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Resource Description Framework

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Tim L edited this page Jul 17, 2014 · 8 revisions

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is the "file format" of Linked Data. It is also more than "just" a file format, it is also a paradigm for designing information models that live in the Web. So, it's pretty powerful stuff. This page tries to point someone new to RDF and Linked Data to some key materials to get up and running quickly.

  • The RDF primer was updated recently and is worth a look.

  • See Tim Berners-Lee's seminal discussion for the core principles.

  • Heath and Bizer's Linked Data Book is also a good introduction, and is free online.

  • http://5stardata.info outlines the "5 star" rating system for data representation, and outlines pros/cons for materials within each rating. Once you start using RDF, you get your fourth star. To get a fifth, just include links to other data sites' URIs. It works just like the Web...

See our book chapter Producing and Using Linked Open Government Data in the TWC LOGD Portal to see how we use SDV Organization to organize and curate third party data into a single Linked Data source. This methodology evolved into a more general workflow and data organization paradigm that I call "Situated Computation".

Also, see how we're using Linked Data to enable Content-Preserving Graphics, a technique to avoid "killing data" each time it gets visualized.

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