LigADOS: Interlinking Datasets in Open Data Portal Platforms on the Semantic Web

Abstract

The fostering of data opening has been largely motivated by sets of laws on access to information, which establish the need to make data related to governmental activities available to citizens and society in general, as well as results from business processes or scientific research, also for accountability and transparency. There are several ways of making data available to the public, from a simple website to sophisticated applications for accessing the data. In this context, one of the options is the construction of an open data portal using platforms for data repositories and catalogs. In the last few years, there has been a rapid proliferation of this type of portals, with domain or organization specific datasets being widely disseminated in platforms like CKAN. In these platforms, datasets are organized in thematic groups and described by keywords and other attributes assigned by the publisher. Usually described by metadata with poor semantics, these datasets very often remain as “data silos”, with no explicit connection or data integration mechanism, making it difficult for the users to locate and interrelate relevant data sources. In contrast, the Semantic Web focuses on a way of modeling and representing data in an easier manner to establish interrelationships between data, accompanied by richer descriptors. Based on this scenario, this paper proposes LigADOS, an approach to create interconnections between datasets considering their content and related metadata. LigADOS is based on the principles of the Semantic Web and associated linked data solutions and technologies, to support rich access strategies to RDF data published using portal platforms like CKAN and others.