Made for: The UK Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)

Date: May 2012

Website: opendatacommunities.org

This is a major overhaul and extension of the OpenDataCommunities site that we first set up in 2011, with a new design, lots more data and new features aimed at making access to the data easier.

The key purpose of this project is to help the DCLG understand how to move towards routinely producing open outputs in an affordable and sustainable way, with products that are useful to, and used by, others. Much of the data was already available as spreadsheets on the DCLG website, but the real purpose of OpenDataCommunities is to provide DCLG data in much more open, accessible and re-usable forms. It's part of an effort to break out of spreadsheet silos so that users can quickly slice, dice and combine different datasets.

We worked with the DCLG to covert a selection of datasets (on housing, deprivation and finance) to RDF, and the PublishMyData engine presents them as Linked Data through this site.

The main part of the site is aimed at developers and those who want access to the raw data. Developers can explore the datasets that are available and access the data in machine readable formats. All data is available through the Linked Data and SPARQL APIs. This approach makes it possible to pull out the data needed to build applications and visualisations, or to integrate the data with other systems.

To help illustrate the kind of data visualisations which are possible and to demonstrate one approach, we built the Local Authority Dashboard, which allows users to search for and view various statistics about local authorities. The Index of Multiple Deprivation mapper from our original 2011 prototype is still also available too.

We hope to add more datasets and ways to explore the data later this year.

[The OpenDataCommunities Dashboard] really is gorgeous. I love it when there's deep access to the data behind the visualisations. Good stuff.

Jeni Tennison

Our TripleStore is really helping to show benefits of LinkedData for DCLG and our users.

Steve Peters, Strategic Statistics Division, DCLG

Made for: Universal Music

Date: May 2012

Website: umusic.co.uk/artists

The Universal Music UK Artist Gateway is a data-driven catalogue of all of Universal’s UK artists and their discographies, which aggregates information in one place for artists, fans and software developers.

SixTwo Productions, who were working on the main website, brought us into the project to help with the RDF API, because of our reputation and expertise in Linked Data and RDF.

The RDF API for this site is effectively a "white-labelling" of some PublishMyData features. Taking inspiration from existing Music Ontology work by the BBC, MusicBrainz and others, we designed the structure of the RDF, and implemented some Ruby libraries to take data from their relational database and generate RDF in various formats.

lovely job

James Cowdery, Product Innovation Manager, Universal Music UK

it was a wise wise move!

Martyn Davies, SixTwo Productions

Made for: The Scottish Government

Date: Autumn 2011

Website: cofog01.data.scotland.gov.uk

We worked closely with Peter Winstanley, Head of Data Standards at the Scottish Government, to produce this Linked Data site to publish half-hourly electricity and gas consumption data from Scottish Government Buildings, the data coming from a live feed from the meters.

It forms part of the GOLSPIE platform for disclosure on the sustainability performance of the Scottish Government Estate.

By querying our SPARQL endpoint, Peter's team was able to put together a series of interactive charts to provide analysis and comparison of daily and weekly energy consumption data across the range of government buildings.

Made for: ALISS

Date: October 2011

Website: data.aliss.org

The ALISS project is about pulling together and curating resources for people in Scotland with long-term health conditions: providing the tools, activities and information people need to manage their condition effectively. Swirrl's contribution has been to take the information already held in the 'ALISS engine' and make it available as Linked Data. The ALISS engine already has an API, but providing a SPARQL endpoint and Linked Data offers an additional way that application or website developers can access the information, and will help make connections to other useful data.

Made for: Aberdeen City Council

Date: May 2011

Website: linkeddata.aberdeencity.gov.uk

An initial selection of Aberdeen's open data in Linked Data format, with more datasets on the way.