A classification scheme for open government data: towards linking decentralised data

TLDR

Open government data (OGD) is the free, openly formatted release of public sector information, and recent initiatives worldwide have created one‑stop portals while linked‑data technologies enable semantic enrichment and uniform data access. This study proposes a literature‑based classification scheme for OGD initiatives and develops an architecture and prototype for the most advanced class that links decentralized data. Using the proposed scheme, the authors review and analyze OGD initiatives and implement the architecture and prototype to demonstrate linking of decentralized data.

Abstract

Open government data (OGD) refers to making public sector information freely available in open formats and ways that enable public access and facilitate exploitation. Lately, a large number of OGD initiatives launched worldwide aiming to implement one-stop portals acting as single points of access to governmental data. At the same time, the so-called linked data technologies emerged aiming at publishing structured data on the web in such a way that enables semantically enriching data, uniform access to data, and linking of data. In this paper, we first propose a classification scheme for OGD initiatives based on the relevant literature. We thereafter, review and analyse OGD initiatives based on the proposed scheme. We finally present an architecture and prototype implementation for the most advanced OGD class in our scheme, which enables linking decentralised data.