Gordon Grace

More than Raw:Government Data Online [Australian Government Information Managment Office]

Department of Finance and Deregulation

Australian Government Information Management

Office

Agency Services Division

Department of Treasury

Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

Disclaimer

Overview1. The road to data.gov.au 2. Foundations of linked open govt. data 3. Future of govt. data online

Part 1 / 3

Getting Government Data Online: The road to data.gov.au

Hypothetical #1:

An electricity company: Where does the power need to go now that more houses are insulated?

May 2009

data.gov launchedSep 2009

data.gov.uk (beta) launched

Oct 2009

data.australia.gov.au (beta) launched Dec 2009

Government 2.0 Taskforce Report Delivered  May 2010

data.gov.uk (proper) launched May 2010

data.gov re-launched

May 2010Government Response to Taskforce Report1   Nov 2010Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) established

Late 2010

data.gov.au (proper) launched?

1. http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/govresponse20report/index.html

W3C and Government 2.0

Technology, not culture.  I've got less than one hour.

  ATOM  CSS  FOAF  RDF[a]  SKOS  TTML 

SVG  WAI-ARIA  WCAG

[X]HTML[5]

 ATOM  CSS FOAF  RDF[a] SKOS  TTML  

SVG  WAI-ARIA WCAG

[X]HTML[5]

AGLS  AGIFT Dublin Core

DCAThCard  vCard

X500

Can we put this on the cloud?

Where's the data quality statement?Who do I contact

about dataset X?

I need more documentation.

Why are you using proprietary

formats?

How do I provide my agency's

dataset?

Is this the latest version of the

data?

Can I federate this catalogue with my own?

I want to rate this data 3 out of 5

stars.Can you make the

data more interactive?

More PDFs, please.

I really wish you'd used RDF

Why aren't you providing more

APIs?

Does this catalogue meet

international standards?

Aust. Govt. Open PSI: A Working Definition1.Not subject to privacy, security

or privelege limitation. • Collected at source, with high

granularity.• Structured to allow automated

processing.• Available to all, without

registration.

Adapted from 8 Principles of Open Government Data (http://resource.org8_principles.html)

Aust. Govt. Open PSI: An Anti-Definition1.Provided in human-readable

form only.• Preference for proprietary

formats. • Not digitised.• High level of aggregation.• Re-use prohibited. • Requires registration.

Adapted from Conversations with Australian Government Agencies (Not yet available online)

data.gov.au's "Mission"

Make published government data discoverable and usable.

Data Provision: The Pragmatic Approach

Baby steps.  Let's just get the data and a working minimum of metadata.

Data Provision: The "Horses for Courses" Approach

Feeds, downloads, web services and APIs should be considered as options for each set.

Data Provision: The "Grass is Greener" Approach

Our [repository/XML/metadata] is better than your [repository/XML/metadata].

Data Provision: The Likely Reality.

Federate - use subsets if necessary. Expect wild variations in format, size, range and quality of data.

Data Provision: The Likely Reality.

Use existing standards wherever possible.  Establish benchmark licences1.

1. http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Copyright_CommonwealthCopyrightAdministration_StatementofIPPrinciplesforAustralianGovernmentAgencies

Data Provision: The "Linked or Bust" Approach

URIs for every entity and concept, for every point in time.No exception.

Data Provision: The Likely (Short-Term) Reality.

•Agency responsiveness•Data documentation •Quality statements •RDF 'Shadow' site(s)1•FOI-driven inclusions2

1. http://lab.linkeddata.deri.ie/govcat/2. http://oaic.gov.au/foi/

DCAT+Dublin Core+AGLS = Enough?

•DCAT=Data Catalog[u]e•accessURL•dataQuality•dataDictionary•granularity •themeTaxonomy•AGLSTERMS.jurisdiction

http://www.w3.org/egov/wiki/Data_Catalog_Vocabulary

 Someone has requested some information via

FOI.Is it a dataset?

Make it machine-readable. Licence it

liberally.  Add pointers to existing data.

Agency site, data.gov.au or

existing repository.

 Yes. How do we publish it? 

Where do we publish it?

Part 2 / 3

Foundations of Linked Open Government Data

TED - Tim Berners-Lee(February 2009)

LinkedOpenData

[For the Australian Government]

LinkedOpenData

[For the Australian Government]

Exhibit A

Administrative Arrangements Orders (AAO)1[Dept. Prime Minister & Cabinet]

1. http://www.dpmc.gov.au/parliamentary/index.cfm

Part 8: The Department of Finance and Deregulation1 Matters dealt with by the Department • Budget policy advice and process, and review of

governmental programs • Government financial accountability, governance and

financial management frameworks, including grants and procurement policy and services

• Shareholder advice on Government Business Enterprises and commercial entities treated as GBEs 

• ...  Legislation administered by the Minister • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act 2005, Part 4B • Aerospace Technologies of Australia Limited Sale Act

1994 • AIDC Sale Act 1997 • Airports (Transitional) Act 1996 • Albury-Wodonga Development Act 1973  • Annual Appropriation Acts

 

