An overview presented by Ms. Bernadette Hyland on 18-Nov 2014 on the US EPA Open Data strategy, focusing on the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) dataset to be published as linked data . This work is in support of Presidential Memorandum M13-13 - Open Data Policy and Managing Information as an Asset.

1. Bernadette Hyland
CEO & co-founder
David Wood
CTO & co-founder
1400 Key Blvd, Ste 100
Arlington VA 22209
Tel. +1-877-290-2127
bhyland@3RoundStones.com
@BernHyland
david@3RoundStones.com
@prototypo
info@3RoundStones.com
@3RoundStones
Extend Your Reach.
Better Data.
Smarter Decisions
This presentation delivered 18-Nov-2014 & is available at http://slideshare.net/3RoundStones

2. !
With everything else
happening in the
world, why does
Open Data matter
anyway??

3. Credits: !
WV Chemical spill: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/us/west-virginia-chemical-spill.html!
Hurricane Sandy: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/us/hurricane-sandy-on-collision-course-with-winter-storm.html!
Ebola: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/31/world/africa/ebola-virus-outbreak-qa.html
3

4. Discovery, access & re-use goes beyond
government transparency &
accountability …
!
Access to timely, accurate
data is vital to
first responders, legislators,
scientists, policy makers,
journalists &
the general public

5. Taxpayers spend
billions of dollars for
our government to
collect data
We, the people, expect government
authorities to treat information
as an asset.
It complies with regulations (Quality
of Information Act, Section 508,
protects PII) & is:
public, accessible, described, reusable,
complete, timely, sustainable over
election cycles

6. US Federal Government is listening …
“Open Data” per M13-13*
• Public
• Accessible
• Described
• Reusable
• Complete
• Timely
• Managed Post-
Release
• Project Open Data
• OMB & OSTP online
tools, best practices
& schema to help
agencies implement
M13-13. See Project
Open Data
• May 9, 2014 the
Digital Accountability
& Transparency Act
(DATA Act) became
Public Law 113-101

7. The goal of treating
Information as an asset is
not new …

8. “Linked Data was part of my initial vision for
the Web and is an important part of the Web’s
“Linked Data was part of my initial vision for the Web
and is an important part of the Web’s future. The Web
took off as a web of hyperlinked documents which
future. The Web took off as a web of
were exciting to read, but which could not be
hyperlinked documents which were exciting to
read, but which effectively could not used be as effectively data.”
used as
!
data.
- Tim Berners-Lee

9. We all know the ground truth of
data on the Web

10. Lots of [government] open data
without labels or context

11. What is needed is …
data that describes itself

12. Linked Open Data is called
“self-describing” data
Linked Data is “A method of
publishing structured data so
that it can be interlinked &
become more useful.
… Extends Web pages to share
information in a way that can be
read automatically by
computers.”
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee

13. Linked Data on the Web
my data
collector
collected by
measurement
Michael
first name
last name Hausenblas
Person
a
a measurement
2011-01-01
date
0
value
units of measure
degrees
Centigrade
...
Galway Airport
collected at
or

14. • Linked Data has
one amazing
property: it can
easily be combined
with other Linked
Data to form new
knowledge.
• Based on 20+ year
old idea
• A system of linked
information systems
Structured data on the Web
David Wood
Marsha Zaidman
Luke Ruth
WITH Michael Hausenblas
FOREWORD BY Tim Berners-Lee
M A N N I N G

16. We’re making progress with
US Government
Open Data

18. • On our third iteration of a catalog of datasets, using
CKAN.
• >500k datasets from 200+ USG authorities
• Sustained executive support for data.gov via OMB &
OSTP - Project Open Data
• GSA team who are engaging with Open Data / OSS /
standards community
• Health, Energy, Law, Education & Public Safety specific
communities in place.
• Agencies are [beginning] to name Chief Data Officers
!
But we still have a lot to do …

19. RCRA =
Resource
Conservation
and Recovery
Act
First 5 results
are for
Facilities
Registry
Service …
A search for “EPA
RCRA” shows displayed
the first dataset 6th
position :-(
This dataset is just one
piece of a complex set
of data in
understanding solid
waste reporting

20. For example, The
Right-to-Know
Network is a
consumer of EPA
open data from
data.gov

21. They’ve build
some nice
visualizations!

22. But the Toxics Release
Inventory (TRI) is
complicated data .
The RTF Network
would have benefited
from more context
had it been available
from the EPA…

