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Ruben Verborgh

Free Your Metadata: Inexpensive, Straightforward Linked Data

Ruben Verborgh, Seth van Hooland, Max De Wilde, Erik Mannens, and Rik Van de Walle

Publishing legacy data as Linked Data is too technical for most people, so this process needs expensive IT consulting. This high cost, balanced against sometimes underestimated benefits, might hold back governments from publishing Linked Data. To cut back on these costs, we illustrate how people with a non-technical background can use Google Refine to link their data to the Linked Data Cloud. Our straightforward method involves three steps: cleaning, reconciliation, and linking. In tests with several large data sets, over 80% of records could be connected to the Semantic Web in an almost automated process. In the end, the data set is in far better shape to either publish directly on the Web, or to pass to a higher level of processing, which will now be far less expensive. This way, we provide a substantial amount of enhancements that non-experts can perform on their own data, facilitating publication of Linked Data. Our belief is that, given the right tools, Linked Open Government Data can become a realistic goal even under tight schedules and limited budgets.

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Published in 2011 in Open Government Data Camp.

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Cite this article easily using its BibTeX entry: 

@inproceedings{verborgh_ogdcamp_2011,
  title = {{Free Your Metadata:} Inexpensive, Straightforward {Linked Data}},
  author = {Verborgh, Ruben and van Hooland, Seth and De Wilde, Max and Mannens, Erik and Van de Walle, Rik},
  booktitle = {Open Government Data Camp},
  year = 2011,
  month = oct,
  url = {https://biblio.ugent.be/input/download?func=downloadFile&fileOId=1964775&recordOId=1964763},
}

Alternatively, pick a reference of your choice below:

ACM
Ruben Verborgh, Seth van Hooland, Max De Wilde, Erik Mannens, and Rik Van de Walle. 2011. Free Your Metadata: Inexpensive, Straightforward Linked Data. In Open Government Data Camp.
APA
Verborgh, R., van Hooland, S., De Wilde, M., Mannens, E., & Van de Walle, R. (2011, October). Free Your Metadata: Inexpensive, Straightforward Linked Data. Open Government Data Camp.
IEEE
R. Verborgh, S. van Hooland, M. De Wilde, E. Mannens, and R. Van de Walle, “Free Your Metadata: Inexpensive, Straightforward Linked Data,” in Open Government Data Camp, 2011.
LNCS
Verborgh, R., van Hooland, S., De Wilde, M., Mannens, E., Van de Walle, R.: Free Your Metadata: Inexpensive, Straightforward Linked Data. In: Open Government Data Camp (2011).
MLA
Verborgh, Ruben, et al. “Free Your Metadata: Inexpensive, Straightforward Linked Data.” Open Government Data Camp, 2011.

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