Rights Statements on the Web of Data

This is a write-up of my contribution to the Legal and Social Frameworks for Sharing Data on the web workshop at ISWC 2009 in October 2009. It was later published in Nodalitied magazine Issue 9. Why do we publish open data? It’s to allow other people to reuse it; to take it and do creative and … Continue reading Rights Statements on the Web of Data →

Thoughts on Enterprise Linked Data

There have been a number of discussions about "Enterprise Linked Data" recently, and I took part on a panel on precisely that topic at ESTC 2009. Unfortunately the panel was cut short due to time pressures so I didn't get chance to say everything I'd hoped. In lieu of that debate here's a blog post … Continue reading Thoughts on Enterprise Linked Data →

SPARQL Extension Function Survey Summary

This post contains the first set of results from my SPARQL extension survey. I've completed an initial survey of a number of different SPARQL processors to itemise the extension functions that each of them have implemented. This will be an ongoing activity as implementations evolve continually, but I thought it would be useful to summarise … Continue reading SPARQL Extension Function Survey Summary →

Approaches to Publishing Linked Data via Named Graphs

This is a follow-up to my previous post on managing RDF using named graphs. In that post I looked at the basic concept of named graphs, how they are used in SPARQL 1.0/1.1, and discussed RESTful APIs for managing named graphs. In this post I wanted to look at how Named Graphs can be used … Continue reading Approaches to Publishing Linked Data via Named Graphs →

Annotated Data

One of the things I've always liked about the Semantic Web vision is the idea that "Anyone can say Anything, Anywhere" (hereafter: The AAA Principle). That I can publish data about anything; and which links to and annotates data that other people are publishing elsewhere. I've been thinking recently whether we've spent a lot of … Continue reading Annotated Data →

Web Integrated Data

Last Friday I spoke at the Open Knowledge Foundation Open Data & The Semantic Web event. I was giving the opening talk of the day and thought that I'd take the opportunity to lay out a view that I've been meaning to articulate for some time: that integrating data with the web maximises its utility. … Continue reading Web Integrated Data →

Linked Data Liminal Zones

One of the things that has interested me for some time now is how RDF and Linked Data enables communities to enrich information published by organizations, e.g. by annotating it with additional properties and relationships (links). This is after all, one of the intended goals of the technology: to make it easier for people to … Continue reading Linked Data Liminal Zones →

DataIncubator: What Is It and What’s In It?

This article first appeared in Talis Nodalities magazine issue 8. The Linking Open Data project has had a huge amount of success in bootstrapping the burgeoning Linked Data cloud. There’s now a definite sense of momentum behind the project, and a growing number of organisations are now seriously investigating how their data could further enrich … Continue reading DataIncubator: What Is It and What’s In It? →

Describing SPARQL Extension Functions

At the end of my recent post on Surveying and Classifying SPARQL Extensions I noted that I wanted to help encourage implementors to publish useful documentation about their SPARQL Extensions. If you're interested in the current state of that survey then you can check out my current spreadsheet listing known extension functions. There are more … Continue reading Describing SPARQL Extension Functions →

Managing RDF Using Named Graphs

In this post I want to put down some thoughts around using named graphs to manage and query RDF datasets. This thinking is prompted is in large part by thinking how best to use Named Graphs to support publishing of Linked Data, but also most recently by the first Working Drafts drafts of SPARQL 1.1. … Continue reading Managing RDF Using Named Graphs →