Press release

MAKING LINKED DATA SEXY

(or how we can make life easier for the ones in need for a parking spot)

The goal of some students at the open Summer of code is convincing data publishers and re-users that they can benefit from publishing their data as linked data in the context of mobility data. To accomplish their mission they’ve created an easy to understand demo website (vocab.datex.org) on which the concept and possibilities of linked data become clear with storytelling. For the techies among us: they also provided a converter to transform an existing DATEX feed to a JSON-LD file and some handy tutorials.

Before throwing around seemingly complicated and off-putting terms like DATEX or JSON-LD, the website gives you first a common problem and how this problem could be solved when entering the world of linked data. In the story we meet Anna and John who are looking for a parking spot on a fun day out in Ghent. Anna does have an app with the parking spots from Brussels on her phone, but the app for Ghent does not work, while Bruce has way to many working apps that clutter his phone’s memory. When parking owners would publish their data as linked open data, more developers could easily gather and combine the information in their app. This will result in more apps for different devices that each have more extensive and complete data.

Publishing data as linked data doesn’t take up more effort than spitting out a DATEX feed. The only difference is that everything is defined with a URI (unique resource identifier). A URI is basically a web address on which you can find more information about the subject that it is being defined. With the help of these URIs semantic interoperability is a fact and a vast network of information can be created over which computers themselves can start reasoning! The students shook off the complex and old connotation of DATEX and changed the linked data subject into something understandable and easy accessible.