Three years ago, several pioneering members of the data.gov.uk data transparency effort looked to the Web’s standards organization, the W3C, to help charter a working group to provide standards and other information to help governments around the world publish their data as effective and usable Linked Data.

The Government Linked Data working group, a part of the eGovernment Activity and closely connected with the Semantic Web Activity, has collected and is making available information about government Linked Data activities around the world. It has used that information and the experience of its participants to develop W3C Recommendations for Best Practices and for RDF Vocabularies necessary for publication of government data as Linked Data.

The W3C Government Linked Data working group is comprised of over 60 group participants, of which more than 20 are active members who meet weekly and are predominantly from Europe. A third of the members are from commercial firms, a third from research / academic institutions and the balance from federal, central government and non-profit organizations (see: http://dir.w3.org/rdf/2012/directory/statistics.xhtml?view). Collectively, the members are involved in government open data projects publishing content of global relevance.

This presentation will highlight the progress of this working group as the charter draws to a close in May 2013. We’ll describe:

1. The progress of the W3C Government Linked Data working group to date;
2. Highlight the Community Directory, Best Practices and Standard Vocabularies; and
3. Describe first steps that government authorities can take to start publishing 4 and 5star linked data to the Web of Data.