Linked Open Government DataOpen Government & Open Government Data - Putting the L in Front: from Open Data to Linked Open Data (LOD) Martin Kaltenböck Managing Partner & CFO, Semantic Web Company REEEP Open Data Workshop, Abu Dhabi, UAE 18 Jan 2011

1. Linked Open Government Data
Open Government & Open Government Data
Putting the L in Front: from Open Data to Linked Open Data (LOD)
Linking Open Data to Accelerate Low-Carbon Development
A workshop for decision makers in clean energy organisations
January 18th 2012 in Abu Dhabi, Masdar Institute
Slides for download: http://www.slideshare.net/MartinKaltenboeck
Martin Kaltenböck
Managing Partner & CFO, Semantic Web Company
www.semantic-web.at
@semwebcompany
These slides are published under :
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

2. Agenda of Presentation
Open Government
A new way of transparency, participation & collaboration
Open (Government) Data
A worldwide movement for re-use of data & content
Putting the L in front
From Open Data to Linked Open Data
The Power of Linking Open Data
Benefits & Potentials of LOD
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3. Open Government (Data)
A short introduction
Grafik: openchandler.org
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4. What is Open Government?
The basic idea of Open Government is to establish a modern
cooperation among politicians, public
administration, industry and private citizens by enabling more
transparency, democracy, participation and collaboration.
Some of the most important enablers for Open Government are
free access to information and the possibility to freely use and
re-use this information (e.g. data, content, etc).
After all, without information it is not possible to establish a
culture of collaboration and participation among the relevant
stakeholders.
Therefore, Open Government Data (OGD) is often seen as a
crucial aspect of Open Government.
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5. Where it started & where we are now!
© Semantic Web Company – http://www.semantic-web.at/ 5

6. What is Open Government Data?
Open Government Data (OGD) is a worldwide
movement to open up data (& information) of the
government / public administration* - that is NOT
personal (individual related) – in human- and
maschine readable open formats (non proprietary)
for use & re use!
OPEN stands for lowering the barriers to ensure as broad as
possible re-use (for everybody)!
There is a new paradigm in publishing Government Data
= look, take and play!
* ….. data and information produced or commissioned by government or government controlled entities
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7. Open Government Data in Europa
Outreach EC Activities
• June 2012 – Launch of EC Open Data Portal (Data &
Information of EC departments)
• 10. 2011, OGD Camp 2011 for Open Data related acticities in EC
20. 100 Mio Euros Warsaw - http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/tag/open-data/
funded R&D projects
I’ve said before that I’m a big fan of open data. Opening up public data will get citizens involved
in society and political life, increase the transparency of public administration, and improve public
decision making. Those benefits cannot be overestimated. And public data can be used in many
• 2013 – Launch of a Pan-European Data Portal
unexpected ways, too: as the father of the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee, put it: “if people put data onto
the web… it will be used by other people to do wonderful things in ways that they never would have
(Single Point of Access to Open Data of EU27)
imagined”.
There’s a huge amount of money here, and a huge amount of opportunity. I want to see Europe
at the forefront of this development. So I‟m going to be taking action to open up Europe‟s public
sector, by promoting creative and innovative re-use of public data.
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8. Global Open Data Initiatives
There are more & more Open Data systems available by international
organisations, NGOs and NPOs!
• United Nations – http://data.un.org
• World Bank - http://data.worldbank.org
• Eurostat – http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
• FAO – http://data.fao.org
• REEEP, Clean Energy Datasets: http://data.reegle.info
• NREL, OpenEI: http://en.openei.org
• The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world-government-data
• New York Times - http://data.nytimes.com/
OGD Map Worldwide:
http://bit.ly/open-data-map
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9. Principles of Open Government Data
http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/documents/ten-open-data-principles/
1. Completeness
All public data are made available. Public data are data that are not subject to valid privacy, security
or privilege limitations, as governed by other statutes.
2. Primacy
Data are published as collected at the source, with the finest possible level of granularity, not in
aggregate or modified forms.
3. Timeliness
Data are made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.
http://www.opengovdata.org/home/8principles
4. Ease of Physical and Electronic Access
Data are available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.
5. Machine readability
Data are reasonably structured to allow automated processing of it.
6. Non-discrimination
Data are available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
7. Use of Commonly Owned Standards (e.g. open formats)
Data are available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.
8. Licensing
Data are not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable
privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed as governed by other statutes.
Finally, compliance must be reviewable.
PLUS: Sunlight Foudation, August 2010: 9) Permanence & 10) Usage Costs
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10. Open Government Data Requirements
The following 11 topics as a partial aspect of Open Government Data could be
identified & described on the basis of a requirement analysis to implement OGD:
1. Need for Definitions
2. Open Government: Transparency and Democracy, Participation & Collaboration
3. Legal Issues
4. Impact on Society
5. Innovation and Knowledge Society
6. Impact on Economy / Industry
7. Licenses, Models for Exploitation, Terms of Use
8. Data relevant Aspects
9. Data Governance
10. Applications and Use Cases
11. Technological Aspects
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11. Also take the Metadata into account!
Towards Open Government Metadata (Sept 2011)
In the EU eGovernment Action Plan semantic interoperability is mentioned “…as an
essential precondition for open, flexible delivery of eGovernment services”.
Metadata Ignorance
Public administrations should become aware of the importance of Metadata in eGovernment
and the need for coherent relevant management policies.
Scattered or Closed Metadata
Public administrations should organize the scattered Metadata in structured repositories,
catalogues or libraries and provide open access to the collected resources.
Open Metadata for Humans & Open Reuseable Metadata
Public administrations should provide services to query, browse and export their Metadata in a
machine-readable and preferably non-proprietary format (e.g. CSV, XML).
Linked Open Metadata
Public administrations should consider applying linked metadata policies, including use of RDF
to document their Metadata, persistent design, use and maintenance of URIs, linking to
external vocabularies/schemata, harmonize their resources to third parties' resources etc.
http://www.semic.eu/semic/view/documents/towards_open_government_metadata.pdf
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12. David Eaves Centre for the Study of Democracy, Canada
„
Words to every OGD advocate:
Building an Open Government
Data Infrastructure is like
building a electric power grid. It„s
hard to measure it„s impact on
society and on economy, but it is
evident that there is one.
“
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13. Putting the L in front
From Open Data to Linked Open Data

