[epsi-coord] Response of EC to standardization topic report. Fwd: Topic report on open data and standardization

Wed Feb 27 15:11:40 GMT 2013

Hans, Tom,

is there a finalized version now of this TR, with the feedback below
taken into account ? We need to publish this ASAP. Please create
finalized TR in PDF and alert Daniel
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Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

ton at tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog

Share your real life open data experiences,
observations and anecdotes:
http://epsiplatform.eu/content/share-your-story
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On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Ton Zijlstra <ton.zijlstra at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hans, Tom,
>
> is there a final version now of this TR? One that I can publish?
>
> best,
> Ton
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Interdependent Thoughts
> Ton Zijlstra
>
> ton at tonzijlstra.eu
> +31-6-34489360
>
> http://zylstra.org/blog
>
> Share your real life open data experiences,
> observations and anecdotes:
> http://epsiplatform.eu/content/share-your-story
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:13 PM, Ton Zijlstra <ton.zijlstra at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> hi Tom, Hans,
>>
>> See below the feedback of the Commission on the TR on standardization.
>>
>> Can you guys prepare a revised version? Thanks!
>>
>> best,
>> Ton
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Interdependent Thoughts
>> Ton Zijlstra
>>
>> ton at tonzijlstra.eu
>> +31-6-34489360
>>
>> http://zylstra.org/blog
>>
>> Share your real life open data experiences,
>> observations and anecdotes:
>> http://epsiplatform.eu/content/share-your-story
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: <Katalin.IMREI at ec.europa.eu>
>> Date: Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 4:06 PM
>> Subject: RE: Topic report on open data and standardization
>> To: ton.zijlstra at gmail.com
>> Cc: Szymon.LEWANDOWSKI at ec.europa.eu
>>
>>
>> Dear Ton,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for this draft topic report on open data and standardisation.
>>
>> We have carefully read through your document and also asked our colleague who is an expert in standardisation issues to make comments.
>>
>>
>>
>> Please find our comments below my current message.
>>
>> We are looking forward to receiving the revised version of the report once our comments are integrated in it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you again.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Katalin
>>
>>
>>
>> A general comment: the interesting question of whether to pursue the strategy of opening up as much raw data as possible (regardless of standards) or of publishing only standardised data does not seem to be sufficiently elaborated on in the document. Maybe some further efforts could be made to address this question in more details.
>>
>>
>>
>> As regards the technical aspects touched upon in the report, there seem to be some elements that might be worth having a second look at:
>>
>>
>>
>> Page 4:
>>
>> On the other hand, increasing emphasis is being put by the open data community on the importance of linked data. An essential element of such linked data is that they are standardised, preferably according to open standards. However, public bodies often create datasets solely with the view of meeting their own specific needs, without considering the possible use of the data for others (as do private companies), and they are often dependent on proprietary software that is in many cases even specifically created for them by software and management system vendors. Hence, making available government data in a standardised form takes time, effort and money, and, as a consequence, conflicts with providing ‘raw data now’.
>>
>> Here, it might be worth referring to the RDF standard for data representation that the concept of Linked Data is based on (and which can indeed be considered as an open standard).
>>
>> When referring to the proprietary software, it could be made clearer how this impacts on the data and interoperability, i.e. by the fact that proprietary software often implies the usage of proprietary data formats that make interoperability difficult.
>>
>>
>>
>> Section 3.5: The Semantic Web
>>
>> Here, it might be worth mentioning that the Semantic Web standards are also the basis for the Linked (Open) Data approach.
>>
>>
>>
>> Page 9:
>>
>> Some file standards are closely tied to the type of data that is being published. To a data owner, it will be immediately clear whether or not these standards are suitable to be used in or for a specific dataset. Examples include Google’s KML format for geocodes, .MP3 and other audio files for sound data, etc. Even though the difference with the ‘regular’ file formats is somewhat academic, the main distinguishing factor with these file types is the presence of a ‘context’. E.g. music data might be expressed (even though not easily played) as a spreadsheet, but a spreadsheet will not be stored as an MP3-file.
>>
>> Here, it seems to me as though two distinct issues were mixed up: while KML is a data markup language (i.e. a metadata standard like Dublin Core mentioned in the next paragraph), Mp3 is a data compression standard.
>>
>>
>>
>> Page 9:
>>
>> Other standards relate to the representation of the attributes and characteristics of the data. For instance, the Dublin Core standards are part of the Resource Description Framework of XML[1].
>>
>> Dublin Core is not part of RDF but it is a metadata standard that can be represented in RDF or XML.
>>
>>
>>
>> Page 9:
>>
>> The file format for linked data files is usually RDF (for Resource Description Framework), which in itself is a file-format standard. RDF[2] allows the publisher to link to the semantic web, thus supplying a context for the data.
>>
>> Rather than being a file format, RDF is a data representation standard which can be serialised in different file formats.
>>
>>
>>
>> Page 9:
>>
>> This is due to the fact that the RDF contains links (uniform resource identifiers or URI’s) to entities or relations that are stored within ontology-databases such as DBPedia.
>>
>> From the position of the brackets, it sounds as if URIs were links. Instead, anything that can be identified with a Uniform Resource Identifier can be referred to by RDF. Objects stored in databases like DBpedia are just one such example.
>>
>>
>>
>> Section 5.1
>>
>> However, provided that the data is sufficiently valuable, we have also seen that a number of companies and civic groups have started to reformat the data and building datastreams that are of higher quality.
>>
>> The notion of datastreams (which implies a continuous transmission of data might not be the right term in this section. Instead, data in general might rather be implied here.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> [1] http://dublincore.org/.
>>
>> [2] http://www.w3.org/RDF/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Katalin IMREI
>>
>> Policy Officer
>>
>>
>>
>> European Commission
>>
>> DG CONNECT
>>
>> Unit G3 – Data Value Chain
>>
>> *        EUFO 1/178, L-2557 Luxembourg/Gasperich
>>
>> (        +352-430-135-133
>>
>> Ê        +352-430-130-269
>>
>> 8         katalin.imrei at ec.europa.eu
>>
>>
>>
>>
>