In the session the question will be discussed how data from the public sector is generated and made publicly available. Very often, cumbersome processes are in place until finally data (e. g. from official statistics) reach Wikipeda. Often this is done through publication in Open Government Data portals and voluntary efforts to add official data as source in Wikidata. In the talk, a redesign of the ecosystem of how public sector data is generated, distributed and made available will be presented, facilitating Semantic MediaWiki as data tool. The relation to Wikidata/Wikibase, Open Governmen Data portals and official statistics will be discussed.

1. www.kdz.or.atwww.kdz.or.at
August 17th, 2019
Bernhard Krabina
Rethinking public sector data
ecosystems -
Open Government Data, Semantic MediaWiki and Wikidata

2. www.kdz.or.at
Introduction
 KDZ – Centre for Public
Administration Research
 Open (Government) Data
 Semantic MediaWiki
17. August 2019 · Seite 2

3. www.kdz.or.at
Open Data – a short introduction
 Open Government Data means data from the public
sector that is published for everybody to use
without restrictions
 Several Open Government Initiatives exist on
municipal, regional and federal level
 The European Data portal collects information about
metadata published by member states
 So you need:
 metadata describing the data (type, format, license…) -> data.gv.at
 a place where you can actually retrieve the data -> URL
 Very often open data is the source for
Wikidata/Wikipedia
17. August 2019 · Seite 3

4. www.kdz.or.at
Semantic MediaWiki – a short
introduction
 „Older sibling“ of Wikidata
 Ecosystem of extensions around managing
data in your own MediaWiki
 Enterprise ready, used in many large wikis
(open or closed) outside of WMF
 Commercial support available
 SMW installations can be datasource for
Wikidata
17. August 2019 · Seite 4

5. www.kdz.or.at
The problem:
We live in the age of
big data…
17. August 2019 · Seite 5
…but still a lot of data is
missing, closed or old,
especially data from „official“
sources (public sector data)

6. www.kdz.or.at
Examples for data needed to
monitor SDGs (on local level)
 Children in child care facilities (SDG 4)
 Number of male/female officials /public
servants (SDG 5)
 Expenditure for renewable engergy (SDG 7)
 Quality of housing (SDG 10)
 Public parks (SDG 11)
 Amount of waste managed (SDG 12)
 Bike routes (SDG 13)
 …
17. August 2019 · Seite 6

7. www.kdz.or.at
Example: Modal split
17. August 2019 · Seite 7

8. www.kdz.or.at
Example: Modal split
17. August 2019 · Seite 8
 Wikidata: entity, but no data
 Nothing in Wikipedia city articles
 Manual list in article „Modal share“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_Split

9. www.kdz.or.at
Example: Modal split
17. August 2019 · Seite 9
 Data from 2006, 2016 and 2006 in
 Nothing in Open Data Portals
 Nothing at Statistics Austria

10. www.kdz.or.at
Data ecosystems: central register
Example: inhabitants
17. August 2019 · Seite 10
 Cities register new residents in a central
database (ZMR)
 ZMR delivers data quarterly to Statistics Austria
 Some cities publish their own statistics on open
data portals (data.gv.at)
 data has to be added to Wikidata manually

11. www.kdz.or.at
Possible solution: API, open data
 City delivers data to central register
 register offers (part of) data in API
 Statistics Austria, open data portal and
other users (Wikidata) can access data
 Probability: somewhat likely
17. August 2019 · Seite 11

12. www.kdz.or.at
Data ecosystems: finances
17. August 2019 · Seite 12
03/2019 (data from 2018) 10/2019
 City agrees on spending report and send spending data
to regional government
 Regional government sends data to Statistics Austria
 KDZ buys data from Statistics Austria and publishes
them on www.offenerhaushalt.at
 Metadata gets delivered to open data portal (data.gv.at)

13. www.kdz.or.at
Possible solution: publish often
 City delivers data several times
 Probability:
 high for open data (already done)
 unlikely for Wikidata: (not going to happen!)
17. August 2019 · Seite 13
mandatory
voluntary
voluntary (?)

14. www.kdz.or.at
Possible solution:
municipal data infrastructure
 Cities operate a data infrastructure with
data input and API/export possibilities
 data can be exported to/consumed by many
 probability: likely for some data
17. August 2019 · Seite 14

15. www.kdz.or.at
Example: Publication
„Austrian Cities in Figures“
17. August 2019 · Seite 15
3 data sources
 Statistics Austria
 regional governments
 questionnaire for participating
municipalities

16. www.kdz.or.at
Example: Publication
„Austrian Cities in Figures“
17. August 2019 · Seite 16

17. www.kdz.or.at
Example: Publication
„Austrian Cities in Figures“
17. August 2019 · Seite 17

18. www.kdz.or.at
Result: „Austrian Cities in Figures“

 only PDF publication is
planned
 ~ 75 cities are included
(2098 municipalities)
 data from 2018 will be
published in the document
„Cities in Figures 2019“ that
will be available in early 2020
 Data will not be available
electronically
 No open license

 SMW has proven to be a
reliable infrastructure
 Easy form based entering
of data
 Own publication process
„approve data“, without
wiki know-how
 CSV, RDF, JSON export
for reuse oft data
 Visualisation options
(“result formats”)
17. August 2019 · Seite 18

19. www.kdz.or.at
How to improve the situation:
Basic steps
1. Convince public institutions to open up data
you need: open license, machine-readable
format & infrastructure
2. Publish metadata on open data portals
infrastructure is there, DCAT-AP
3. Put (some of) their data into Wikidata – as
an additional usecase
17. August 2019 · Seite 19

20. www.kdz.or.at
How to improve the situation:
Things to consider
If they need to build an open infrastructure,
there are 3 options:
1. Open up existing infrastructure (API) 
2. Change to different infrastructure 
3. Donate to open infrastructure (Wikidata,
Commons) 
4. Build up open infrastructure 
17. August 2019 · Seite 20

21. www.kdz.or.at
Options?
 Man use case: runs
Wikidata
 Complex installation
 User interface for
entering and querying
data too complex
 Where provenance
metadata is essential
 For integration with
Wikibase
 Main use case: manage
data in your own wiki
 Simple editing using
forms
 Editing restricted to
specific user groupos
 Managing text and data
 https://www.semantic-
mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Refere
nce_and_provenance_data
17. August 2019 · Seite 21

22. www.kdz.or.at
More by Denny Vrandecic
17. August 2019 · Seite 22
https://twitter.com/vrandezo/status/1149012495497138178

23. www.kdz.or.at
Lets work together on bringing
the best data out of public
institutions so everyone can use
them as simple as possible!
17. August 2019 · Seite 23
 Current data ecosystems are very complex,
cumbersome and old-fashioned and
therefore slow
 There is not enough open data available
Summary

24. www.kdz.or.at
Contact:
www.semantic-mediawiki.org
4. Oktober 2012 · Seite 24
Bernhard Krabina
 krabina@kdz.or.at
 www.kdz.or.at
 @krabina