Linked Data: A new format for Ireland’s Geospatial data

In a collaboration between Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) and the ADAPT research centre, Ireland’s geospatial information has been made available as Linked Data on a dedicated portal at http://data.geohive.ie/ and will also be available via data.gov.ie.

The platform enables Irish geospatial data to be used in a more intelligent and meaningful way. For example to visualise census information on a map, it is possible to use the Linked Data platform to access Irish administrative boundary data and then combine it with the 2011 Census data which has been published  by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) as Linked Data.

Linked data has multiple benefits, for example:

• There will no longer be static pieces of data in different places all over the internet. Instead, all data will be connected.
• Because the data is machine-readable, your computer can do more ‘thinking’ on your behalf.
• Linked data enables better decision-making.
• Your data will always be up to date, because the data is updated at source and automatically updated across the network.
• You will be able to use more advanced queries, and thus generate more useful output.

Ireland’s geospatial Linked Data has ‘5 Star Data’ status, a quality rating that recognises data that has been shared on the Web according to best practices.

Read the full article at http://www.osi.ie/blog/linked-data/

25/10/2016