2.5: Interfaces
Expose interfaces. Other Information:
If you really want to help people discover and explore the data you are publishing, there are some useful W3C standards which
can help. It is possible to make data human-readable by using XSLT for XML- and RDF-based formats. Make web pages machine-readable
by embedding semantic information in the HTML, using RDFa and/or Microformats. (Note that search engines can take advantage
of embedded semantic information, helping more people to find your data.) If it is too difficult to append XSL or CSS styles
to old data, it is still possible to document how to transform the data with a specific or generic XSLT engines (for example,
see http://www.xmldatasets.net). External parties can create new and exciting interfaces that may not be obvious to the data
publishers. For that reason, do not compromise the integrity of the data to create flashy interfaces. If you must create an
interface, then publish the data separate from the interface, and ensure external parties have direct access to the raw data,
so they can build their own interfaces if they wish. Additionally, since all web documents using (X)HTML, XML and RDF can
be used as an object database or ReSTful API, the public can create software, Web applications and mash-ups that use the datasets,
and link back to the authoritative version on the government web site. Two W3C standard languages that make that possible
are XQuery and SPARQL. Once your data is published, governments themselves can also create a user-friendly, transparent interface
that allows users to play with and refine the information in which they are interested.
Indicator(s):
|