23. RTK Network
provides access
to machine
readable content
(as XML) but …
it lacks context
This data does
not use shared
vocabularies!
:-(
No units of
measure, No
definition of codes

24. Linked Data Management System
For government open data publishing
Funded by

25. Landing
page for new
EPA Open
Data site

26. Search for facilities
in your
neighborhood…
!
Click through to an
individual facility

27. View by map
or by table
layout …

28. Another sample
linked data app
shows nuclear
power plants
regulated by the
US EPA

29. The power of Open …
A useful app developed in 2 days using Open
Government Data + Open Source +
Open Web Standards …
!
Deployed on the cloud.

30. 4
5
6
7
8
1
2
Key to data sources:
1 Wikidata Project (description)
2 Open Street Maps (OSS)
3 Wikimedia Commons (photo)
4 Raw data available for
developers (RDF/XML)
5 EPA Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA)
6 EPA Facilities (FRS)
7 EPA Toxic Release Inventory
(TRI)
8 ABT Enviro Consultants (from a
spreadsheet)
3

31. Pollution reports
using linked data
… Developed in
< 1 week using
open data & OSS

32. List of input
reports for this
pollution report …
Possible because
of a linked data
approach

33. Use of shared
vocabularies, e.g.
Places, Geographis,
Dublin Core, Geo,
FOAF, ORG, Vcard
are the “lingua franca”
of data interoperability

34. WeatherHealth
A mobile app for chronic asthma/COPD
patients with weather alerts
Funded by

36. User
NOAA US EPA
AirNow
DBpedia
National
Library of
Medicine
US EPA
SunWise

37. Orgpedia
An open organizational data project
on public & private companies
Funded by

39. Callimachus
apps allow for
crowdsourcing

40. How did we handle data
publishing & application
development
US EPA, Sentara Healthcare &
Orgpedia?

41. !
The leading Web application server for
Linked Data
!
Fanatically standards compliant **
!
Used to creating data-driven applications
that combine data across silos
** http://www.w3.org/2013/data/

42. Enterprise Data Documents
<HTML>
Read/
Write
Point to,
include
Our customers use
Callimachus to:
Create responsive apps with
many different data sources &
types of data

43. CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
LINKED DATA
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
DATA
UNSTRUCTURED
TEXT
STRUCTURED TEXT
DATA

44. Customers are creating data-driven applications
with data in leading graph databases:

45. Callimachus
conveniently
supports
in-browser
development for
faster iteration

46. Do not recreate the wheel!

47. Summary
• Billions of dollars are spent by taxpayers for government to collect
useful information - e.g., geospatial data, population, healthcare,
medicine & clinical trials, environment, energy, law, education …
• Data consumers must help government to fulfill its goal to treat
“information as an asset” by participating & giving feedback
• Steady forward progress has been made however, take care to not
re-create the wheel!
• Use Open Data, Open Source, Web standards & published best
practices whenever possible
• More work to be done …

48. Addi%onal
Resources
• “Open
by
Default”
presenta%on
by
Dr.
David
Wood
to
Virginia
Commonwealth
officials
10/7/2014,
see
hKp://www.slideshare.net/3roundstones/open-­‐by-­‐default-­‐39976290
– Open
Data
is
the
idea
that
"certain
data
should
be
freely
available
to
everyone
to
use
and
republish
as
they
wish,
without
restric%ons
from
copyright,
patents
or
other
mechanisms
of
control”.
Open
Data
follows
similar
“open”
concepts
that
have
proven
to
be
valuable
in
the
informa%on
economy
such
as
Open
Standards,
Open
Source
SoRware,
Open
Content
and
has
been
followed
more
recently
by
varia%ons
on
the
theme
such
as
Open
Science
and
Open
Government.
–
Linked
Data
Developer
website,
see
hKp://linkeddatadeveloper.com/
–
Linked
Data:
Structured
Data
on
the
Web,
see
hKp://books.google.com/books/about/
Linked_Data.html?id=rA8-­‐mQEACAAJ
–
Add
Linked
Data
to
HTML
with
RDFa.info,
see
hKp://seman%cweb.com/new-­‐resource-­‐for-­‐web-­‐
developers-­‐announced-­‐add-­‐linked-­‐data-­‐to-­‐html_b28813
–See
also
RDFa
website
on
GitHub,
see
hKps://github.com/rdfa/rdfa-­‐website
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