Vassilios Peristeras

1. SEMANTIC INTEROPERABILITY
FOR PUBLIC SERVICES:
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
ISA2 PROGRAMME
Dr. Vassilios Peristeras: vassilios.peristeras@ec.europa.eu
European Commission, DG Informatics, ISA² Programme

2. Intro: Digital Single Market - ISA2 – EIF
Data (aka Semantic) Standards
Semantic Standards in ISA2

3. The ISA2 Programme
Duration: 2016 – 2020
Budget: 130ME

4. Digital Single Market
4
Adoption of a Priority ICT Standards Plan
and extending the
European Interoperability Framework
for public services

5. The Interoperability Layers
From the revised European Interoperability Framework, draft version

6. EIF Information
Interoperability
6
Recommendation 44.
Public administrations should perceive data and information as a public asset which should
be appropriately generated/collected, managed, shared, protected and preserved.
Recommendation 45.
Public administrations should put in place an information management strategy at the
higher possible level to avoid fragmentation and duplication. Metadata, master data and
reference data management should be prioritised.
Recommendation 43.
Publish open data in machine-readable, non-proprietary formats. Ensure that open data are
accompanied by high quality, machine-readable meta-data in non-proprietary formats, including a
description of their content, the way data are collected and its level of quality and the licence terms
under which it is made available. The use of common vocabularies for expressing metadata is
recommended.

7. Intro: Digital Single Market - ISA2 – EIF
Data (aka Semantic) Standards
Semantic Standards in ISA2

8. How do we achieve technical
interoperability?
Semantic Standards

9. Semantic Standards

10. We need universal data standards
in a similar way
we need (and use) universal technology
standards
Semantic Standards

11. Data (aka semantic) standards:
Social agreements on how we describe the world
Semantic Standards

12. Data standards suffer from domain
and country-based fragmentation
Semantic Standards

13. Moving from…
• Close-world systems design
o I know all my clients and their information
requirements
- Island IT design
towards…
• Open-world, data-driven systems
design
o I don’t know who and how in the future will
use my data
- Design based on data standards
Semantic Standards

14. Intro: Digital Single Market - ISA2 – EIF
Data (aka Semantic) Standards
Semantic Standards in ISA

15. Making visible existing
standards
Semantic standards in ISA2

16. 16
How could we promote the reuse of existing data (semantic)
standards at the European level?
… by agreeing on a common language (template) to
describe semantic standards
… creating a yellow page infrastructure with
standards descriptions and links to the actual
standards
Semantic standards in ISA2

17. 17
Participant Profiles
Who is already sharing?
4 2 par t ner or ganisat ions
11 Member States
8 European Institutions
4 standardisation organisations
8 other stakeholders
= mor e t han 2 3 00 int er oper abilit y solut ions
9 Federated Forges
42 partner organisations
+ many individual contributors
= more than 2000 interoperability solutions
15 Member States
8 European Institutions
4 standardisation organisations
8 other stakeholders
9 Federated Forges
Semantic standards in ISA2

18. Making visible existing
standards
Establishing agreements
on basic semantics
Semantic standards in ISA2

19. What has been discovered over the years is that there are a number of
(information) structures that are universal and applicable to all kinds of
organizations, both private and public. There are four fundamental categories:
People and Organizations, Geography, Physical Resources and Activities and
Events.
David Hay, Describing the World: Data Patterns
“ “
Semantic standards in ISA2

20. Agreeing on conceptual models of core data entities
The ISA Core Vocabularies
CORE
VOCABULARY
PUBLIC
SERVICE
[1] https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/core_vocabularies/description
The Core Vocabularies are simplified, re-usable and extensible
data models that capture the fundamental characteristics of a
data entity in a context-neutral and syntax-neutral fashion [1]
“ “
20
REGISTERED
VOCABULARY
ORGANIZATION
Semantic standards in ISA2

21. The ISA Core Vocabularies
The Core Vocabularies are simplified, re-usable and extensible
data models that capture the fundamental characteristics of a
data entity in a context-neutral and syntax-neutral fashion [1]
“ “
21
Semantic standards in ISA2

22. Making visible existing
standards
Establishing agreements
on basic semantics
Improving interoperability
of open data
Semantic standards in ISA2

23. The DCAT Application profile (DCAT-AP) is a common
template to describe public sector datasets and data
catalogs
APPLICATION
PROFILE FOR
EUROPEAN
DATA PORTALS
DCAT
• DCAT-AP v1.1 published in October 2015
• GEO/DCAT-AP published in December 2015
• STAT/DCAT-AP is under development, expected Q4 2016
Semantic standards in ISA2

24. Implementation of DCAT-AP
Examples of European/National data portals provide metadata export:
• European Data Portal (https://www.europeandataportal.eu/)
• The Dutch Open Data Portal (https://data.overheid.nl)
• The Brussels Open Data Portal (http://opendata.brussels.be)
• The Flemish Open Data Portal (http://opendataforum.info)
• Swedish national data portal (http://oppnadata.se/)
• Norwegian Open Data Portal (http://spec.dataportals.org/)
• The Spanish Open Data Portal (http://www.datos.gob.es)
• ...
24
Semantic standards in ISA2

25. Making visible existing
standards
Establishing agreements
on basic semantics
Improving interoperability
of open data
Raising awareness on semantic
interoperability and metadata
management
Communities Studies Visits
Semantic standards in ISA2

26. Join the SEMIC group on LinkedIn
Follow @SEMICeu on Twitter
Join the SEMIC community on Joinup
Vassilios.Peristeras@ec.europa.eu
Get involvedVisit our initiatives
ADMS.
SW
CORE
VOCABULARY
PUBLIC
SERVICE
REGISTERED
VOCABULARY
ORGANIZATION
SEMANTIC INTEROPERABILITY FOR
PUBLIC SERVICES:
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION ISA2
PROGRAMME

27. Visit ec.europa.eu/sr-awards
Sharing & Reuse Awards
Showcase your success,
take part!
Apply by 28 October 2016
Prizes up to €15 000
An ISA2 programme initiative
Contest for IT solutions in public administration