The document discusses the importance of open government data and the need for improved data ecosystems in the public sector. It highlights the challenges of accessing timely and comprehensive public data, which hinders monitoring of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Proposed solutions include enhancing municipal data infrastructure, publishing data frequently, and leveraging Semantic MediaWiki for better data management and accessibility.

1. www.kdz.or.atwww.kdz.or.at
August 17th, 2019
Bernhard Krabina
Rethinking public sector data
ecosystems -
Open Government Data, Semantic MediaWiki and Wikidata

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Introduction
 KDZ – Centre for Public
Administration Research
 Open (Government) Data
 Semantic MediaWiki
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Open Data – a short introduction
 Open Government Data means data from the public
sector that is published for everybody to use
without restrictions
 Several Open Government Initiatives exist on
municipal, regional and federal level
 The European Data portal collects information about
metadata published by member states
 So you need:
 metadata describing the data (type, format, license…) -> data.gv.at
 a place where you can actually retrieve the data -> URL
 Very often open data is the source for
Wikidata/Wikipedia
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Semantic MediaWiki – a short
introduction
 „Older sibling“ of Wikidata
 Ecosystem of extensions around managing
data in your own MediaWiki
 Enterprise ready, used in many large wikis
(open or closed) outside of WMF
 Commercial support available
 SMW installations can be datasource for
Wikidata
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The problem:
We live in the age of
big data…
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…but still a lot of data is
missing, closed or old,
especially data from „official“
sources (public sector data)

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Examples for data needed to
monitor SDGs (on local level)
 Children in child care facilities (SDG 4)
 Number of male/female officials /public
servants (SDG 5)
 Expenditure for renewable engergy (SDG 7)
 Quality of housing (SDG 10)
 Public parks (SDG 11)
 Amount of waste managed (SDG 12)
 Bike routes (SDG 13)
 …
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Example: Modal split
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Example: Modal split
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 Wikidata: entity, but no data
 Nothing in Wikipedia city articles
 Manual list in article „Modal share“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_Split

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Example: Modal split
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 Data from 2006, 2016 and 2006 in
 Nothing in Open Data Portals
 Nothing at Statistics Austria

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Data ecosystems: central register
Example: inhabitants
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 Cities register new residents in a central
database (ZMR)
 ZMR delivers data quarterly to Statistics Austria
 Some cities publish their own statistics on open
data portals (data.gv.at)
 data has to be added to Wikidata manually

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Possible solution: API, open data
 City delivers data to central register
 register offers (part of) data in API
 Statistics Austria, open data portal and
other users (Wikidata) can access data
 Probability: somewhat likely
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Data ecosystems: finances
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03/2019 (data from 2018) 10/2019
 City agrees on spending report and send spending data
to regional government
 Regional government sends data to Statistics Austria
 KDZ buys data from Statistics Austria and publishes
them on www.offenerhaushalt.at
 Metadata gets delivered to open data portal (data.gv.at)

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Possible solution: publish often
 City delivers data several times
 Probability:
 high for open data (already done)
 unlikely for Wikidata: (not going to happen!)
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mandatory
voluntary
voluntary (?)

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Possible solution:
municipal data infrastructure
 Cities operate a data infrastructure with
data input and API/export possibilities
 data can be exported to/consumed by many
 probability: likely for some data
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Example: Publication
„Austrian Cities in Figures“
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3 data sources
 Statistics Austria
 regional governments
 questionnaire for participating
municipalities

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Example: Publication
„Austrian Cities in Figures“
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Example: Publication
„Austrian Cities in Figures“
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Result: „Austrian Cities in Figures“

 only PDF publication is
planned
 ~ 75 cities are included
(2098 municipalities)
 data from 2018 will be
published in the document
„Cities in Figures 2019“ that
will be available in early 2020
 Data will not be available
electronically
 No open license

 SMW has proven to be a
reliable infrastructure
 Easy form based entering
of data
 Own publication process
„approve data“, without
wiki know-how
 CSV, RDF, JSON export
for reuse oft data
 Visualisation options
(“result formats”)
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How to improve the situation:
Basic steps
1. Convince public institutions to open up data
you need: open license, machine-readable
format & infrastructure
2. Publish metadata on open data portals
infrastructure is there, DCAT-AP
3. Put (some of) their data into Wikidata – as
an additional usecase
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How to improve the situation:
Things to consider
If they need to build an open infrastructure,
there are 3 options:
1. Open up existing infrastructure (API) 
2. Change to different infrastructure 
3. Donate to open infrastructure (Wikidata,
Commons) 
4. Build up open infrastructure 
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Options?
 Man use case: runs
Wikidata
 Complex installation
 User interface for
entering and querying
data too complex
 Where provenance
metadata is essential
 For integration with
Wikibase
 Main use case: manage
data in your own wiki
 Simple editing using
forms
 Editing restricted to
specific user groupos
 Managing text and data
 https://www.semantic-
mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Refere
nce_and_provenance_data
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More by Denny Vrandecic
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https://twitter.com/vrandezo/status/1149012495497138178

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Lets work together on bringing
the best data out of public
institutions so everyone can use
them as simple as possible!
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 Current data ecosystems are very complex,
cumbersome and old-fashioned and
therefore slow
 There is not enough open data available
Summary

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Contact:
www.semantic-mediawiki.org
4. Oktober 2012 · Seite 24
Bernhard Krabina
 krabina@kdz.or.at
 www.kdz.or.at
 @krabina