Coping with gaps in linked data (UK postcodes)?

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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Received on Friday, 12 April 2013 13:08:29 UTC