1. Linked Data for SDG Reporting
Bill Roberts
Swirrl
23 January 2018

2. What is Linked Data?

3. “Data you can link to”
Use the mechanisms of the web to give fine grained access to data
You can link to a file on the web, but only at the level of the whole file
If you can link to individual things within the data – specific countries or regions, specific indicators, specific data points then can be more precise and more selective and it gives a mechanism for attaching all kind of metadata, and making relationships between the topics of interest, for example combining complex geospatial data with statistical data.

4. Needs for SDG National Reporting Platforms
Different presentation for different groups of users (analysts, ministers/managers, public)
Easy to find – available on the web
API access to data
Need to automate data preparation and publishing processes
Interoperable data
One size does not fit all – individual country needs and constraints

5. What does ‘interoperable’ mean?
We need to agree on what data means, and how to get it:
Shared identifiers
Data transfer protocol
Data format
Data models
Data models and systems of identifiers still need to be agreed and that’s a hard organisational problem – but once you’ve done that, Linked Data gives you a mechanism for systematically encoding that

6. Use URIs as names for things
Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names
When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF and SPARQL)
Include links to other URIs, so that they can discover more things
Directly exploit the plumbing of the web as a way of making data available
Globally unique identifiers for things of interest
A mechanism for looking up information about those things
Standards-based machine-readable way of representing that information
With a way of describing relationships between things
Identifiers
Protocol
Format and data models
Connections
Berners-Lee, 2006

7. Resource Description Framework

8. What is RDF? Property Subject Object
“graph” representation of data – social graph, eg Facebook, LinkedIn
All kinds of enterprise databases
Strength is its flexibility in dealing with very diverse data, and to highlight the connections between things

9. What is RDF? Is a United Kingdom Country
“graph” representation of data – social graph, eg Facebook, LinkedIn

10. What is RDF? 4.29 Death rate United Kingdom refArea refPeriod 2015
Observation123
unit
Number per 1000
Can represent statistical data in RDF
Age range
0-5 years
indicator
3.2.1 Under-5 mortality

11. What is RDF? 4.29 Death rate United Kingdom refArea refPeriod 2015
Observation123
unit
Number per 1000
Can represent any data in RDF – as the ’schema’ is part of the data
Which means it’s a flexible system for combining statistical data with other contextual data
Age range
0-5 years
indicator
3.2.1 Under-5 mortality

13. <http://statistics. gov
< a < ;
sg-measure:count ;
sdmx-dimension:refArea < ;
sdmx-attribute:unitMeasure < ;
sdmx-dimension:refPeriod < ;
qb:measureType sg-measure:count ;
qb:dataSet < ;
sdmx-dimension:age < ;
sdmx-dimension:sex < .
You can link directly to this observation – and get it in various machine readable ways
You can add data markers
Or annotations
Or say this observation has been revised and replaced by some other observation

14. What does linking enable?
Connect datasets, indicators, features of interest, data points to:
Other data, other features
Definitions
Context
Provenance
Annotations/feedback

15. SPARQL Standardised query language for RDF
Flexible, powerful – can be complex
Use it directly, or build simpler APIs or user interfaces on top of it

16. Sustainable Development Goals
Where are we now?
What is most urgent?
What should we do about it?
Is it working?
Answering these questions needs a lot of information about context
Where are we now? For one indicator for one country, how does it look:
Compared to the target
Compared to other countries
Compared to other ‘similar’ countries – similar perhaps in terms of size, income, demographic profile, economic activities, climate…
Compared to other indicators
Compared to previous years

17. Challenges Data sources Dealing with the big challenges of today
Changing demographics – people living longer, but also more years of unhealthy life
Changing world of work – different kinds of jobs
Climate change (the real challenge for a smart city)
Limited environmental resources – balancing the economy, health and the natural environment
That feeds into crucial business as usual for government: where to allocate limited resources for the biggest societal benefit
Local government strategies – what are the special constraints and opportunities where you live and work – how to coordinate and balance all the aspects of the community.
All of these problems are complex; all depend on the interaction of many different aspects of society, and many different strands of government policy. All of them need diverse sources of data.
Importance of understanding context to be able to decide how to act on a particular piece of information

18. Linked Data works behind the scenes
Strength is for underlying data representation and integration
Automatic import of data from CSV, XML, JSON, Shapefile…
Select, filter, export data as CSV, XML, JSON, Shapefile...
W3C ‘Tabular Data on the Web’ standards: CSV plus JSON metadata

20. Building on existing standard data models
for multidimensional statistical data: RDF Data Cube Vocabulary – Linked data version of SDMX
for metadata: Dublin Core, DCAT
for provenance: PROV
for annotation: Web annotation ontology
for data quality: Data Quality Vocabulary

21. Making it work for SDGs
Choose or create agreed identifiers and definitions for:
the SDG indicators
dimensions, measures and units
concept schemes for dimension values

22. Gartner hype cycle
Swirrl operates production systems for Scottish Govt, MHCLG, NHS
Working with ONS on applying this technique for sharing of data across UK official stats publishers
Eurostat is quite active

23. @billroberts