Maximizing benefit of Open Data through Linked Data Services

Dave Reynolds@der42

Who are we?

Help organizations exploit Linked Data through:– Consultancy– Training – Data hosting– Applications development– Software tools

Customers include:Land Registry

Cabinet Office

Ordnance Survey

Environment Agency

The National Archive

BBC

DEFRA

MetOffice

Bristol CC

Many reasons to open data

Transparency & Open Data

Economic Growth

Social Growth

Public Sector ProductivityChoice

Public Sector Outcomes

Accountability

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant’

Publishing financial data, contracts, and Job

holders above SCS1

Raw material for enterprise to build with

Life Sciences – the NHS is global data centre for

innovation

Helping people help themselves

By accessing personal health records online.

Driving up quality and improving outcomes

Publishing comparable data on

GP outcomes

Identifying best practice and waste How can I

deliver a more efficient court

service

Supporting informed choicesHelping parents identify the best school for their

children in a locality

Just publishing the data doesn’t, of itself,deliver any of these

You need people to:– find your data– understand it– do something with it

So make sure you get those benefits

maximizing the reach of your data– intrinsic value of the data– direct and indirect support for use• training and documentation• demonstrators• competitions, hackdays, recognition

– get data to your users• in a form that works for them• with context and connections to make it useful

Which users?

Data scientist?

Developers?

Citizens?

Partner public bodies?

Field workers?

flickr © yandle

each of these users have different requirements for how they

access the data and the support they need

flickr © fdecomite

Beyond the data dump ...

What’s wrong with data dumps?

Good things:– low cost to publish– universal, wide range of tools– power users will always want this

Issues:– what if I only want a small part?– what do the entries means?– how do I keep it up to date? change v.s. correction– how do the terms here relate to my other data?

Focus of talk

set of open web standards for data publication– supports data services, not just bulk down loads– enables datasets to be connected, contextualized

Linked Data

illustrate via case study of environmental data

Bathing water quality

Press intereststart of season

20-22 samples in 22weeks

annual reportNovember

bathing season

15th May

30th Sept

December

what informationis relevant to the publicabout beaches

what we do

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Arup

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Arup

Local authorities

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Arup

Local authorities

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Arup

Local authorities

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

Bathing water

Sampling point

Environment Agency

Arup

Local authorities Marine conservation society

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

profiles Bathing water

Sampling point

Profile

Environment Agency

Arup

Local authorities Marine conservation society

Linked data platform

Data platform

SELECT DISTINCT * WHERE { bwq-iss:latest qb:observation ?o .}

quality assessment

dumps

query

web API

Operational data

profiles

pollution predictions

Bathing water

Sampling point

Profile

Environment Agency

Arup

Local authorities Marine conservation society

Adopting this approach delivered ...

• very broad reach for data– public, third sector, local government, beach operators

• simplified operations– publish once, use many– replaced separate publishing chains by simple apps

• integrated view over the data– measurements, assessments, profiles, predictions

• incrementally extend over time– series of small steps, just pour more data into the platform

But where are the links?

Links are everywhere

Links are everywhere

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

NorthSomerset

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

NorthSomerset

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

NorthSomerset

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

NorthSomerset

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

NorthSomerset

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Bathing water regulations

NorthSomerset

Links are everywhere

Bathing waterClevedon Beach

Sampling point

Profile

Sample Assessment

Higher

sampleclassification

falseabnormalweather

source

Bathing water regulations

NorthSomerset

Essence of Linked Data approach ...

• break information into set of resources– bathing waters, sampling points, individual assessments

• give each a web address, URL– so you can reference it and fetch information on it

• this enables you to – connect data, across organizational boundaries– incrementally extend data – always access the latest version– put information in context so it can be understood

• based on open (W3C) standards– data representation, vocabularies, query

Messages

Maximize the reach an impact of your data:– provide multiple delivery channels • publish once, use many

– link to other data sets • context and value

– provide reference data that others can link to• eco-system of connected data

– consider use of Linked Data open standards as a means to achieve all this