3. Transparency
Participation
Collaboration
“My Administration is committed to creating an
Unprecedented level of openness in Government.“
Barack Obama, “Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies -
Transparency and Open Government,” Jan. 2009.
4.
5.
6.
7. Neelie Kroes
Vice-President of the European Commission
responsible for the Digital Agenda
“Take the example of public sector information –
possibly a €30 billion market in Europe. I have said it
before, and I say it again: yes to open data!”
“Lift-Off towards Open Government" conference, Brussels, 15 December 2010
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/752
8. Status Quo Austria
2 Initiativen der Zivilgesellschaft:
● http://gov.opendata.at
● http://www.open3.at
● http://offenedaten.at/
Überblick am Reference-Server
http://reference.e-government.gv.at/Open-Government-Let-the-
suns.opengovernment.0.html
E-Government-Vision 2020
● „Bereitstellung von ausgewählten öffentlichen Rohdaten und Mashups mit
privaten Services“
● http://www.bka.gv.at/site/6878/default.aspx
Im Regierungsprogramm Rot/Grün Wien
Thema des Kompetenzentrums Internetgesellschaft “KIG”
19. Why Open Data?
More information might lead to more informed
and better decisions
Higher degree of effectiveness & efficiency
● P. Weiss, "Borders in Cyberspace: Conflicting Public Sector Information Policies and their Economic Impacts," ed: U.S.
Department of Commerce, 2004.
Strengthen trust in establishment
● R. Marcella and G. Baxter, "Information need, information seeking behaviour and participation, with special reference to
needs related to citizenship: results of a national survey," Journal of Documentation, vol. 56, pp. 136-160, 2002.
Leverage benefits of peer production
New business models
“Peoples right to know”
20. Benefits for Citizens
Execution of controlling rights by the citizens
Self-Determination
Communication on equal information level
Better Services – better Governance – better
Regulation
21. Drawbacks
Administration:Loss of control & power –
undermining the statutory supremacy
Business: Loss of money by threatening
established business models
Society: Discrimination by stigmatisation
“The unknown” considered harmful
22. Challenges
Beneficial for many but drawbacks for some others
● eg. changing value of real estate by transparency
Media Literacy - “Data divide”
● Data journalism as a new role for the endangered
traditional media
Access vs. effective use
● Theoretical benefit – real utility
Beneficial for larger & educated states
● Anyone for “Apps for Liechtenstein”? - “Apps for Somalia”?
Background image attribution http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SBB-CFF.JPG
24. Open Government Data
Open Government Data are data sets
released by the government on public
interest. Usage is unconstrained with
the right to re-share and re-purpose
without further notice.
25. Explained
Released by the government
Data is following the open data principles
Always non-personal
Beneficiaries rights are regulated by
meaningful licences
Usage is unconstrained
Business usage is welcomed
26. Open Data Principles
Complete
Primary
Timely
Easily Accessible
Machine Processable
Non-Discriminating
Using Open Standards
Liberal Licencing
Reliable
Free of Charge OR Non-Discriminating fees
von Lucke and C.P. Geiger, “Open Government Data - Frei verfügbare Daten des öffentlichen Sektors,” Dec. 2010.
28. Information Management (EN)
Collection and management of
information
Organization of and control over the
structure, processing and delivery of
information
29. Informationsmanagement (DE)
Beschaffung und Bereitstellung von Information
Planung, Beschaffung und Bereitstellung der
dafür erforderlichen Informations- und IT-
Infrastruktur und notwendiger, personeller
Ressourcen
● Informationsmanagement wird in der
deutschsprachigen Literatur überwiegend als
Informationsgenerierung und
Informationsbeschaffung behandelt
30. Literature Research
[1] J. White, Managing information in the public sector, Armonk N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2007.
[2] C.M. Shea and G.D. Garson, Handbook of public information systems, Taylor & Francis Group, 2010.
[3] B. Rocheleau, Public management information systems, Hershey PA: Idea Group Pub., 2006.
31. Peculiarities of Public Sector
Information Management
Functional discrepancies
● Private: Maximizing shareholder value
● Public: Loss-making public transport
Conflicting targets, perceptions and interests in public & private
sector information management
● Risk, Accountability, Representativeness, Stakeholders, Openness;
Information management performance measure models complex
due to conflicting targets
BUT: Literature recognizes information as a critical resource
Conclusion: Information out-flow shall be treated as a core
element of public sector information management
B. Bozeman and S. Bretschneider, “Public management information systems: Theory and prescription,” Public
Administration Review, vol. 46, 1986, pp. 475–487.
