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Machine-readable in open data context

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The attention to make data available in machine-readable formats is something that is addressed in more articles related to open data for better proliferation. The Swedish government is proposing a bill for better reuse of public transportation data trough machine-readable format and we have addressed the importance of machine-readable format in a article about liquid open data. What is often not mentioned is the importance of metadata in regards to machine-readable formats to augment use and reuse of data. Therefore, we want to give our perspective on why metadata are an indistinguishable part of open data and machine-readable formats. Continue reading “Machine-readable in open data context”

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The Swedish national open data portal drops in ranking

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For the data to be put to use, there are several common obstacles that needs to be mediated. Previous article explained the affect of deficient metadata and choice of formats that makes data more inaccessible in regards to machine readability. Still data are being published today which raise barriers and impedes usability instead of the opposite. A swift overview of the registered datasets  on the Swedish national portal for open data Öppnadata.se (similar to data.gov), shows that the most common format is ZIP. This format is one of the worst in regard to metadata and machine readability. Which shows that open data owners and providers in Sweden at least, don’t follow good practice and principles concerning putting data on the web. Continue reading “The Swedish national open data portal drops in ranking”

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Metadata and the implication of data format choice

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People working with data knows the importance of metadata for its usefulness. Metadata are needed to describe characteristics of data, such as whom and when it was created. Still there are data that are published without sufficient description of its characteristics, which will limit the use and affect user trust. It seems that owners and providers of open data are not taking the usability perspective and focusing more on publish data regardless if metadata is complete or insufficient. Continue reading “Metadata and the implication of data format choice”