currently working on a project with the Flemish government to use Semantic Web technology to maximise
the reuse of
governmental data by linking it “in 15 minutes” to the open data cloud. “We went to the different local governments, the regional Flemish government and the Belgium government and told them, ‘You sit on a goldmine of data, which is already paid for, you have it but you do not harness it
to its full potential even within your
own organisations. What we will do is build you a kind of content management system for open data, where you can open up your data and confer the Linked Data principles.’” By creating a user-friendly interface, data from national and local governmental inputted,
updated,
departments reused
can and
be re-
aggregated by any third party. The US government currently operate a
platform for publishing data,
Data.gov. In the UK,
Data.gov.uk offers a searchable base for over 8,000 datasets, but Erik is ready to push the concept further. “
Data.gov is just a data catalogue where one has to do the semantics afterwards.
Data.gov.uk is an improvement as
there is already some
semantics in the opening of the data and we can see that the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) has created some tools for the UK government. We even want
MAIN CONTACT:
further so that non-experts not only can link and publish their data in 15 minutes, but there will be a feedback mechanism via provenance complete
information making it read-write Web. Ours will be
completely distributed in the cloud and will adhere to the REST principles and W3C’s (Worldwide Web Consortium) Linked Data Platform paradigm. product will be
This open source called R&Wbase (read:
Rawbase). Everybody who wants to open up data
can install their own R&Wbase.
Afterwards, if a third party wants to aggregate the different kinds of data they only have to install a R&Wbase instance from scratch and link to other R&Wbases. It’s a hierarchical and distributed environment. The aggregation can be done in just five minutes.”
A positive outcome The societal and commercial benefits of aggregated
data are evident.
AT A GLANCE a
Project Title: Everything is Connected
Project Objective: Linked Data application for auto- matically generating a story be- tween two concepts in the Web of Data, based on formally described links. A path between two concepts is obtained by querying multiple linked open datasets; the path is then enriched with multimedia presentation material for each node in order to obtain a full multimedia presentation of the found path.
Project Funding: Internal funding
Project Partners: iMinds
From to go a step
analysing trends in policy, to promoting scientific research to developing apps, there are a myriad of possibilities. There are also some challenges ahead, not least, says Erik, is the paradigm shift needed so that people are prepared to open up and share their data. “We have to create awareness and that it’ll be a ‘win win’ situation for everyone. People are generally reluctant
to change and thus
also to opening up their data. They say, ‘It’s our data, we’ve paid shouldn’t
for it, we just have to give it away’. We
Project Website
www.everythingisconnected.be
read-write Web and you can only make it read write if you can track changes, so you have to take care of the provenance of the (meta)data too. If something changes you have to log that and be aware of what changed and who changed it and you have to be sure you can track all the changes to the initial entry. It’s important because the next level is the trust estimate of your data and you can only do trust
Dr. Erik Mannens Dr. Erik Mannens is Research Unit Leader of the Future Media & Imaging Dept. within iMinds and is involved in several projects as Sr. re- searcher/project manager. His major expertise is centred around Big Data Analytics, Linked Open Data, seman- tic Web technologies, broadcasting workflows, Media & iDTV, and Web development in general.
Contact: Tel: +32 473 27 44 17 Email:
Erik.mannens@
ugent.be
“The Everything is Connected” uses your Facebook ‘likes’ as a starting point, the programme will establish the links between you and your chosen concept and deliver the narrative back to you in the form of a multi-media presentation”
have to make it clear that, if everyone
does it, they win because they can use all the other data for free.” There are other, more
technical,
obstacles too. Not least the ability to produce results in real time when dealing with gargantuan amounts of data. “It’ll be a challenge for our platform but we already have an idea of how to tackle it,” says Erik. “The other challenge is that now most of the Web is read-only. What we will do, which is something on the roadmap for W3C as well, is to make it a
www.projectsmagazine.eu.com
estimation if you have the provenance.” Erik says they are working with WC3 to standardise the read-write Web but with the current project estimated to last two years, establishing provenance should be achievable within that time frame. A World Wide Web in which data can be cross-referenced
and linked so that
readers can access a wealth of related information is a utopic vision. It’s also one that is likely to happen and will prove beyond doubt connected.
that everything can be 45
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