I’ve been mulling over the nature of Open Data, Open Source and just general openness for a while now and, on the whole, these are admirable concepts. Access to data and software can only bring benefits for the most part. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Open all hours
Posted in politics, technology
Tagged ACM, DNA, open data, open source, Ordnance Survey, OS, Victorian Society
heritage.data.gov.uk …?
Exciting news for UK data this week as the new UK data website, www.data.gov.uk, had its official launch. It’s been in beta for a while but is now fully functional and open for business, providing access to a range of datasets. Importantly, as well as the more traditional download of files in formats such as Comma Seperated Variable (csv) text files, the site promises to provide information in the form of Linked Data. This is a massive advance towards the semantic web with data freely available to be used and reused by all manner of web apps, promising virtually limitless potential; graphed, mapped, and mashed up in a myriad of ways.
This news follows hot on the heels of the consultation document on the future of Ordnance Survey data which promises to make more high quality map resources far more widely available. So in addition to having access to government data such as crime, education and health statistics, we will soon (assuming the consultation goes the way it ought to) have access to basemaps to plot it all on and administrative area boundaries to analyse by.
Posted in Archaeological Computing, heritage, Research interests
Tagged Archaeology, CIDOC CRM, data, HER, heritage, Linked Data, local authority, NMR, OASIS, ontology, semantic web, semantics
Last orders…?
This week, the government announced a cunning plan to reduce binge drink and related social problems: make alcohol more expensive. Now that truly is cunning, almost worthy of Baldrick himself. Continue reading



