E-Government Core Vocabularies and Federation of National ... · The eGovernment Domain (DEG) unit of DERI currently runs a Citizen-centric e-Government programme that aims at improving

Panel Discussion Report

Rue Froissart 36, Brussels - 1040, Belgium

ESWC 2011

E-Government Core Vocabularies and Federation of National Semantic Asset Repositories: the European Commission approach

Panellists

Panel discussion

Introducing SEMIC.EU

1Panellists

SEMIC.EU Core Vocabularies

SEMIC.EU Linked Metadata

Panellists

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU



Jim Hendler (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)One of the inventors of the Semantic Web. Jim Hendler among others serves as an "Internet Web Expert" for the US government, providing guidance to the Data.gov project.

Jens Lehmann (University of Leipzig)is the leader of the Machine Learning and Ontology engineering research group within the AKSW centre of the University of Leipzig. He works in several funded projects, e.g. LOD2 (EU IP), LATC (EU STREP).

Nikos Loutas (DERI Galway)Nikos Loutas is currently co-leading the e-Government Domain (DEG) Unit at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) in Galway. He is the scientific coordinator of the Puzzled by Policy CIP PSP project.

Vassilios Peristeras (European Commission)As a Programme Manager for Interoperability Solutions for Public Administrations (ISA) programme of the European Commission, Vassilios Peristas recently become the new project officer for the SEMIC.EU project.

Who was on the panel?

Stijn Goedertier (PwC)Stijn works as an IT consultant for PwC, which has recently been contracted to support the SEMIC.EU initiative of the European Commission. Stijn served as the chair of the panel.

Panellists

Paneldiscussion

About SEMIC.EU

2Highlights of the

Panel discussion



About SEMIC.EU

What is your view on the current state of play of open Government?Panellists

Paneldiscussion



Jim HendlerOpen Government Data initiatives like Data.gov and Data.gov.uk now host thousands of datasets on the Web. Interoperability, however, remains an issue, and many open datasets still need to be converted and published as Linked Open Data. Many datasets lack sufficient description metadata, hindering retrievability.

Jens LehmannDuring the last three years, government data has been published and used successfully in some countries and we aim to support this movement in our EU projects. The LOD2 research project will deliver methods and technologies to further increase quality and quantity of this valuable knowledge. The LATC research project will provide infrastructure and services to support EU institutions to publish and link EU data. From my point of view, open government data will improve transparency and efficiency of governments and, most importantly, will help citizens to understand their government better.

Nikos Loutas

The eGovernment Domain (DEG) unit of DERI currently runs a Citizen-centric e-Government programme that aims at improving the provision of public services, citizens’ participation in democratic processes and the internal administrative efficiency by applying DERI expertise and technologies.

Vassilios PeristerasWe are currently witnessing a vivid interest by Member States to publish their own data catalogues on the Web and the European Commission is investigating how such initiatives can be supported. Open Government is however larger than Open Government Data. It also entails accessible electronic public services. In both areas interoperability definitely remains an issue.

About SEMIC.EU

How could we apply Jim Hendler’s famous “little semantics go a long way” principle in e-Government?

Panellists

Paneldiscussion



Jim HendlerCareful URL design is one way of applying “little semantics” with great benefits. The British Education System has standard School URI names. Such naming conventions encourage reuse of the same URI, excluding the need for owl:sameAs. Another example of little semantics is to keep track of the metadata of data catalogues (The Data.gov Catalog-92, for example) and to encourage the publication and use of common vocabularies.

Jens LehmannFor Open Government Data, an incremental “pay as you go” approach seems preferable. Governments should first make their datasets publicly available in any format. After that they should provide it in a structured form, hopefully RDF, and add vocabularies and links. Ideally, each of those steps should be use case driven.

Nikos LoutasGovernments have started to publish and link their data. This linking can only be enhanced if governments agree on a small subset of standard names for properties and relationships.

Vassilios PeristerasSEMIC.EU incorporates the “little semantics” principle in its “Core Concepts” initiative. Core Concepts are simplified, extensible, and context-neutral data models of fundamental concepts. Vocabularies that map to or extend these core concepts guarantee a minimum level of cross-domain and cross-border interoperability. SEMIC.EU will run a consensus building exercise with the 27 EU MSs to agree on a small number of core concepts and corresponding core vocabularies. Standardization bodies have also showed an interest to support this work.

About SEMIC.EU

What are the obstacles applying (even little) semantics in e-Government? How can we overcome them?

Panellists

Paneldiscussion



Nikos LoutasDERI has supported SEMIC.EU to draft a first-version of the Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS). Furthermore, DERI has built a first prototype providing federated access to the Asset Description Metadata of three repositories: the Danish Digitalisér.dk platform, the German XRepository, and the SEMIC.EU asset repository. The publishing of semantic interoperability assets as Linked Open Metadata is a key enabler to the seamless exchange of data in e-Government.

Vassilios PeristerasAn important obstacle is that we currently cannot find the metadata used in Government Datasets and Government Services, as many governments do not publish their metadata. SEMIC.EU calls this metadata, Semantic Interoperability Assets. I think that Open Data policies should be coupled by Open Metadata policies. Unfortunately, even when we find such assets, they are available in different and rarely machine-readable formats. Through SEMIC.EU we intend to promote XMLS and (ideally) RDFS as languages for encoding assets and encourage governments to publish, share, and reuse their assets. The specification of the Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS) that we are currently drafting with our community will allow governments to publish their semantic interoperability assets in a way that enhances their retrievability on the Web.

