A presentation of open data and its potential, especially seen in light of the linked open data development. Presentation held for Institute of Information and Media Science at the University of Bergen, 14.04.2011

1. Open Data and its Potential
- reuse of public sector information
- Svein Ølnes, Vestlandsforsking, 13.04.2011

2. Outline
 About Vestforsk and myself
 Semantic technologies
 Linked (Open) Data
 Open Data
 Open Data -> LOD -> Sem. Techn.
 Relevant projects and resources
 Literature
www.vestforsk.no

3. Vestlandsforsking
 ICT themes
 Semantic technologies, information structures ++
 Regional development, organizational changes with ICT
 ICT application areas
 Public sector (eGovernment, eHealth)
 Tourism sector (local, regional, national, int’national level)
 Vestforsk also does research in
 Climate change
 Transport and environment
 Sustainable tourism
 Renewable energy
www.vestforsk.no

4. About me
 Vestforsk since 1996
 eGovernment
 Municipalities
 Government
 Semantic technologies
 Projects
 Norge.no (establishing in 1999/2000)
 MiSide (development of demonstrator in 2004)
 LivsIT/Los (2003 – to date)
 Evaluation of public websites (2001 – to date)
www.vestforsk.no

5. Naming things!
 [the famous cartoon by Gary Larson showing a man
painting ’the cat’, ’the dog’, ’the house’ on his cat,
dog, and house and explaining ”Now, this should
clear up a few things around here!”]
www.vestforsk.no

6. Technology waves
Model driven
Focus: Semantic
Data: Ontologi & Data
Component based
Focus: Services
Data: XML
Object oriented
Focus: Structure
Data: Relational
Procedure oriented
Focus: Syntacs
Data: Hierarchical
1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
Stian Danenbarger, Bouvet.no
www.vestforsk.no

7. The ontology spectrum
The ontology spectrum: From weak to strong semantics
1. Vocabulary
• plain text documents/HTML pages – almost no semantic structure
2. Controlled vocabularies (weak semantic structure)
• adding metadata to the information
3. Taxonomies
• metadata and hierarchy
4. Thesauri
• metadata, hierarchy and a limited set of relations (BT, NT, related to ...)
5. Stronger semantic structures/ontologies
• metadata, [hierarchy], any relations
(Daconta et al.: “The Semantic Web”)
www.vestforsk.no

8. Semantic technologies
 AI tradition/Logics: Semantic web
 W3C as the standardization body
 Humanities/Library science: Topic Maps
 ISO-standard
 Light-weight, bottom-up: Microformats
 Not a standard yet, but might be as part of HTML5
www.vestforsk.no

9. Semantic Web
 ”Web of data”
 ”Web 3.0”
 ”Semantic web” coined by Tim Berners-Lee in mid 1990s
 The (in-)famous article ”The Semantic Web” in Scientific
American 2001 (TBL, Jim Hendler, Ora Lassila)
 Wikipedia:
However, the Semantic Web as originally envisioned, a system that
enables machines to understand and respond to complex human
requests based on their meaning, has remained largely unrealized and
its critics have questioned its feasibility.
www.vestforsk.no

10. Semantic Web stack
www.vestforsk.no

11. Lessons learned from the HTML history?
 xhtml 1: HTML as XML
 xhtml 2: Get rid of html altogether
 ... it was a disaster!
 WHATWG TF – a rebellion inside W3C
 Web Apps 1.0
 .. eventually led to HTML5
 pragmatism won over idealism
Jeremy Keith: ”HTML5 for Web Designers”
www.vestforsk.no

12. Semantic Web light
 Is the Semantic Web too complex?
 difficult to scale to the WWW
 more suitable for use within smaller domains
 Introducing ”Light-weight” SW:
 RDFa: RDF expressed as (x)HTML – part of HTML
 GRDDL: RDF data from XML/xHTML documents
 SKOS: Simple Knowledge Organization System – representation of
”classical” structures as taxonomies, thesauri in RDF
• organizing concepts with standard relations
 Linked (Open) Data
www.vestforsk.no

13. Topic Maps
 ISO standard from 2001 (present standard from 2003)
 ISO 13250:2003
 Strong Norwegian community
 small world wide community compared to SW
 Large uptake in portals, especially public portals
 ”Fight” between TM and SW
 Largely over, ”SW has won”
 Linked Data as a common ground for further development
 Focus has shifted from technology to utilizing data
www.vestforsk.no

14. Simple Topic Maps model
3 Topic types: person, project and publication
2 Association types: Project manager of, Author of, and Result of
www.vestforsk.no

15. Topic Maps in use
 Some Topic Maps driven portals:
 uib.no
 vestforsk.no
 nofima.no
 regjeringen.no
 stortinget.no
 bergen.kommune.no
www.vestforsk.no

16. The Linking Open Data (LOD) Project
www.vestforsk.no

17. Ultimate goal: My metadata is
Europe
ana
your data (and vice versa)
Yr.no
SERES
Volve
n
SSB
LOS KS
Smiln Kart-
o verket Lov
data
SKD
www.vestforsk.no

