Linked Open Data - The EssentialsLinked Open Data (LOD) is a growing trend amongst governments and civil society organisations who understand that the internet now makes the entire storehouse of human knowledge available to anyone, anywhere, through access via computer or mobile device.  To reflect this new reality, many organisations are taking their existing data sets – many of which are in principle in the public domain already – and making them freely available for use and re-use by anyone. REEEP‘s clean energy info portal reegle is one of the main energy portals already using this technology, but we need more … more organisations opening up their datasets and understanding the benefits of doing this.

REEEP, supported by the German Ministry of Environment (BMU), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the US National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Masdar Institute and the Semantic Web Company (SWC) therefore organised a workshop attended by 20 major clean energy and development-related organisations at Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi. In the margins of this workshop we released a new publication: “Linked Open Data: The Essentials“, a quick-start guide for decision-makers who need to quickly get up to speed with the LOD concept, and who want to make their government or organization a part of the movement.

Pics from the LOD Workshop – Abu Dhabi, January 2012 (Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR).

The new book and the workshop answer many questions about what it means for an organisation’s strategy to open up datasets and what actually needs to be done at the technical level to make existing data available in machine-readable and standardised formats. REEEP’s clean energy portal (www.reegle.info) and NREL’s (National Renewable EnergyRenewable energy is power generated from infinite sources, such as wind or solar power. Conventional energy is generated from finite sources, such as natural gas or fossil oil. Laboratory, USA) Open Energy Information portal (en.openei.org) are two best practice examples that already draw content from many data sources – and freely provide data to others.

Linked Open Data: The Essentials provides answers to the following key questions:

  • What do the terms Open Data, Open Government Data and Linked Open Data actually mean, and what are the differences between them?
  • What do I need to take into account in developing a LOD strategy?
  • What does my organisation need to do technically in order to open up and publish its datasets?
  • How can I make sure the data is accessible and digestible for others?
  • How can I add value to my own data sets by consuming LOD from others?
  • What can be learned existing best practices?
  • What are the key potentials of sharing and consuming open datasets?

The downloadable PDF Version is available for free at
http://www.reeep.org/LOD-the-Essentials.pdf or http://www.semantic-web.at/LOD-TheEssentials.pdf

Hardcover on Amazon
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3902796057/

Editor Contacts
Florian Bauer, REEEP
Martin Kaltenböck, SWC

We hope you enjoy reading of Linked Open Data: The Essentials – we are looking forward to receiving your feedback – so please do not hesitate to get in touch with us!

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