Open Data
Linked Data
Big Data
Christopher Gutteridge
Linked Data? Open Data?
• Linked data – a technique for creating data which joins up
with data from other data provider’s unique identifiers.
• Open data - publishing data with a license which permits
re-use, akin to creative commons for creative arts and to
'open source' software.
• RDF - a way of structuring data as a list of facts and globally
unique identities for things. Easy to merge lists of facts from
multiple sources.
LINKS: http://is.gd/WmZfq1
URIs to identify everything
•
URIs look like a web address, but (sometimes) identify a real world thing such as
•
Equipment
– http://id.southampton.ac.uk/equipment/E0672
•
Facilities
– http://id.southampton.ac.uk/facility/F0041
•
Campuses
– http://id.southampton.ac.uk/site/1
•
Organisations (and parts thereof)
– http://id.southampton.ac.uk/
– http://id.southampton.ac.uk/org/FP
LINKS: http://is.gd/WmZfq1
URI
URL
data.southampton.ac.uk
Data
Source
Authority
Data
App
Source
Authority
API
Website
Open World
Data
App
Source
Authority
API
Website
Some other
Aggregator
Website
Open World
Data
App
Source
Authority
API
Website
Some other
Aggregator
Website
Data
App
Source
Authority
API
Website
Some other
Aggregator
Website
Uniquip: equipment.data.ac.uk
• Equipment, Facilities, Services/Capabilities
Uniquip: equipment.data.ac.uk
•
•
•
•
Equipment, Facilities, Services/Capabilities
Description
Location (City)
Contact Info (email, phone, URL)
Uniquip: equipment.data.ac.uk
•
•
•
•
•
Equipment, Facilities, Services/Capabilities
Description
Location (City)
Contact Info (email, phone, URL)
URI (or organisation + ID)
Linking Equipment
Data
Paper
Impact
How Open Data can Support Big
(research) Data
• Open Datasets as Big Data Taxonomy
• Aggregated Open Data becomes Big Data
• Encourages formation of standards
"The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not
the Atom Bomb, not corruption in
government, not encroaching hunger, nor the
morals of the young. It is a crisis in the
organization and accessibility of human
knowledge. We own an enormous
"encyclopedia" - which isn't even arranged
alphabetically.
Our "file cards" are spilled on the floor, nor were
they ever in order. The answers we want may be
buried somewhere in the heap, but it might take
a lifetime to locate two already known facts,
place them side by side and derive a third fact,
the one we urgently need.
Call it the crisis of the Librarian.
We need a new "specialist" who is not a specialist,
but a synthesist. We need a new science to be a
perfect secretary to all other sciences."
- Robert A. Heinlein, 1950.