RDFa and
government data
Mark Birbeck
Backplane Ltd. and W3C Invited Expert

What is RDFa?

Embed data in HTML
and XHTML

Why embed data?
• Removes ambiguity about the content
within a page.
• Makes publishing data as easy as publishing
HTML.

Precise information
Embedding metadata removes the ambiguity about the
content of our pages

Title: Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton
Stars: *****
I reviewed Stratton's newest teen novel, Leslie's Journal in
October. I'd heard about Chanda's Secrets and wanted to give
it a try. ...

<div xmlns:v="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#"
typeof="v:Review"
>
<span rel="v:itemreviewed">
<span>
Title: <span property="v:name">Chanda’s Secrets</span>
</span>
</span>
Stars: <span property="v:rating" content="5">*****</span>
<span property="v:summary">
I reviewed Stratton's newest teen novel, Leslie's Journal in October.
I'd heard about Chanda's Secrets and wanted to give it a try. ...
</span>
</div>

Number of stars, price range,
etc., all picked up from the
web-page via RDFa and

Publishing HTML was
never easier

Embed data to make
publishing data as easy
as publishing HTML

Case study: Vacancies
and consultations
Distributing data in UK government web-sites

Static page
ASP.NET
Who knows?

Momentum for
governments to make
data 'open'

Linked Data
Joining the linked data cloud

<div
typeof="v:Review"
>
<span rel="v:itemreviewed">
<span about="urn:ISBN:1550378341" typeof="bib:book">
Title: <span property="v:name">Chanda’s Secrets</span>
</span>
</span>
Stars: <span property="v:rating" content="5">*****</span>
<span property="v:summary">
I reviewed Stratton's newest teen novel, Leslie's Journal in October.
I'd heard about Chanda's Secrets and wanted to give it a try. ...
</span>
</div>

Mark Birbeck’s Twitter account name is
<span
typeof="foaf:OnlineAccount"
rel="foaf:accountServiceHomePage" resource="http://twitter.com"
property="foaf:accountName"
>markbirbeck</span>
and Ben Adida’s is
<span
typeof="foaf:OnlineAccount"
rel="foaf:accountServiceHomePage" resource="http://twitter.com"
property="foaf:accountName"
>benadida</span>

The future: Open
access to the data
Anyone can make up their own data sets

RDFa
• Removes ambiguity about page data
• Makes it easy for anyone to publish data
• Powerful enough to enable the publishing
of Linked Data
• Ideal for publishing government data

W3C Standards
• RDFa is a standard, building on other
standards, such as RDF
• With SPARQL, have a solid foundation for
publishing government data

• http://webBackplane.com/rdfa
• http://webBackplane.com/mark-birbeck
• http://rdfa.info
• http://linkeddata.org