RE: Environmental LOD [was: Re: New Charter]

I agree with Ed, strongly.  The eGov interest group was started in order to
connect to policy makers as well as other communities and this element has
not been very visible for some time.  Policy makers are often only just
coming to grips with the issues and need help at many levels.

To illustrate with the Australian example, have a look at the new Office of
the Australian Information Commissioner which commenced operations on 1
November, www.oaic.gov.au.  It incorporates the previous Office of the
Privacy Commissioner and takes over a series of Freedom of Information
functions but also has a brand new responsibility for government information
policy at the Federal level here.  They are feeling their way and also know
the mountains of (passive) resistance they will meet on the way to open
government and open data.

More precisely, have a look at the Issues Paper that they have released,
which is still open for public comment.  Input from this group or its
members would be welcomed with open arms.  The issues paper is online at
www.oaic.gov.au/publications/papers.html. See also other speeches and papers
by the new Information Commissioner, Brian McMillan.

Malcolm Crompton

Managing Director
Information Integrity Solutions Pty Ltd
ABN 78 107 611 898

T:  +61 407 014 450

MCrompton@iispartners.com  
www.iispartners.com 



-----Original Message-----
From: public-egov-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:public-egov-ig-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Thomas Bandholtz
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 6:12 AM
To: Ed Summers
Cc: public-egov-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Environmental LOD [was: Re: New Charter]

Hi Ed,

you are perfectly right. Linked Data is not the only thing (just the one
that excites me most). It is only one of the protocols to be supported
by the Agencies. Feed syndication is complementary, and not less exciting.

We should select a few recommended protocolls and clarify which of them
serves what use case best.
I think Linked Data is about making data accessible, and Feed
Syndication is about spreading news (which might link to some accessible
data).

We had a similar discussion earlier, including Web Services, Web Site
(HTML) and PDF publishing etc etc.
In my personal opinion: Linked Data is going to outdate Web Services,
but we shouldn't focus too much on media types. Most important is we
have human/machine readable interfaces ("content negotiation").
Even publishing CSV data along with a feed or a HTML page would fulfill
the minimum requirements.

However, I feel that this group needs a really focussed charter anyway.
Over the last year we had a rather diffused focus and consequently
diffused results.

Best regards,
Thomas



Am 23.11.2010 18:32, schrieb Ed Summers:
> I am interested in continuing participation in this group. I think
> having a w3c group that's focused on the use of web technologies in
> government is incredibly important.
>
> However, I am not interested in the group focusing exclusively on
> Linked Data (aka RDF, SPARQL). I think we need to look at the role of
> egov in the web ecosystem in a holistic and pragmatic way. For
> example, I am interested in promoting the the thoughtful use of feed
> syndication in egov. This seems to fall outside the scope of what
> people typically mean when they say Linked Data. Yet I think
> syndication is incredibly important when it comes to timely
> distribution of egov information.
>
> I'm also interested in getting government institutions to embrace
> putting their "hugged" databases online, with thoughtful use of URLs,
> with machine (as well as human) readable data at those URLs, so that
> we can start to get more "registries" online. Once people have made
> the leap to putting their data online, with persistent cool URLs, then
> we can start talking RDF, etc.
>
> Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions that there would ever be such a
> focus exclusively on Linked Data. I thought I heard rumblings of
> rechartering with a focus on Linked Data, and I would like to go on
> record as opposing that sort of move -- if it were to be proposed :-)
>
> //Ed
>


-- 
Thomas Bandholtz, thomas.bandholtz@innoq.com, http://www.innoq.com 
innoQ Deutschland GmbH, Halskestr. 17, D-40880 Ratingen, Germany
Phone: +49 228 9288490 Mobile: +49 178 4049387 Fax: +49 228 9288491

Received on Wednesday, 24 November 2010 04:34:20 UTC