Actions Linked (Geo)data
The project involved mapping the Linked Data education landscape in and beyond Switzerland, as well as conducting a needs assessment among the Swiss Linked Data community regarding the publication of Linked Geodata.
Factsheet
- Schools involved Business School
- Institute(s) Institute for Public Sector Transformation
- Research unit(s) Data and Infrastructure
- Duration 01.05.2024 - 23.04.2025
- Head of project Prof. Dr. Jan Bieser
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Project staff
Dr. Jurek Müller
Lukas Platter
Prof. Dr. Jan Bieser - Keywords Linked Data, Linked Geodata, Open Data, Education, Swiss Geoinformation Strategy
Situation
As the advantages of Linked Data become more widely acknowledged and Linked Data itself becomes more accessible, the concept is adopted and implemented by an increasing number of data publishers, both in the private and public sectors. With this, the need for education and training of data owners as well as data users becomes essential. This is especially true in the field of Linked Geodata, which although still underrepresented, has the potential to greatly increase the value of Linked Data through tools such as GeoSPARQL, which is a standard and a query language that enables geospatial queries on RDF triplestores and thus combines the analytic strengths of knowledge graphs and geoinformation systems. To date, Linked Geodata in Switzerland is mostly provided by the Federal Spatial Data Infrastructure (FSDI) through their GeoSPARQL triplestore. However, as the transformation to RDF, including a rigorous metadata annotation, is time and resource-intensive, to date, only a small amount of the Swiss Open Geodata is available as Linked Data.
Course of action
The project implemented two action fields from the Action Plan 2024 of the Swiss Geoinformation Strategy. The primary objective of Work Package 1 (Action 2-24-05) was to provide a comprehensive overview of existing Linked Data education and training programs, encompassing both Swiss and international offerings. The search targeted the general topic of Linked Data as well as the specific topic of Linked Geodata. Based on a structured keyword search, a comprehensive set of metadata for each found item was recorded. The goal of Work Package 2 (Action 2-24-06) was to identify specific geodata categories and geodata sets that could be prioritized for transformation and publication as Linked Geodata based on the actual needs of the Linked Data community in Switzerland. To achieve this goal, an online survey targeting the Linked Data community in Switzerland was designed and conducted, followed by a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results. Based on this analysis, a ranked list of geodata categories and geodata sets was compiled.
Result
In Work Package 1, the final list of learning resources found contained 100 courses, tutorials, and documentations. About 70% of the resources found were free of charge, most of them available online. The majority of resources were in English, with fewer resources in French, German, and Italian. While there were many resources available on specific Linked Data topics, comprehensive and complete materials and courses covering a variety of topics are scarce. The largest gap in learning resources exists in the area of Linked Geodata, with only a few technical and scientific documentations available. The analysis of the survey results in Work Package 2 revealed that within the Linked Data community, touchpoints with Linked Geodata are still infrequent, with less than half (46 %) of the respondents having previous experience with GeoSPARQL, potentially also due to the still limited data supply. Categories with the highest demand for the publication of additional Linked Geodata were Transportation, Boundaries, Base Maps, Location, Building and Infrastructure, Cadastre and Land Registry, Inland Waters, Communication, and Spatial Planning. However, some of the explicitly requested datasets are already published by the FSDI, suggesting that parts of the Linked Data community seem to be not fully aware of the already existing supply of Linked Geodata.
Looking ahead
The project identified gaps in the Linked Data education landscape and, as such, allows for targeted efforts towards establishing missing educational offers, maximizing the impact of promising concepts such as Linked Geodata. Additionally, the project identified geo datasets and categories that can be prioritized for the publication of Linked Geodata, serving the expressed needs of the Linked Data community. With this, the impact of future efforts towards the transformation to Linked Data can be maximized.
