SDMX and RDF: Getting Acquainted

SDMX
SDMX (Statistical data and metadata exchange) is a widely accepted standard for communicating data  in the realm of official statistics.
‘SDMX is an initiative to foster standards for the exchange of statistical information. Sponsored by BIS – ECB – EUROSTAT – IMF – OECD – UN – World Bank.’
More and more applications accept and [...]

ReadWriteWeb Interview With Tim Berners-Lee, Part 1: Linked Data

Written by Richard MacManus / July 8, 2009 6:00 AM / 8 Comments
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How Linked Data Relates to The Semantic Web
RWW: Earlier this year you gave an inspiring talk at TED about Linked Data. You described Linked Data as a sea change akin to the [...]

Eurostat Data Explorer (beta version)

The Data Explorer aims at providing an easy to use interface for the extraction of statistical data from the Eurostat databases. 
Please note that it is still a beta version with possibly a few remaining technical problems, the need for some more performance optimization as well as a few missing functionalities that will be added before [...]

Video of OECD-Statistics Sweden Seminar 26-27 May 2008 is ready

Starting with opening speeches of Kjell Jansson, Director General of Statistics Sweden and Enrico Giovannini, Chief Statistician of OECD. Powerpoint-presentations are found at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/30/32/40293021.pdf

Wired: Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Science Data

The following is an extract from Wired Magazine Blog. It may show some light on plans from Google regarding statistical data storage and visualisation of interest for the statistical community and official statistics:

By Alexis Madrigal January 18, 2008 | 2:23:21 PMCategories: Dataset, Research

Sources at Google have disclosed that the humble domain, http://research.google.com, will soon [...]

Freely available …..

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) is developing the freely accessible UN-data portal, http://data.un.org .
Some information out of their announcement: “This portal is designed to bring the rich data resources of the entire United Nations System to the fingertips of users around the world, by offering a single web-based access point. … [...]

RDF in action

RDF and Dublin Core are standards in describing content and helping to create The Semantic Web (see earlier post).

Webpages and digital assets (like documents, images, Emails ..) can carry metadata in this format.

These metadata are inserted by hand (human work) or extracted by software tools (RDFizers). So large databases with [...]

PC-Axis and Gapminder?

See http://www.pc-axis.scb.se
PC-Axis and PX-Web are software used in several countries for dissemination of official statistics. PC-Axis is a windows browser and PX-Web is for the Web and both are based on the PC-Axis file format. The PC-Axis file format is very meta data rich and should be a nice way to forward statistics into the Gapminder/Google/Trendalyzer. [...]

The semantic Web – An old dream

The discussion about the intelligent web that makes searching easy and successful is really not a new one. A short “history” in: Nova Spivacks weblog

 
“Some are focused on creating a vast new structure to supplant the existing Web” (John Markoff, see here)
There are already some tools and standards. A good overview to this supplanting structure:
The [...]

Web 3.0 – From a Web of connected documents to a Web of connected data

1, 2, 3 – a new Web paradigm emerges: Web 3.0 – The Semantic Web, The Intelligent Web.
What’s this about? Some hints:
 
Nova Spivack, November 12, 2006 in kurzweilAI.net
“Web 3.0, a phrase coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006, refers to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services that collectively comprise [...]

Good news from Google for searching statistics

Yesterday, Google was launching the Google Custom Search Engine, a new way to bring tailored search to websites and blogs.
Google  engineers have found a way to open up the Google search platform to let anyone build their own search engine, without needing a Ph.D. in computer science. In just minutes anyone can use the Google search platform [...]

Discovery or descriptive metadata

In Sigma 1/2006 the article of Annegrete Wulff about user orientation of Statistics Denmark deals with a question worth to be discussed in detail. She says: “We have realised that a good search facility is crucial as many people are not confident with the way a statistical office structures information. To many users, this means [...]