14. Open Data in Use: what is important for whom?
What is important when thinking about Open Data in use
• Interoperability to ensure broad & easy use & re-use
• Human AND machine readable data
• In open formats (using open standards)
• To ensure smooth & cost efficient data integration
• Local–regional–national–continent wide–worldwide effects
For several target groups with several interests
• Internal usage inside of Public Administration / Organisations
• Politicians / Decision Makers
• Citizens (Citizen Analysts) / Employees
• Economy & Industry / NPOs & NGOs
• (Data) Journalists & Media
• Education, Academia & Science
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15. 5 Stars for Open Data by Tim Berners Lee
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16. Costs & Benefits of 1 to 5 Star Data
What are the costs and benefits of ★ web data?
As a consumer ...
✔ You can see it.
✔ You can print it.
✔ You can store it locally (on your hard drive or on an USB stick).
✔ You can enter the data manually into another system.
As a publisher ...
✔ It is easy to publish.
What are the costs and benefits of ★★ web data?
As a consumer: everything that you could do with ★ web data, plus:
✔ You can directly process it with proprietary software to aggregate it, perform
calculations, visualise it, etc.
✔ You can export it into another (structured) format.
As a publisher ...
✔ It is still easy to publish.
Adapted 5 star model by Michael Hausenblas
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17. Costs & Benefits of 1 to 5 Star Data
What are the costs and benefits of ★★★web data?
As a consumer, everything that you could do with ★★ web data, plus:
✔ You do not have to pay for a format over which a single entity has exclusive
control
As a publisher ...
✔ It is still easy to publish.
What are the costs and benefits of ★★★★ web data?
As a consumer, everything that you could do with ★★★ web data, plus:
✔ You can link to it from any other place, either on the web or locally.
✔ You can bookmark it.
✔ You can re-use parts of the data.
As a publisher ...
✔ You will need to invest some time slicing and dicing your data.
✔ You will need to assign URIs to data items and think about how to represent
the data.
✔ You have fine-granular control over the data items and can optimise their
access (e.g. load balancing, caching, etc.)
Adapted 5 star model by Michael Hausenblas
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18. Costs & Benefits of 1 to 5 Star Data
What are the costs and benefits of ★★★★★ web data?
As a consumer, you can do everything that you could do with ★★★★
web data, plus:
✔ You can discover new data of interest while consuming other
information.
✔ You have access to the data schema.
As a publisher ...
✔ You will need to invest resources to link your data to other data on the
web.
✔ You make your data discoverable.
✔ You increase the value of your data.
Adapted 5 star model by Michael Hausenblas
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19. Documents
on the Web
Web of Documents
AKA Hypertext
Data on the Web
AKA Open Data
Web of Data
AKA Hyperdata
The Evolution of the Internet
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20. From Open Data to Linked Open Data
Publish Data!
•Organise Data!
•License Data!
•Raw Data now!
Use Web-Technologies
•Provide an API!
• The web is an Ecosystem Use Linked Data!
• Networked Data creates
Network Effects • Give things an URI!
• Lowers Costs of Data • Use RDF for Publishing!
Integration • Link your Data to other Data
(as well as the data models)!
• Provide a Standard-API
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21. The Idea of Hyperdata
Data Integration on User Level and Application Level
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22. The Idea of Hyperdata
Application and/or API
Integration on Data Level
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23. The LOD Cloud: it is already there!
~50 bio. triples/facts
http://bit.ly/d37p4i
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24. The Vision of the New Internet
Linked Data realizes the vision of
evolving the Web into a global
data commons, allowing
applications to operate on top of
an unbounded set of data
sources, via standardised
access mechanisms.
I expect that Linked Data
will enable a significant
evolutionary step in leading
the Web to ist full potential.
CC-BY-SA von campuspartybrasil (flickr)
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25. Linked Open Data
Benefits & Potentials

