Linked Data
Linked data refers to structure data on the Web with standard technology (RDF) so as to enable different data sources be connected. It has been considered the basis to get the Semantic Web working as it is defined.
Linked data is a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web. Key technologies that support Linked Data are URIs (a generic means to identify entities or concepts in the world), HTTP (a simple yet universal mechanism for retrieving resources, or descriptions of resources), and RDF (a generic graph-based data model with which to structure and link data that describes things in the world). LinkedData.org
Tim Berners-Lee in a speech at the TED 2009 Conference emphasized the importance of having structured data publicly available in an open format. He wrote a piece of text entitled Linked Data – Design Issues, at w3.org website, to describe the four rules that should be followed to publish data on the Web:
- Use URIs as names for things;
- Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names;
- Use URIs to expose the context of your data (i.e., expose information);
- Include links to other URIs so that they can discover more things.
Following these rules will help data be more easily connected and integrated to other data sources. There are many documents out there suggesting how to publish linked data. The document How to Publish Linked Data on the Web describes some practices recipes for publishing data on the Web. This document gives an overview about publishing linked data, discussing, for example, questions like "what should be returned as RDF description for a URI," "how to set RDF links to other data sources," and "how to serve information as linked data."
Reading/watching the following documents one will figure out the importance of and how to publish linked data.
Linked Data – Design Issues
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
How to Publish Linked Data on the Web
http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/
TED 2009 Conference – Tim Berners-Lee
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
Linked Data – The Story So Far (2009)
Christian Bizer, Tom Heath, and Tim Berners-Lee
http://tomheath.com/papers/bizer-heath-berners-lee-ijswis-linked-data.pdf
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