The US has launched open data standards that were originally developed in Ireland, John Kennedy reports. He writes, “The open data movement is in full swing and tools and standards created in Ireland are to prove pivotal to open data employed by the US government. It emerged today that agencies in the US Government have adopted a set of web tools and standards developed in Ireland by researchers at NUI Galway’s Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI). DERI’s technologies are being utilised by Data.gov, a portal developed to bring an unprecedented level of transparency to the US government. DERI’s research, which is funded by Science Foundation Ireland, focuses on enabling networked knowledge, using the latest semantic web and linked data technologies.”

Kennedy continues, “Its technologies allow related data that was not previously linked to be connected together, so that a person or computer can see the bigger picture through interlinked datasets. Data.gov allows the linking of open government data from agency publishers to contributions from other public and private organisations. The move comes the same week that the inventor of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee was in Dublin to emphasise the power of linkable datasets, that the move by governments and enterprises to open data is inevitable and that the time is now to begin linking datasets to make the semantic web a reality. Berners-Lee is spearheading the UK’s open data movement Data.gov.uk.”

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Image: Courtesy DERI