26. LOD Benefits: An Overview
• Less replication (offering same datasets in
different places) & thereby cost saving
• Encouragement to re-use existing datasets
on the basis of open standards
• Clear which datasets are providing similar /
same information
• More innovation because datasets can be
put in a new context and lead to
interesting applications & create
knowledge
• LOD can provide a powerful digital
infrastructure for data management
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27. The Power of Linked Open Data
• Enables web-scale data publishing - distributed publication with web-
based discovery mechanisms
• Everything is a resource – follow your nose to discover more about
properties, classes, or codes within a code list
• Everything can be annotated - make comments about observations,
data series, points on a map
• Easy to extend - create new properties as required, no need to plan
everything up-front
• Easy to merge - slot together RDF graphs, no need to worry about name
clashes
• Easy use and re-use on top of common schemas AND schema mapping
• Allows complex querying of several distributed data sources & systems
Parts of list: John Sheridan, OGD2011 Conference, Vienna, Austria:
http://www.slideshare.net/semwebcompany/linking-uk-government-data-john-sheridan/
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28. Linked (Open) Data as a
‚(National) Digital Infrastructure‘
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29. Linked (Open) Data in the Intranet
http://bit.ly/21LmMA
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30. Cost of Data Integration – 2 Approaches
Can we afford to
mash the data with
ours?
Source: Price Waterhouse Coopers – Technology Forecast, Spring 2009
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31. LOD – Huge Economic Potentials
Data have swept into every industry and business function and are now an
important factor of production, alongside labor and capital.
Harnessing big data in the public sector has enormous potential, too. If US health
care were to use big data creatively and effectively to drive efficiency and quality,
the sector could create more than $300 billion in value every year. Two-thirds of
that would be in the form of reducing US health care expenditure by about 8 percent.
In the developed economies of Europe, government administrators could save
more than €100 billion ($149 billion) in operational efficiency improvements
alone by using big data, not including using big data to reduce fraud and errors and
boost the collection of tax revenues.
And users of services enabled by personal location data could capture $600 billion in
consumer surplus.
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/big_data/index.asp
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32. Where is the Semantic Web used?
Under the hood of lots of products
© Semantic Web Company – http://www.semantic-web.at/ 32

33. Infos & Kontakt
Martin Kaltenböck, CMC
Semantic Web Company GmbH (SWC)
Lerchenfelder Gürtel 43
A-1160 Wien
Semantic Web Company (SWC) LOD2
Creating Knowledge out of
Web Interlinked Data
http://www.semantic-web.at
http://blog.semantic-web.at Web
http://poolparty.biz http://www.lod2.eu
Blog
m.kaltenboeck@semantic-web.at http://blog.lod2.eu
Phone: +43-1-402 12 35–25
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34. ANNEX
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35. Linked Data: pay-as-you-go!
“Linked Data technologies can easily
fill the gap between unstructured
Intranet search and expensive &
complicated Service Oriented
Architectures (SOA).
Compared to SOA, Linked Data is a
pay-as-you-go strategy, where data
integration can be performed
incrementally and in sync with the
requirements and evolution of the data
Dr. Sören Auer structures in the enterprise.”
University of Leipzig
LOD2 – Project Co-ordinator
http://bit.ly/emBNA5
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36. From Open Data to Linked Open Data
Open Government Data Stakeholder Survey 2010/2011
http://survey.lod2.eu
I current consume/publish data in the following formats
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37. From Open Data to Linked Open Data
Open Government Data Stakeholder Survey 2010/2011
http://survey.lod2.eu
I would ideally like to consume/publish data in the following formats
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