18. Linked (Open) Data
 using the Web to lower the barriers to linking data
 use of RDF to make typed statements
 Linked Data = Use the Web to make typed links between data
from different sources
 Alex Wright: The Web That Wasn’t (Topic Maps 2008 Conf.)
 David Weinberger: Thank God! (Topic Maps 2008 Conf.)
 ”small pieces loosely joined”
www.vestforsk.no

19. Linked Data vs. Linked Open Data
www.vestforsk.no

20. Linked Data Principles
1. Use URIs as names for things
2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information,
using the standards (RDF, SPARQL)
4. Include linkes to other URIs, so that they can discover more
things
 Linked Data can be serialized as
 RDF/XML
 N3 (Turtle)
 RDFa
www.vestforsk.no

21. Linked Open Data Star Scheme
Tim Berners-Lee/DERI – University of Galway
www.vestforsk.no

22. Linked Data example
 ”Populated place” is a concept defined in the DBpedia ontology
 Use established ontologies whereever possible
 FOAF (friend-of-a-friend)
 Dublin Core
 hCard, hCalendar, hAtom
www.vestforsk.no

23. Linked Data vs. Semantic Web
 The Semantic Web, or the Web of Data, is the ultimate goal
 Linked Data provides the means to reach that goal
 Linked Data helps build the Web of Data that later can be
exploited by more advanced techn. such as intelligent agents
 (it has to be added that this is the proponents of the semantic
web/intelligent agents claim)
 Tom Heath: ”Without Linked Data, no Semantic Web!
 Talis Nodalities no. 11
www.vestforsk.no

24. Open data
 In principle all data, but mostly public data because that is the
easiest to start with
 PSI directive from EU an important enabler (also included in
Offentleg-lova)
 data.norge.no
 data.norge.no from FAD to Difi
 and from blog to data repository (?)
www.vestforsk.no

25. Why open data?
1. Increase democratic control and political participation
 Empower citizens to exercise their democratic rights
2. Foster service and product innovation
 New opportunities for innovation generated by open government
data
3. Strengthen law enforcement
 Especially the US and the UK strategies emphasize this
Study published in the European Journal of ePractice, 2011
www.vestforsk.no

26. “Open data and its enemies”
 Some pressure from FAD (recently expressed in ”Tildelings-
brevet”), but slow movement in general
 cultural issues
 budget issues
 fear of loosing control
 transparency is seen as a threat
 Map data is some of the most important – Map Authorities are
not willing to publish raw data
www.vestforsk.no

27. Closed map data a problem
Bente Kalsnes, Origo
www.vestforsk.no

28. Open data strategies
Study published in the European Journal of ePractice, 2011
www.vestforsk.no

29. Open Data Instruments
Study published in the European Journal of ePractice, 2011
www.vestforsk.no

30. Top 10 drivers of open data
1. Strategies and experiences
2. Political leadership
3. Regional initiatives
4. Citizen initiatives
5. Market initiatives
6. Emerging technologies
7. European legislation
8. Thought leaders
9. Possibility of monitoring government
European Journal of ePractice, 2011
10. Budget cuts www.vestforsk.no

31. Top 10 barriers to open data
1. Closed government culture
2. Privacy legislation
3. Limited quality of data
4. Limited user-friendliness/Info overload
5. Lack of standardisation of open data
6. Security threats
7. Existing charging methods
8. Uncertain economic impact
9. Digital divide
European Journal of ePractice, 2011
10. Network overload www.vestforsk.no

32. data.norge.no
 Initiative from FAD started in 2010
(I will take credit for the name! :)
 Mostly a blog
 Gradually building up a data repository
 From 01.05.2011 Difi will have the responsibility for
data.norge.no
www.vestforsk.no

33. data.norge.no as of April 2011
1. Byantikvarens gule liste (xls) 8. N5000 (div. grafiske format
+ sosi/shape)
2. Einingsregisteret (rdf/xml)
9. Statlege styre, råd og utval
3. Gardsmatrikkelen 1886 (xls) (html)
4. Idrettsanlegg (csv) 10. Statsbudsjettet og nasjonal-
budsjettet 2011 (xls, csv)
5. Kraftprisar (Tab-sep. tekst)
11. Tenestemannsregisteret
(csv)
6. Ladestasjonar (csv, ov2..)
• no.ckan.net lists 212
7. Los (ods)
different data sources
www.vestforsk.no

34. 7 tips for publishing linked open data
1. Use standard Internet protocols for access (http)
2. All objects need a unique identifier (URI)
3. Avoid aggregation of data
4. Structure metadata in a machine readable format (xml or xml/rdf/xtm)
5. Use international character set (UTF-8)
6. Use minimum Dublin Core as a standard way of describing metadata
7. Think about linking to other data sources by preparing for Linked Data
www.vestforsk.no

35. Relevant projects from Vestforsk
 Sesam4 – Semantic technologies for SMEs
 Los – a navigator for public services
 Tourism concepts – a common vocabulary for the tourism industry
 Seminars on semantic technologies
 The WIMS’11 Conference
www.vestforsk.no

