data in several Governmental contexts. We validate these guidelines with the GeoLinkedData and AEMETLinkedData use cases.

Boris Villazón-Terrazas, Luis. M. Vilches-Blázquez, Oscar Corcho, Asunción Gómez-Pérez

Chapter 3. Producing and Using Linked Open Government Data in the TWC LOGD Portal

Abstract

As open government initiatives around the world publish an increasing number of raw datasets, citizens and communities face daunting challenges when organizing, understanding, and associating disparate data related to their interests. Immediate and incremental solutions are needed to integrate, collaboratively manipulate, and transparently consume large-scale distributed data. The Tetherless World Constellation (TWC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has developed the TWC LOGD Portal based on Semantic Web principles to support the deployment of Linked Open Government Data. The portal is not only an open source infrastructure supporting Linked Open Government Data production and consumption, but also serves to educate the developers, data curators, managers, and end users that form the growing international open government community. This chapter introduces the informatic challenges faced while developing the portal over the past two years, describes the current design solutions employed by the portal’s LOGD production infrastructure, and concludes with lessons learned and future work.

Timothy Lebo, John S. Erickson, Li Ding, Alvaro Graves, Gregory Todd Williams, Dominic DiFranzo, Xian Li, James Michaelis, Jin Guang Zheng, Johanna Flores, Zhenning Shangguan, Deborah L. McGuinness, Jim Hendler

Chapter 4. Linking Geographical Data for Government and Consumer Applications

Abstract

Given the influence of geography on our lives, it is of little surprise that this dimension runs through many of the data sets available on the Web as Linked Data, and plays a crucial ongoing role in many attempts to visualise and build applications upon these. The importance of opening access to governmental data resources is increasingly recognised, and those with a geographic flavour are no exception. In this chapter we describe how the national mapping agency of Great Britain approached the publication of various key data sets as Linked Data, detailing many of the data modelling decisions taken. We then explore a small sample of the applications that have been built on these and related data sets, demonstrating how governmental data sets can underpin government and consumer applications alike. The chapter concludes with presentation of a deployed approach for linking vast volumes of geographic data, thereby significantly increasing the density of links between geographic data sets in the Web of Data.

Tom Heath, John Goodwin

Improving Linked Data Quality

Frontmatter

Chapter 5. Creating and Publishing Semantic Metadata about Linked and Open Datasets

Abstract

The number of open datasets available on the web is increasing rapidly with the rise of the Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud and various governmental efforts for releasing public data in various formats, not only in RDF. However, the metadata available for these datasets is often minimal, heterogeneous, and distributed, which makes finding a suitable dataset for a given need problematic. Governmental open datasets are often the basis of innovative applications but the datasets need to be found by the developers first. To address the problem, we present a distributed content creation model and tools for annotating and publishing metadata about linked data and non-RDF datasets on the web. The system DATAFINLAND is based on a modified version of the VoiD vocabulary for describing linked RDF datasets, and uses an online metadata editor SAHA3 connected to ONKI ontology services for annotating contents semantically. The resulting metadata can be published instantly on an integrated faceted search and browsing engine HAKO for human users, as a SPARQL end-point for machine use, and as a source file. As a proof of concept, the system has been applied to LOD and Finnish governmental datasets.

Matias Frosterus, Eero Hyvönen, Joonas Laitio

Chapter 6. StdTrip: Promoting the Reuse of Standard Vocabularies in Open Government Data

Abstract

Linked Data is the standard generally adopted for publishing Open Government Data. This operation requires that a myriad of public information datasets be converted to a set of RDF triples. A major step in this process is deciding how to represent the database schema concepts in terms of RDF classes and properties. This is done by mapping database concepts to a vocabulary, which will be used as the base for generating the RDF representation. The construction of this vocabulary is extremely important, because it determines how the generated triples interlink the resulting dataset with other existing ones. However, most engines today provide support only to the mechanical process of transforming relational to RDF data. In this chapter, we discuss this process and present the StdTrip framework, a tool that supports the conceptual modeling stages of the production of RDF datasets, promoting the reuse of W3C recommended standard RDF vocabularies or suggesting the reuse of non-standard vocabularies already adopted by other RDF datasets.