About SEMIC.EU

What are the obstacles applying (even little) semantics in e-Government? How can we overcome them?

Panellists

Paneldiscussion



Jim HendlerAnother obstacle is that countries specify their own standards and count on others to adopt them. In that regard, the EU and the US are often in competition. To overcome this, we should learn lessons from cases of successful and unsuccessful collaboration in the past. Also other stakeholders such as W3C and the Open Knowledge Foundation should be involved.

Jens LehmanOne problem is that providing high quality open government data requires expertise, which in turn requires money and skilled people. Regarding the first point, our experience is that the demand for skilled consultants in semantic technologies exceeds what the market can currently offer. Regarding the latter, we still have a significant discrepancy in the commitment of countries to making their data available to citizens. This discrepancy exists even within the EuropeanUnion.

Panellists

About SEMIC.EU

3Introducing SEMIC.EU

Panel discussion



Panellists

About SEMIC.EU

Panel discussion



What is SEMIC.EU?

SEMIC.EU is a collaborative

platform and a set of services around

this platform to promote semantic interoperability for

e-Government in the EU Member States

Panellists

About SEMIC.EU

Panel discussion



Which services does SEMIC.EU offer?

SEMIC.EU supports Public Administrations to

become aware about interoperability

requirements and find, choose, design,

and implement semantic interoperability

assets.

Support public administrations to

Support public administrations to give and obtain

on implementing semantic interoperability assets


semantic interoperability assets

Collaborate


Help public administrations to

about semantic interoperability requirements

Become aware

Find Choose

DesignFeedback



and prioritise, align, endorse, and

evaluate actions

Involve advisory groups in the SEMIC.EU

governance structure to

Panellists

SEMIC.EUCoreVocabularies

4SEMIC.EU

Core Vocabularies

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU


Panellists


Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU


. . . is a simplified, context-free data model that captures the minimal characteristics of a concept.

. . . can be represented as Core Vocabulary using various formalisms (e.g. XML, RDF).

. . . is extensible with domain specific attributes. Extensions can be drafted on top of the core representation.

2.

3.

1.

A Core Concept . . .

What is a Core Concept?

Panellists


Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU


What is on the roadmap for SEMIC.EU?

• The idea

• 27 EU MSs to reach an agreement on simple data models for basic entities (e.g. Person, Vehicle, Building, Company, Project…)

• Design principles• Keep it (very) simple• Reuse existing work, standards, vocabularies • Use multiple formalisms to encode the concepts in

vocabularies• Work plan

• Identify a set of 20-30 core concepts• Run a consensus building exercise with the 27 EU

MSs to agree on a small number of generic properties per concept/vocabulary

• Create a Linked Metadata representation by reusing terms from existing vocabularies (e.g. DC, FOAF, SIOC, SKOS, DOAP)

• Officially host, manage and promote the vocabularies (SEMIC.EU)

Panellists

5SEMIC.EU

Linked Metadata

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU

SEMIC.EULinkedMetadata


Panellists

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU



SEMIC.EU promotes the publication of e-Government metadata as semantic interoperability assets

• SEMIC.EU: >500 reusable semantic assets

• There are already several repositories of e-Government metadata specifications on the Web

• SEMIC.EU further promotes the publication of e-Government metadata as semantic interoperability assets

•SEMIC.EU will support the enablement of a federation of semantic assets repositories allowing cross-querying and discovery

Panellists

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU



The Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS) will become a uniform way to publish semantic interoperability assets

Panellists

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU



DERI has created a prototype of a portal that federates the asset description metadata of three repositories

AssetADMS

Digitalisér.dkDenmark

Xrepository.deGermany

SEMIC.EUEurope

Panellists

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU



DERI has created a prototype of a portal that federates the asset description metadata of three repositories

http://vmudi205.deri.ie/elda/index.html

http://vmudi205.deri.ie/elda/index.html

Panellists

Panel discussion

About SEMIC.EU



What is on the roadmap for SEMIC.EU?

• Promote awareness on the importance of making metadata explicit and open

• Promote ADMS as an Asset Description standard (discoverability)

• Create a federation of metadata catalogues/repositories to promote reuse

21

Vassilios PeristerasEuropean Commission DIGIT.B, Information Systems and Interoperability Solutions

SEMIC.EU will continue to support semantic interoperability for e-Government in Europe. It will encourage Governments and Public Administrations to publish their semantic interoperability assets as Linked Open Metadata, preferable in a uniform way through the ADMS. At the same time, it will foster the harmonization of e-Government Vocabularies, through the specification of a limited number of Core Concepts and Core Vocabularies.

Title: Panel Discussion Report: E-Government Core Vocabularies and Federation of National Semantic Asset Repositories: the European Commission approach, ESWC 2011Author: Stijn Goedertier, PwC

DISCLAIMERThe views expressed in this document and the synopsis of the discussion are purely those of the author and may not, in any circumstances, be interpreted as stating an official position of the European Commission.

The European Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the information included in this report, nor does it accept any responsibility for any use thereof. Reference herein to any specific products, specifications, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or simply its endorsement, recommendation, or favouring by the European Commission.

All care has been taken by the author to ensure that he has obtained, where necessary, permission to use any parts of manuscripts including illustrations, maps, and graphs, on which intellectual property rights already exist from the titular holder(s) of such rights or from his or their legal representative.

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E-Government Core Vocabularies and Federation of National ... · The eGovernment Domain (DEG) unit of DERI currently runs a Citizen-centric e-Government programme that aims at improving