Re: Coping with gaps in linked data (UK postcodes)?

On 4/12/13 9:40 AM, Leigh Dodds wrote:
> Hi Stephen,
>
> Really your only option is to mint your own URIs, but then later build
> in links to the official URIs if/when they become available:
>
> http://patterns.dataincubator.org/book/proxy-uris.html
>
> The postcodes make good Natural Keys for building your URIs. This will
> help to automatically generate links not just to your data, but also
> to the official version when available.

+1

Kingsley
>
> Cheers,
>
> L.
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Cresswell, Stephen
> <stephen.cresswell@tso.co.uk> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> In our application, we wish to publish linked data, including addresses
>> with postcode URIs.  The postcode URIs provided by Ordnance Survey for
>> England, Wales and Scotland are really useful, with the postcode URIs
>> dereferencing to provide useful information including co-ordinates.
>>
>> However, the geographical extent of our data includes Northern Ireland,
>> which is outside the scope of (British) Ordnance Survey and not included
>> in their dataset.  The equivalent postcode data for Northern Ireland is
>> available from the NI government body NISRA, but it is not on an open
>> license.
>>
>> This leaves us with a question about what URIs to use for Northern
>> Ireland postcodes, as we know of no existing URI scheme for Northern
>> Ireland postcodes.
>>
>> If we generate postcode URIs using the same pattern as the rest of the
>> UK, those URIs would be in the Ordnance Survey's domain, but NI
>> postcodes are not actually in their dataset and they won't dereference,
>> so that seems wrong.
>>
>> If we are to have dereferencable URIs, we would presumably have to host
>> them in our own domain, which is definitely not the most appropriate
>> place for them to be.  If we buy a license to use the NI postcode data,
>> we still wouldn't be able to republish it as linked data.  Presumably,
>> however, there is some geographical information that is open and could
>> be published, e.g. courser geographical information based on just the
>> postcode district.
>>
>> Does anyone have any advice on best practice, either for the specific
>> problem (NI postcodes) or for the general problem of how to cope with
>> URIs based on an existing coding scheme (e.g. postcodes), where the
>> published URIs don't cover all of the original codes?
>>
>> Stephen Cresswell
>> The Stationery Office
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>


-- 

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Kingsley Idehen	
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Received on Friday, 12 April 2013 14:09:08 UTC