Percy Salas, José Viterbo, Karin Breitman, Marco Antonio Casanova

Chapter 7. Official Statistics and the Practice of Data Fidelity

Abstract

Official statistics are the “crown jewels” of a nation’s public data. They are the empirical evidence needed for policy making and economic research. Statistics offices are also among the most data-savvy organisations in government and often have a strong history of publishing data in electronic form. There is hardly any analytical task involving government data that doesn’t require some statistical data, such as population figures or economic indicators. At the same time, the handling of statistical data as Linked Data requires particular attention in order to maintain its integrity and fidelity. This chapter gives an introduction to the field of official statistics, discusses the modelling of statistical data in RDF including its integration with other kinds of government data, tools for data conversion and publishing of statistics as Linked Data, and methods for using statistical data in queries, reports, and visualisations.

Richard Cyganiak, Michael Hausenblas, Eoin McCuirc

Consuming Linked Government Data

Frontmatter

Chapter 8. Visualizing Open Government: Case Study of the Canadian Recordkeeping Approach

Abstract

This chapter highlights the necessity of raising societal awareness of what is available to citizens in terms of government information. What is not known cannot be made known. It provides an overview of the organizational structure and information resources context within government organizations as part of linked government data initiatives. It examines some practical approaches used in governments underpinning the persistence and discoverability of information and discusses prodisclosure schemes for government information as a means to facilitate the collection and dissemination of information following linked data principles. The chapter is supported by a case study from the Government of Canada’s implementation of recordkeeping. It provides best practices for an up-front assessment of information resources based on criteria of value that can facilitate the identification, collection and dissemination of government data in a linked form. Visualization techniques are presented as a means to encourage greater understanding of the context for disclosure of information resources of business value through linked government data and information tools and techniques explored in other chapters.

Pierre Desrochers

Chapter 9. Linking Australian Government Data for Sustainability Science - A Case Study

Abstract

Sustainability science has been viewed as a new discipline which focuses on the complex interactions between nature and society. It demands intensive integration of data from different sources within different domains. Governments collect and generate huge amounts of scientific data and thus are in a unique position to support sustainability research. However, there are many challenges in discovering and re-using government data. In this chapter, first, we survey the sustainability related datasets published by the Australian government. We believe this is the critical first step to identifying the opportunities and issues and advancing the Australian Government 2.0 agenda. Second, we investigate the role of Linked Data in integrating a selection of Australian government datasets to generate sustainability science hypotheses and support the data analysis.We discuss the challenges based on our survey experience and present some recommendations for data publishing and analysis.

Qing Liu, Quan Bai, Li Ding, Huong Pho, Yun Chen, Corné Kloppers, Deborah L. McGuinness, David Lemon, Paulo de Souza, Peter Fitch, Peter Fox

Chapter 10. The Web is My Back-end: Creating Mashups with Linked Open Government Data

Abstract

Governments around the world have been releasing raw data to their citizens at an increased pace. The mixing and linking of these datasets by a community of users enhances their value and makes new insights possible. The use of mashups — digital works in which data from one or more sources is combined and presented in innovative ways — is a great way to expose this value. Mashups enable end users to explore data that has a real tangible meaning in their lives. Although there are many approaches to publishing and using data to create mashups, we believe Linked Data and Semantic Web technologies solve many of the true challenges in open government data and can lower the cost and complexity of developing these applications. In this chapter we discuss why Linked Data is a better model and how it can be used to build useful mashups.

Dominic DiFranzo, Alvaro Graves, John S. Erickson, Li Ding, James Michaelis, Timothy Lebo, Evan Patton, Gregory Todd Williams, Xian Li, Jin Guang Zheng, Johanna Flores, Deborah L. McGuinness, Jim Hendler

Backmatter

Titel: Linking Government Data
herausgegeben von: David Wood
Verlag: Springer New York
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4614-1767-5
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-1766-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1767-5