32. Literature Review - Result
Information is a critical resource
Information flow is not considered to be
bi-directional
Current literature does not describe an
open data architecture model
34. Architecture Model
Five level saturation model by Tim
Berners-Lee
★ Available on the web (whatever format), but with an open licence
★★ Available as machine-readable structured data (e.g. excel instead
of image scan of a table)
★★★ as (2) plus non-proprietary format (e.g. CSV instead of excel)
★★★★ All the above plus, Use open standards from W3C (RDF and SPARQL)
to identify things, so that people can point at your stuff
★★★★★ All the above, plus: Link your data to other people’s data
to provide context
35. Architecture Model
Everything gets an URI
Data is encoded in RDF
URIs are kept persistent by policies and PURLs
Ontologies describe NON-Information Resources
● Data entities are self-described by these government
ontologies
RESTFul APIs for data access
Data gets federated to meta data register
Data searchable à la swoogle
36. Linking Concepts - Basics
Connecting concepts across federal levels, spanning departments
Supports the automatic generation of new information
Common understanding about “things”, even across different
languages
http://data.wien.gv.at/info.rdf
Bundeshauptstadt Vienna
37. URIs for everything
Naming scheme respects federal principle of
subsidiarity and autonomy
http://{sector}.{federallevel}.data.gv.at/
{concept}/IDENTIFIKATION {.rdf|html}
● http://bildung.krems.noe.data.gv.at/schule/4711
NON-Information resources require two
additional URIs (“HttpRange-14”)
● Associated information resource, eg. HTML-Page
● Associated information resource as “303” resource,
eg. RDF-data
38. RDF Data Representation
One format fits all
Target representation by XSLT
transformation or (X)HTML render
Plethora of public sector data in legacy or
non-conforming formats will require a
transitional phase
TXT, CSV, HTML, XML are royalty free
formats with strong open source backing
39. Trust by Reliability
Internet Addresses come and go
URIs shall be reliable by organizational
consensus
Fancy URIs remain invariant by means
of permanent Urls (PURL)
PURLs interpretation of HTTP-Header
response values harmonize with
Semantic Web Interpretation
40. PURL vs. SemWeb
Interpretation
HTTP- HTTP- PURL Semantic Web
Header Interpretation Interpretation Interpretation
Status
Code
301 Moved Moved permanently
permanently to a target URL
302 Found Simple redirection
to a target URL
303 Found See other URL A URI; likely an
RDF-Document
41. Ontologies for Non-
Information Resources (NIR)
Enable computer systems to reason about reality
Automated service discovery
Optimal resource allocation for processes
Ontologies about NIRs classify Open Linked Data
about Information Resources (IR)
SKOS as an alternative to the overly expressive OWL
for creating eg. Thesaurus of the public service
portfolio
42. Open Data API
Reduce server resources by optimal query strategy
Querying data originator rather than local storage
prevents data inconsistencies
Extern-facing API by means of RESTful serives
● Integrates seamlessly with web browsers
● Well understood and supported standard technology
● JSON serialization less verbose and more web friendly than
XML
● “Simple” compared to wsdl:SOAP
Eliminates asymmetry of Open Data by enabling
information in-flow
43. Open Government Data Register
Topic of research
Do not repeat dead
end of UDDI!
C. Koumenides, M. Salvadores, H. Alani, and N. Shadbol, “Global
integration of public sector information,” Raleigh, NC, USA: 2010.
