The Linking Open Data dataset cloud by Fenng

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.

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