Enhancing the Usefulness of Open Governmental Data with Linked Data Viewing Techniques

Abstract

Open Governmental Data publishing has had mixed success. While many governmental bodies are publishing an increasing number of datasets online, the potential usefulness is rather low. This paper describes action research conducted within the context of the Dutch Cadastre’s open data platform. We start by observing contemporary (Dutch) Open Data platforms and observe that dataset reuse is not always realized. We introduce Linked Open Data, which promises to deliver solutions to the lack of Open Data reuse. In the process of implementing Linked Data in practice, we observe that users face a knowledge and skill and that contemporary Linked Open Data tooling is often unable to properly advertise the usefulness of datasets to potential users, thereby hampering reuse. We therefore develop four components for Linked Data viewing to enhance the current situation, making it easier to observe what a dataset is about and which potential use cases it could serve.