36. Sesam4
 VERDIKT project 2008 – 2011 (ended 31st of March this year)
 Use of semantic technologies in SMEs
 Provided a set of tools for SMEs (and others) to use for ”semantisizing”
their data
 Demonstrated semantic technologies in two pilots:
 Tourism
 Business information
 NR, Vestlandsforsking, Esis, Computas, UNI Digital,
Cyberwatcher, TextUrgy, Ovitas, IKT-Norge
www.vestforsk.no

37. Sesam4 – lessons learned
 Project planned in 2007
 A lot of things have happened since 2007
 Emerging of Linked Data
 Sesam4 gradually tuned in to LOD
 Too much focus, resources, and discussion (!) spent on ontologies!
 Light-weight approach saves time & money
 Valuable tools for semantic lifting and best practices remains
available for anybody to use (most of the project in open
source)
www.vestforsk.no

38. LOS – a navigator to public services
 LivsIT (1996 – 2004)
 Life situations
 Los (2005 - ??)
 Shared vocabulary for public services
 More than 1/3 of the municipalities in Norway use Los as a
foundation of their web portal
 Difi is the responsible agency
 Los a success despite Difi’s lack of support and development
 Problem with uptake in Governmental bodies
 By using Los municipalities can share information with
www.vestforsk.no

39. What a difference a little semantics can do
Note: Bergen recently changed their internal search to Google search and lost the semantic support (Los) for search
www.vestforsk.no

40. What a difference a little semantics can do
www.vestforsk.no

41. Los – structure
Tema = Theme
Emneord = Keyword
Nettressurs = Net resources
www.vestforsk.no

42. Help word
How does Los work?
Net resource
Keyword
www.vestforsk.no

43. Tourism concepts
 Pre-project for the Norwegian tourism industry (VisitNorway, NCE
Tourism)
 Advice on constructing a common vocabulary for tourism concepts
 Initiated by Anders Waage Nilsen in NCE Tourism/Fjord Norway
(Anders now in MediArena)
www.vestforsk.no

44. Tourism concepts - advice
1. Simplification (today’s categorizing scheme is too complicated)
2. Develop a controlled vocabulary with emphasis on keywords (the Los
method)
3. Not everything can be solved with categorizing
 A controlled vocabulary is necessary but not enough
4. Publish the vocabulary in the cloud
5. Publish the vocabulary in many formats (html, xml, xml/rdf, xtm)
6. Publish also the information resources in the cloud, as linked open
data
www.vestforsk.no

45. Seminars on semantic technologies
 Vestforsk initiated a series of seminars on semantic technologies as
part of its 25th anniversary in 2010
 A total of 7-8 seminars will be held, 4 already arranged
 Streaming of all seminars, and archived for video on demand
 We also have project ”Kunnskap kryssar grenser”/”Access to Knowledge”
where we focus on streaming and use of video
www.vestforsk.no

46. WIMS’11
 International Conference on Web Intelligence, Mining, and Semantics
 Sogndal, May 25 – 27
 Keynote speakers:
 Jim Hendler: The Semantic Web 10th Year Update (25.05)
 Peter Mika: Making Things Findable (26.05)
 Sören Auer: Creating Knowledge Out of Interlinked Data (26.05)
 Ashwin Ram: Open Social Learning Communities (27.05)
 Marko Grobelnik: Scalable Reasoning on Intensive Streams of Data (27.05)
 wims.vestforsk.no
www.vestforsk.no

47. Some resources
 Vestforsk series of seminars on semantic technologies
 http://www.vestforsk.no/aktuelt/seminarserie-om-semantiske-teknologiar
 Linked Data – The Story So Far (Bizer, Heath, Berners-Lee)
 http://tomheath.com/papers/bizer-heath-berners-lee-ijswis-linked-data.pdf
 Linked Data vs. Linked Open Data
 http://datavisualization.ch/opinions/introduction-to-linked-data
 Linked Data – Evolving the Web into a Global Data Space (Heath, Bizer)
 http://linkeddatabook.com/editions/1.0/
 Introduction to Linked Open Data for Visualization Creators:
http://datavisualization.ch/opinions/introduction-to-linked-data
 CKAN: The Data Hub
 http://ckan.net
www.vestforsk.no

48. More resources
 Talis Nodalities:
http://www.talis.com/nodalities
 Publishing Open Government Data (working draft)
 http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-gov-data-20090908/
 Åpne data og journalistikk (Bente Kalsnes, Origo)
 http://www.slideshare.net/benteka/pne-data-og-journalistikk
 European Journal of ePractice
 http://www.epractice.eu/en/journal/issues
 Figshare: Sharing scientific data (http://figshare.com)
http://blog.okfn.org/2011/03/02/introducing-figshare-a-new-way-to-share-open-
scientific-data/
www.vestforsk.no

49. Thank you for your attention!
 Contact information:
 Svein Ølnes – sol@vestforsk.no
www.vestforsk.no