A Scalable Framework for Creating Open Government Data Services from Open Government Data Catalog

Abstract

Open government data (OGD) is a global initiative to promote transparency, service innovation and citizen participation. The most common means for publishing OGD is usually in forms of datasets made available on OGD catalogs. Although publishing open data as datasets is straightforward and requires minimal technological skills, it is not ideal for the users who want to use the data in a more dynamic fashion. This paper proposes a scalable framework for creating OGD services from OGD catalog. Our framework emphasizes the need to convert existing OGD datasets to RDF data and value-added services that provides more convenient access to the users. Data querying APIs are among the OGD services to promote application development from the OGD datasets. Our framework is unique in that it does not require additional user intervention in the dataset publishing process and hides the complexity of the linked data technology from the data publishers and users. In this framework, the datasets listed in the OGD catalog were collected and validated for its well-formedness of the tabular data. The service building system converted the data to the RDF format and utilized SPARQL query templates in building the OGD services for each dataset. The framework was applied with the datasets on Data.go.th. The results on overall successful conversion rate of the datasets into the OGD services are reported. The case study exemplifies a scalable approach to augmenting access to OGD and provide a first step in moving OGD towards linked data.