How researchers enhanced Data.gov using semantic technology
How researchers enhanced Data.gov using semantic technology, by Sean Gallagher, GCN, May 18, 2010.
A three-person team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, however, has demonstrated how one approach can make greater use of the massive sets of data available on Data.gov, using the power of the semantic web. The conversion project has shown how quickly and inexpensively visualization and mash-up applications can be built from government data when it’s put into a web-friendly form.Continue reading
Changes at Data.gov
If you haven't looked at data.gov lately, you should. It was launched one year ago and has had a bit of a makeover recently and has added lots of new data. OMB Watch has a quick overview and comment about the current state of data.gov (Data.gov Celebrates First Birthday with a Makeover, by Roger Strother, OMB Watch. 05/24/10). Check out these highlights:
- Apps where developers are creating a wide variety of applications, mashups, and visualizations. From crime statistics by neighborhood to the best towns to find a job to seeing the environmental health of your community...
- Semantic Web where they highlight a set of data.gov resources reformatted into Resource Description Framework (RDF) format. These allow new kinds of rich interaction with the data. See, for example, the White House Visitor Search. Also see the Thetherless World Weblog from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where some of this work is being done.
RSS feed of Foreign Relations of the United States
The State Department has an RSS (ATOM) feed that lists new releases of the important series Foreign Relations of the United States: history.state.gov/open/frus-latest.xml.
The Office of the Historian is responsible, under law, for the preparation and publication of the official historical documentary record of U.S. foreign policy in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. This dataset is a feed for the latest ten volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. Each record in the dataset contains a volume's title, year of publication, summary, and link to the online volumes. The feed will be updated when current volumes are edited or new volumes are published. http://history.state.gov/open/frus-latestI had never noticed that statement (above) that current volumes might be edited after release. Does that mean that material might be deleted or changed? Or does "editing" only mean adding new content? Continue reading
Public Contributions to Library of Congress Flickr Commons
A good story with a slide show.
- History Detectives, by Emily Long, NextGov (05/24/2010)
- slideshow of some of the photos posted to Flickr with sample comments submitted by the public about the image.
- Thank you from LoC "to all the wonderful people who have contributed comments, tags, and notes."
- Flickr Commons, "Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world's public photo collections."
- The Library of Congress' photostream on Flickr.
Digital Dreams and Dashboards: Notable Government Documents 2009
Digital Dreams and Dashboards: Notable Government Documents 2009, By David N. Griffths, Library Journal (5/15/2010).
Though budget cuts have squeezed government information services at the local level, major digital initiatives and steps toward open governance at the federal level have compensated for some of these losses.Continue reading