1.http://www.dpmc.gov.au/parliamentary/docs/aao_20100914.pdf

LinkedOpenData

Exhibit B

2009-2010 Budget Papers1[Dept. Treasury, Dept. Finance & Deregulation]

1. http://www.budget.gov.au

LinkedOpenData

Exhibit D

Government Online Directory (GOLD)1[Dept. Finance & Deregulation]

1. http://www.directory.gov.au

Exhibit D

Commonwealth of Australia Law (ComLaw)1[Attorney General's Department]

1. http://www.comlaw.gov.au

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/comlaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/framelodgmentattachments/6F1671D92E20BF0ECA25772F000A149F

directory.gov.au (GOLD)

ComLawAGIFT AAO

AGLS

HansardOpen

Australia

AustLii

agd.com.au

Eating your own dogfood

directory.gov.au as a linked data node?[Since we're not printing it any more, shouldn't we treat it as a digital asset?]

Foundation #1:  Who?

Who are you again? How do I contact you?

Answer:

Check the GOLD (or just Google the agency's or individual's name).

Foundation #2:  What?

What is everyone supposed to be doing?

Answer:

Check the Administrative Arrangements Orders (AAO)

Answer:

We have a functions thesaurus (AGIFT)1, too.

1. http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/create-capture-describe/describe/agift/agift-zip.aspx

Foundation #3:  Why?

Why should you be  doing that?

Answer:

It's the law.

Foundation #4:  How did that happen?

Your elected representatives deemed that it should be so.

Contentious point #1:

Friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) might not be the answer.

Exhibit E

Google support for "Organization" RDFa1[Google Rich Snippet Testing Tool]

1. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

"Each organization can have a number of different properties, such as its name, address, URL, and phone number. You can use microdata, microformats or RDFa markup to label these properties."1 [Google webmaster central]

1. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146861

Warning:  Markup Ahead.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">...<div> <h1>        Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade    </h1>    <dl>        <dt>Address</dt>        <dd>        <address>            <span>123 Sydney A</span>,     <span>Forrest</span>,     <span>ACT</span>.       </address>        </dd>        <dt>Phone:</dt>        <dd>123-456-789</dd>        <dt>Website:</dt>        <dd><a href="http://www.dfat.gov.au">        http://www.dfat.gov.au</a></dd>    </dl></div>...

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML+RDFa 1.0//EN" "http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml-rdfa-1.dtd"><html dir="ltr" xml:lang="en-au"...xmlns:dv="http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#">...<div typeof="dv:Organization"> <h1 property="dv:name">Dept. of Foreign Affairs and Trade</h1>    <dl>        <dt>Address</dt>        <dd><address rel="dv:address">            <div typeof="dv:Address">            <span property="dv:street-address">123 Sydney Av</span>,     <span property="dv:locality">Forrest</span>,     <span property="dv:region">ACT</span>.         </div>        </address></dd>        <dt>Phone:</dt>        <dd>        <a href="tel:123456789" property="dv:tel">123-456-789</a>        </dd>        <dt>Website:</dt>        <dd><a href="http://www.dfat.gov.au" rel="dv:url">        http://www.dfat.gov.au</a></dd>    </dl></div>...

"Google does not currently display organization information in rich snippets." [Google Rich Snippet Testing Tool]

1. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

"Error: Filetype not supported." [Apple iPhone Error Message when attempting to save a vCard via Safari]

Linked Data Provision: The Likely (Mid-Term) Reality.

Linked data candidates: 1.Agency contact details •Legislation •Agency functions•Public Service Gazette •Gazetted locations•Statistical 'regions'

Uncontentious point #1:

SKOS should be useful for describing AGIFT.

directory.gov.au (GOLD)

ComLawAGIFT AAO

AGLS

HansardOpen

Australia

AustLii

agd.com.au

Geoscience Australia

Contentious point #2:

RDF without CURIEs may be reasonable (achievable, at least).

Directory.gov.au URIs (OLD):http://directory.gov.au/osearch.php?ou=Broadcasting%20%26%20Digital%20Switchover&ou=Department%20of%20Broadband\    %2C%20Communications%20and%20the%20Digital%20Economy&o=Broadband\%2C%20Communications%20and%20the%20Digital%20Economy&o=Portfolios&o=Commonwealth%20of%20Australia&c=AU

Directory.gov.au URIs (NEW):http://directory.gov.au/directory?ea0_lfz99_120.&organizationalUnit&549b1126-3379-4b38-916e-f743317ff616

[gold:549b1126-3379-4b38-916e-f743317ff616] Not cool.  But those URIs should have RDF representations.

Part 3 / 3

government + vendors + public  + W3C standards = WIN!

Source: flickr:uwdigitalcollections

Government's role in data.gov.au:

Do Web 1.0 right.It's roughly equivalent to Web 3.0, anyway.

Source: flickr:johnmcnab

Vendors' role in data.gov.au:

Prepare to build bridges to the back office.  Handle linked data intelligently.

Public's role in data.gov.au:

Know what to expect.  Ask for it if you don't get it.

W3C Standards' role in data.gov.au:

Don't you go changing, now.

Source: flickr:uwdigitalcollections