Hello, and welcome! This is a starting point for a cross-government Linked Data Community. A place where we can learn from each other about the history of linked data use in Civil Service, but also where we will together explore the future.
If you want to know more, if you want to get involved, please contact Michał Poręba at Trade.
What is linked data? Here are a few definitions to start us off:
In computing, linked data is structured data which is interlinked with other data so it becomes more useful through semantic queries.
-- Wikipedia
The Semantic Web isn't just about putting data on the web. It is about making links, so that a person or machine can explore the web of data. [...] Linked Data lies at the heart of what Semantic Web is all about: large scale integration of, and reasoning on, data on the Web
-- World Wide Web Consortium
Linked Data is a set of design principles for sharing machine-readable interlinked data on the Web and Open Data can be freely used and distributed. When combined with Open Data (data that can be freely used and distributed), it is called Linked Open Data (LOD)
-- Ontotext
Linked data is a set of design principles for sharing machine-readable data on the Web for use by public administrations, businesses and citizens.
-- EC ISA Case Study: How Linked Data is transforming eGovernment
Linked Data is about communities agreeing on the meaning of their data and sharing it in a massively networked information space. This vision is taking shape in many sectors, including e-commerce, medicine, scientific research, and government services.
-- OCLC
Linked Data, with standards like Resource Description Framework (RDF) or Web Ontology Language (OWL) were intended to enable the Semantic Web. However, it can be useful in other technologies that large, distributed, and public bodies can benefit from.
On the small data end of the scale, the Personal Online Data Stores (PODS) are much more useful if the data stored in them can be easily shared with, and understood by, applications other then the one producing the information in the first place.
On the large data end of the scale, distributed knowledge graphs become possible thanks to shared ontologies.
Somewhere in the middle, there are many other solutions that facilitate open data.
Linked data and many associated ideas have been around for two decades or more. Doesn't it show that they are not needed? After all, we have been doing fine without them all that time.
In many high-level discussions of current UK Civil Service problems, the data and its disconnected nature come up as a key problem. We have the UK Digital Strategy, National Data Strategy, and other documents, including the National Audit Office report pointing to an important problem. Our data is not linked. Of course, they don't mean that the data is not linked data! Still, linked data addresses many of the challenges highlighted.
It is not necessarily the easiest technology. The tooling, while improving, is still somewhat lacking. But it might just be the right answer to the problems we are facing on the way to achieving our ambitions.
(Some more concrete links and quotes would be helpful above).
Over the last decade or so, many people tried to use linked data in civil service applications. Some attempts were more successful than others. Some implementations were fuller, while others implemented just some concepts from the idea. What was never reached is a critical mass of adoption!
This cross-government group, the Linked Data Community of Practice, is a forum and a vehicle to change it, and capitalise on a decade of a not very well connected investment in linked data.
What does it mean? It is a forum, where we can discuss what has been done before, what we are doing and what we want to do with the technology. But it should also be a vehicle to reach the critical mass. We will aim to collaborate to catalogue and review existing linked data sets approaches across government and promote their use and adoption of the standards.
To join the discussion, go to the Discussion page here on GitHub and start a thread.