Abstract
The importance of open data and the benefits it can offer have received recognition on the international stage with the signing of the G8 Open Data Charter in June 2013. The charter has an early focus on 14 high value areas, including transport and education, where governments have greater influence. In the UK, we have seen the funding of the Open Data Institute (ODI) with a remit to support small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in identifying benefits from using open data, whereas, within HE, open data discussion is in its infancy although is acknowledged as a sector challenge by the Russell Group of universities. There is an evident need for the academic community to influence the adoption of applications using linked open data techniques in data management and service delivery. This article introduces the concept of “data autodiscovery”, highlighting the role of the Organisation Profile Document (OPD) and its contribution to the early success of the UK National Equipment Portal, equipment.data, along with discussing the need for greater dialogue in linked and open data standards development.
Highlights
Establishing harmonised vocabularies and interoperability in the data management landscape is becoming an increasing requirement with the need to deliver increased efficiency in management and reporting along with greater value added benefits to the wider community from the published data
A more commonly used term is “Linked Open Data” (LOD) [2] which can be best defined as data structured using linked data techniques and published using methods making it as accessible for machines as it is humans
For many institutions each new report, requires a considerable element of manual input in the compilation of a new dataset. Initiatives such as the Higher Education Data and Information Improvement Programme (HEDIIP) [4], funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), aim to promote a new data landscape, there is still a need to identify and manage new standards underpinning development. Such initiatives come with fresh challenges and questions, for example, which technology and standards will deliver the most effective and efficient approach? It could be argued that with appropriate standards, linked open data based systems can deliver flexible cross-institution, cross-sector infrastructure that will enable greater value from data aggregation and reporting
Summary
Establishing harmonised vocabularies and interoperability in the data management landscape is becoming an increasing requirement with the need to deliver increased efficiency in management and reporting along with greater value added benefits to the wider community from the published data. The launch of the UK National Equipment Portal, equipment.data [6], in April 2013, introduced the application of linked open data technology in the delivery of a web based data autodiscovery service Essential to this process is the publishing of an Organisation Profile Document (OPD) [7]. The future creation of large data profiles, or aggregations for reporting purposes, will require ownership by appropriate organisations prepared to resource their governance from establishing community consensus through to management by standards bodies. These profiles will define the fields used to describe the content of datasets and/or part off a fuller dataset, i.e., the metadata enabling identification of an entry within the dataset. This concept is discussed by Baker and Cox in the short article “Buttons to Beacons” [24]
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