Digital Government Factsheets available in html and as linked open data

To support the interoperability principles of openness, transparency and reusability, the National Interoperability Framework Observatory (NIFO) has published the latest edition of the Digital Government factsheets in both linked open data (LOD) and HTML open formats.

Linked open data is one of the components of the Semantic Web. It seeks to link different datasets in order to make them not only readable for humans, but also for machines. The result of these links is that data information silos are broken down, which in turn allows for the use of more efficient extensions that can easily be updated. LOD is a blend of both Linked Data and Open Data: it is both linked and uses open sources, which enables the reuse and modification of information by developers to suit the specific needs of organisations.

This year’s Digital Government factsheets have been published in both LOD and html on the EU Open Data Portal. The portal enables access to open data published by EU institutions and bodies, which can then be reused for commercial or non-commercial purposes. The significance of publishing the most recent Digital Government factsheets in open formats lies in the fact that this information will now be free for use by researches, developers and IT experts. This way, it is significantly widening the reach and impact of this information but also its potential reuse, as it will now be possible to integrate this data into new functionalities and applications.

As this year’s Digital Government Factsheets’ publication cycle concludes, it will from now on be possible to view the information on EU Member State’s policies, legal frameworks, main actors and infrastructures supporting Digital Government under a different light, as this will become living information that can be extracted and used by different users inside and outside of the EU.

For more information on the trends affecting the modernisation of public administrations and interoperability of digital public services, you may continue to visit the NIFO collection on Joinup.