I was pleased to attend a presentation on linked data at the BCS Data Management Specialist Group on Tuesday (26th July), given by Dave Reynolds, co-founder of Epimorphics Ltd, and  one of the data experts I have frequently turned to for advice when scoping the requirements for the Knowledge Hub project. (Dave is a members of the Data & Apps Advisory Group for the Knowledge Hub).

The presentation included metadata management, e-Commerce uses, inference and information extraction, text mining, syntax (various flavours – RDF/XML, Turtle, RDfa), and knowledge representation through Ontologies (e.g. Web Ontology Language, OWL).

Dave explained a fairly complex topic (well, complex for those not yet fully immersed in modelling information solutions using linked data) in a simple but engaging style, using his slides to show examples of linked data constructs. Well worth a look for anyone who wants to get a deeper understanding of the topic (if nothing else, check out the strengths/weaknesses towards the end of the presentation).

The slides are available from SlideShare: Introduction to linked data, and a copy embedded below.

The Management Innovation Exchange(MIX) is “an open innovation project aimed at reinventing management for the 21st century. The premise: while “modern” management is one of humankind’s most important inventions, it is now a mature technology that must be reinvented for a new age.”

One of the MIX initiatives is the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation. There are two types of entries: an instructive case study (a Story) or an experimental design (a Hack).  The goals is to show how Web 2.0 values (including transparency, collaboration, meritocracy, openness, community and self-determination) can help overcome the design limits of Management 1.0—and help to create Management 2.0.

I have submitted a case study (story) about the Knowledge Hub, a project I initiated over 2 years ago but only now being rolled out for UK Local Government. The concept was part of a 3-year Knowledge Management Strategy I was commissioned to deliver for the Improvement and Development Agency – an organisation that  has since been integrated into the Local Government Group. The underlying idea was to provide a central ‘Hub’ that would collect and aggregate data and information from many sources (including blog and Twitter feeds) and use semantic technology to link and categorise the content. The system would then match and push relevant content to users according their interest graph and their social graph.

Although the project was spec’d over 2 years ago, I’ve noticed that many of the features being rolled out in Google+ are very similar to features being delivered in the Knowledge Hub, e.g. Circles (social graph) and Sparks (interest graph).  It’s just a pity I didn’t have their resources available to me when I started this project!

I hope you will take a a moment to look at the article and let me know what you think. You can comment on it and/or rate it. Your views would be appreciated.

NB: For anyone interested in the technology, the Knowledge Hub is an open system, using open standards and open source software.  It is hosted on the PFIKS Intelligus platform.

The confluence of a number of initiatives around the UK Government’s transparency agenda has opened up a significant and exciting opportunity to deliver the first of a number of applications that will be made available in the Knowledge Hub App Store. The foundations for this initiative include:

1. The transparency agenda requirement for all authorities to openly publish spending data in reusable from January 2011 onwards.

2.  Announcement about the publication of Government spending data

3. LG Group Practitioner Guide to publishing local spend data

4. ESD-Toolkit project to develop an online tool that will convert council csv files on spending into RDF, Linked Data format.

5. The announcement by Talis to offer UK Local Authorities free Linked Data hosting for published expenditure data

6. The Knowledge Hub project to provide an open platform for community collaboration and development of value-added applications (mashups etc.).

The key differentiators between this KHub app and the many and varied apps and websites that are now publishing details of government or local government spend data are:

1. The purpose is to provide insight and opportunities for improving local council performance and efficiency and not just to know where and how money is being spent. This will be achieved by including additional contextual data from sources such as ONS, to provide data on spend per head for specific service lines, e.g. social care.

2. The app and the business intelligence it offers will support the work of local council officers and heads of department; it can be used by citizens though this is not the primary audience.

3. It is, as the name suggests, using linked data to add context to open spend data, i.e. delivering the benefits of a semantic web application. (What is open and linked data?)

The proposed KHub App will interface with an aggregate store of local authority open spend data, hosted on the Talis platform. The App will enable the user to perform deep-dive queries and visualisation of specific spend data categories, and spend data comparisons across local authorities.

The specification of the Linked Data Spend App is currently work in progress, but some ideas for what the App could potentially deliver include:

• Spend by category: charts and tables, drill down into service
• Spend by supplier: charts and tables
• Supplier by categories: who are the suppliers and who do they supply: table with links to companies house information
• Spend by region or council by category: overlaid on an interactive map
• Spend by region or council by service: overlaid on an interactive map with drill down into service and category
• Spend over time
• Productivity measures: spend per head on social care, spend per head on bin collection, spend per mile of highway maintenance.

Outputs from this project, apart from the app itself, will be:

• Documentation on how the application(s) could be hosted on any web site.
• Published code developed for the visualisation application(s) under open source license.

The Linked Data Spend App will be launched early 2011 and will be one of many apps delivered as part of the Knowledge Hub App project.

Data flows for the Linked Data Spend App.

See also the Talis blog on this project.

More details will be provided as part of the launch communications. In the mean time I will be happy to respond to any questions.

On 23 December 2009, the Government published a consultation paper on policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey. The purpose of this consultation was to seek views about how to best implement proposals made by the Prime Minister on 17 November 2009, to make certain Ordnance Survey datasets available for free with no restrictions on re-use. This was part of the PM’s vision for the role of public data and information in the delivery of Smarter Government that would empower citizens with better public services and a thriving private sector market based on the data that government produces.

A response to the Government consultation on making Ordance Survey (mapping) datasets available for use and re-use is available on the CLG website.

Key points from the consultation are:

A package of datasets will be made freely available to the public and will be released under the product name OS OpenDataâ„¢.

The datasets that are released as part of OS OpenData will continue to be maintained by Ordnance Survey to a high and consistent standard. To ensure the product set remains relevant and continues to fulfil its objectives, it is envisaged that this product set will be reviewed periodically by an expert panel appointed by government and reporting to CLG Ministers.

The OS OpenData will include

• OS Street View®
• 1:50 000 Gazetteer
• 1:250 000 Scale Colour Raster
• OS LocatorTM
• Boundary-LineTM
• Code-Point® Open
• Meridian™ 2
• Strategi®
• MiniScale®
• OS VectorMap™ District (available 1 May 2010)
• Land-Form PANORAMA®

The OS VectorMapâ„¢ District dataset is a new product and is available in both raster and vector formats. It is designed to be a flexible and customisable product specifically designed for use on the web. It will enable developers to select, customise and modify maps to their specific requirements.

OS OpenData products will be available from 1 April 2010 in hard media and as an on-line service at www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendata

In addition OS OpenData will include an on-line viewing service of a selection of the OS OpenData topographic products.

This initiative continues the trend in making public data public (over 30000 datasets now available through the http://www.data.gov.uk portal) and will no doubt spawn the development of a whole new raft of innovative mashups, widgets and apps by social innovators. Exciting times!

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/corporate/pdf/1528263.pdf

I found this to be an excellent overview of the current evolution of the web, and a good layman’s guide to the Semantic Web or Web3.0. The original video can be found at the STI International website.