The presentation discusses the role of open data and linked data in the digital transformation of the PA providing a summary of more than 10 years of (linked) open data in Italy

1. The role of Linked Open Data in
the digital trasformation of PA
Giorgia Lodi
SOLID, TIM BERNERS-LEE’S IDEA FOR REINVENTING THE WEB. CAN WE USE IT
FOR A NOVEL CATALOGUE OF CULTURAL HERITAGE? 04 February 2020

2. Linked Open Data

3. Linked Open Data

4. After 10 years of open
data…
Strategic plans and legal
interventions
New skills and roles
High number of available
datasets
Catalogues, metadata

5. Innovation plans legislations
and guidelines
Innovation plan 2025 [1]- Data for
future cities – no vendor lock-in
Three-Year ICT plan for PA (2019-
2020) [2] - Chapter 5.2 – Open Data
Digital Administration Code [3] -
Open Data and Open Data by
Default principle (i.e., art. 50
paragraph 1 and art. 52, respectively)
Technical guidelines [4] for public
sector information valorization

6. Digital skills for PA
The Syllabus [5]

7. Plenty of open data catalogues available at
national and local level
Dati.gov.it includes most of them for a total of
27.356 open datasets
To start harmonizing metadata for datasets a
metadata profile – DCAT-AP_IT [6] was
at national level, and tools for supporting it
have been developed and published on
developers Italia for the reuse by anyone –
CKAN-IT [7]
Catalogues and tools

8. Drawing some conclusions
David Eaves: “The as-yet hidden but dramatic success of
open data has been a transformation of public officials’
attitude toward data”
However
Old domain legislations in contrast with new ones in
Europe and Italy are still into force
There are many different licenses, which are not
compatible with each other
National strategic datasets are still closed. The Open Data
Barometer states “.. governments have been reluctant to
publish the datasets that can most benefit citizens”
The Open Data Barometer states: “Governments still treat
open data as a side project”
We still reason in terms of data silos
Low quality (I put a CSV on web sites and that’s it!)

9. Linked Open Data

10. And after 10 years of
linked open data?
Legislation and technical
guidelines
Available datasets
Metadata, ontologies,
controlled vocabularies,
RDF scripts and SPARQL
endpoint
New skills

11. Guidelines and legislation
Italian technical guidelines on Semantic Interoperability through
Linked Open Data (March 2012) [8]
LAW NO. 221 OF 17 DECEMBER 2012
Article 20 – Smart Communities
The Italian Digital Agency publishes guidelines […] including the
definition of the ontologies for services and data of smart
communities
Three Year ICT plan for PA (2017-2019 and 2019-2020)

12. OntoPiA [9]
27 ontologies + import of ArCo network of ontologies + 27 files of
alignments to external ontologies
35 LOD controlled vocabularies, some created by communities based
on regulatory documents available in PDF, only
A wiki page with information on URIs and other technical aspects and
7 scripts R2RML for linked controlled vocabularies creation through
old Data & Analytics Framework
Some discussions for the creation of controlled vocabularies and new
ontologies
“IMO, one of the most interesting and ambitious project of the Italian
Digital Agency, because it is the basis for the public administration of
the future […] a PA that is modern and innovative, transparent and
open, whose data is semantically interoperable, to facilitate i) the
development of new information systems, ii) the exchange of data, iii)
the integration of data from different sources” – Giovanni Pirrotta –
Open Data Sicilia

13. Do you remember?
NEW  Working on quality and in the future on Linked Open Data

14. Drawing some conclusions
Still only a few virtuous initiatives. New upcoming in Open
Government Partnership action plan.
Still perceived as too complex
However
Practical experience shows that opening up data via Linked Data
paradigm raises the awareness on data quality and contributes to
improve it
Common identifiers (i.e., URIs) and ontologies/controlled
vocabularies ensures semantic interoperability when information
systems exchange data
The use of common identifiers may reduce data duplication,
facilitate the implementation of the “once-only” principle, while
maintaining data decentralization
It allows for breaking silos even because ”it is not just having more
data that unlocks its value, but linking it together”

15. [1] Innovation plan 2025 - https://docs.italia.it/italia/mid/piano-nazionale-innovazione-2025-
docs/it/stabile/index.html
[2] Three Year ICT plan for PA - https://pianotriennale-ict.italia.it/
[3] Digital Administration Code - https://docs.italia.it/italia/piano-triennale-ict/codice-amministrazione-digitale-
docs/it/v2018-09-28/index.html
[4] Technical guidelines on PSI valorization https://docs.italia.it/italia/daf/lg-patrimonio-
pubblico/it/stabile/index.html
[5] The Syllabus - https://www.competenzedigitali.gov.it/fileadmin/user_upload/syllabus-competenze-digitali-
pa-dfp-uid-maggio-2019.pdf
[6] DCAT-AP_IT Specifications - https://docs.italia.it/italia/daf/linee-guida-cataloghi-dati-dcat-ap
it/it/stabile/index.html?highlight=linee%20guida%20valorizzazione
[7] CKAN-IT - https://github.com/italia/ckan-it
[8] Semantic Interoperability through Linked Open Data -
https://www.agid.gov.it/sites/default/files/repository_files/documentazione_trasparenza/cdc-spc-gdl6-
interoperabilitasemopendata_v2.0_0.pdf
[9] OntoPiA - https://github.com/italia/daf-ontologie-vocabolari-controllati
References

16. Thank you for the attention!