Transparency/open data

The information spring

IEEE Internet Computing, 18(2), 79-83

2014

Themes: Transparency/open data

Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen

The great sociologist Max Weber conceived government as a sort of giant information processor. Yet despite great strides and many successes in e-government and the application of IT to government, semantically enabled public administration has still not established itself. This column argues that there is still room for optimism, because open data and semantic technologies could revolutionize not just governments’ information processing practices, but the purpose and scope of government itself. We have to come to terms with not only the machinery of administration, but also the wider question of the relationship between citizens and Leviathan. This is obviously not merely a technical question. Liberation is a theme in modern politics, from the Prague Spring to the Arab Spring. We are seeing the emergence of an Information Spring, which could set data and information free to serve the people — if we understand its implications in the right way.

Linked data in government

IEEE Internet Computing, 17(4), 72-77

2013

Co-authors: Nigel Shadbolt

Themes: Semantic Web/linked data, Transparency/open data

Category: Journal article, Peer reviewed

Government data is powerful, plentiful, and relevant to citizens’ concerns. Making it open supports transparency, crowdsourcing data enhancement, and innovative service development. The authors review the state of linked open government data, in the context of the potential for the publishing organizations and the Linked Data Web itself, as well as the administrative and political issues raised.

Linked open government data: lessons from data.gov.uk

IEEE Intelligent Systems, 27(3), 16-24

2012

Co-authors: Nigel Shadbolt, Tim Berners-Lee, Nicholas Gibbins, Hugh Glaser, Wendy Hall, mc schraefel

Themes: Semantic Web/linked data, Society, Transparency/open data

Category: Journal article, Peer reviewed

A project to extract value from open government data contributes to the population of the linked data Web with high-value data of good provenance.