Vassilios Peristeras
Programme Manager, ISA Programme,
European Commission
During
the last decades, in Europe, as in other places in the world, we shifted from
what could be called document-based administration to a data-centric one.
The recent advent of open data pushes towards this paradigm shift, which is happening slowly
but steadily. This change is briefly discussed in this note.
Document-based information storage and flows in public sector
Traditionally, all Public Sector Information (PSI) were stored in documents, which were main-
tained by public administration organizations. Accessibility to these documents has been prob-
lematic due to cultural and technical reasons. During that period, information exchange was
document-based: public administrations were packaging relevant PSI in paper signing/stamping
it to prove authenticity and issuing it to the relevant parties. Citizens usually acted as postmen,
transferring documents with authentic information from one agency to the other.
Electronic PSI
After the emergence of IT and database systems, it became possible for information to flow
amongst agencies without the use of paper. A “touch” inside a database could provide the infor-
mation previously conveyed by a birth certificate and replace it. This capability provides a shift
from a document-centric administration to a data-centric one. However, not all PSI have been
yet transferred to electronic formats and the document paradigm remains the prevailing way
for information exchange. Moreover, PSI remains “locked” and fragmented in a huge variety of
databases and systems.
Open data
After 2007 with the open data movement increasingly putting pressure to governments to make
available the PSI they own, there are numerous efforts all over the world to make PSI available
through open data portals. Benefits include improved transparency and coordination amongst
agencies, higher quality and evidence-based decision making, and huge development opportu-
nities from making available this untapped resource, which has been called “the oil of the 21st
century”. Open data portals are single access points (websites) where citizens and businesses
can search and find PSI. This data should be made available for any type of reuse and in formats
which allow processing from both humans and information systems.
Linked open government data
However, there are limitations in this decentralized open data publishing model: it is very difficult
to find all relevant information on specific topics as information may be scattered in all these
portals and beyond. Moreover, public agencies publish information whose structure and seman-
tics are not harmonized, making it again very difficult for someone to combine and aggregate
information. For example, information about air pollution in Europe may be stored in different
cities and national open data portals in incompatible formats. This makes comparison, aggrega-
tion and processing very difficult and finally a manual task. Towards this direction, the European
Commission (EC) has developed a specification, called DCAT Application Profile, which allows
indexing and, therefore, facilitates discovery of all open data available in the 28 European Union
member states. Through the EC Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administration
(ISA) Programme, common ways - called Core Vocabularies - of describing basic information
like persons, businesses, locations and public services are also developed and promoted.
Through all these measures, the EC promotes open data, facilitates harmonization of metadata
descriptions and of basic data, with the vision to create a European linked open government
data ecosystem which could boost transparency, administrative efficiency and capacity, innova-
tion and development.
From National Close Documents
to European Linked Open Data