44. Architecture (0)
3 0
1 2
URI
Web Interface
Service
RDF-Browser Javascript Libraries
Discovery
api.data.gv.at data.gv.at proxy.data.gv.at Service
[0] Identify an Open Data Set
45. Architecture (1)
3 0
1 2
URI
Web Interface
Service
RDF-Browser Javascript Libraries
Discovery
api.data.gv.at data.gv.at proxy.data.gv.at Service
[0] Identify an Open Data Set
[1] Browse Url / Uri (eg. http://bildung.krems.noe.data.gv.at/schule/4711)
46. Architecture (2)
3 0
1 2
URI
Web Interface
Service
RDF-Browser Javascript Libraries
Discovery
api.data.gv.at data.gv.at proxy.data.gv.at Service
[0] Identify an Open Data Set
[1] Browse Url / Uri (eg. http://bildung.krems.noe.data.gv.at/schule/4711)
[2] Transfer minimal Web Page with
Javascript RDF-Browser
47. Architecture (3)
3 0
1 2
URI
Web Interface
Service
RDF-Browser Javascript Libraries
Discovery
api.data.gv.at data.gv.at proxy.data.gv.at Service
[0] Identify an Open Data Set
[1] Browse Url / Uri (eg. http://bildung.krems.noe.data.gv.at/schule/4711)
[2] Transfer minimal Web Page with
Javascript RDF-Browser
[3] Retrieve Data using OGD API
48. Architecture (4)
3 0
1 2
URI
Web Interface
Service
RDF-Browser Javascript Libraries
Discovery
api.data.gv.at data.gv.at proxy.data.gv.at Service
4'
Externe Sicht 5
Interne Sicht
4
DB1 RDF RDF
RDF DB DB
Datenbank DB2
Org 2 Org 3
Organisation
[4] Query RDF-Database
49. 3
1
RDF-Browser
0
Web Interface
Javascript Libraries
URI
Service
Architecture (4')
Discovery
api.data.gv.at data.gv.at proxy.data.gv.at Service
4'
Externe Sicht
Interne Sicht
4
DB1 RDF RDF
RDF DB DB
Datenbank DB2
Org 2 Org 3
Organisation
[4] Query RDF-Database
[4'] Use HTTP-Proxy to Query Databases
outside Internet Domain
50. Big picture
3 0
1 2
Web Interface
URI
Service
RDF-Browser Javascript Libraries
Discovery
api.data.gv.at data.gv.at proxy.data.gv.at Service
4
Externe Sicht 5
Interne Sicht
4
DB1 RDF RDF
RDF DB DB
Datenbank DB2
Org 2 Org 3
Organisation
51. Next steps
Identify already released data or uncritical data sets;
grab for the low hanging fruits
Release as XML, CSV
Create an online-catalogue of Open Data
Go semantic: Enrich with meta data, create URI
infrastructure, identify open source components
Extend government enterprise architecture with
Linked Data elements
52. Thank you – Contact
Johann Höchtl
Center for E-Government
Danube University Krems, Austria
johann.hoechtl@donau-uni.ac.at
53. Links and further reading
Papers & Literature:
C. Koumenides, M. Salvadores, H. Alani, and N. Shadbol, “Global integration of public sector information,” Raleigh, NC, USA: 2010.
F. Ortiz-Rodríguez, J.C. Pelaez, and F.J. Pascual, “Semantic model approach for eGovernment to improve sharing, retrieving and
exchanging documentation across back-office,” Proceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government
Research: Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data and Government, Digital Government Society of North
America, 2009, pp. 319–320.
S.K. Goudos, V. Peristeras, and K. Tarabanis, “Reengineering Public Administration through Semantic Technologies and a Reference
Domain Ontology,” Semantic Web for eGovernment 2006, p. 25.
C. Koumenides, M. Salvadores, H. Alani, and N. Shadbol, “Global integration of public sector information,” Raleigh, NC, USA: 2010.
P. Salhofer, “Ontology Driven E-Government,” eGovernment Review, Jan. 2009, pp. 22-23.
J. Sheridan and J. Tennison, “Linking UK government data,” Proc. of the WWW Workshop on Linked Data on the Web, 2010.
D. Wood, Linking Enterprise Data, Springer, 2010.
F. Servant, “Linking Enterprise Data,” CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Bejing: 2008.
F. Maali, R. Cyganiak, and V. Peristeras, “Enabling Interoperability of Government Data Catalogues,” Lecture Notes in Computer
Science, Lausanne, Switzerland: Springer, 2010, pp. 339-350.
P.N. Weiss, “Borders in Cyberspace: Conflicting Public Sector Information Policies and their Economic Impacts,” Public sector
information in the digital age: between markets, public management and citizens' rights, 2004, p. 137.
E. Hornes, A. Jansen, and Ø. Langeland, “How to Develop an Open and Flexible Information Infrastructure for the Public Sector,”
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Lausanne, Switzerland: Springer, 2010, pp. 301-314.
. von Lucke and C.P. Geiger, “Open Government Data - Frei verfügbare Daten des öffentlichen Sektors,” Dec. 2010.
Web Links:
Empowering the empowered: http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/open-data-empowering-the-empowered-or-effective-data-use-
for-everyone/
Cool URIs for the semantic web: http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/
Re-use HTTP-Header Response Codes for the Semantic Web: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/httpRange-14/2007-05-31/HttpRange-14
Licenses: http://www.opendatacommons.org/
CKAN Semantic Web Software: http://ckan.org/
Tabulator Library to render RDF as (X)HTML: http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Tabulator
APIs: http://open311.org/, http://www.odata.org/ http://services.sunlightlabs.com/docs/Sunlight_Congress_API/
SKOS recommendation to create thesauri: http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/
Tools and Software recommended by the W3C to deal with RDF and the Semantic Web: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/wiki/Tools
