Australian Government Linked Data Working Group

Governance

The AGLDWG manages resources which help govern Linked Data resources for Australia, in particular the Internet domain linked.data.gov.au which provides persistent URIs (PID URIs) for Linked Data resources.

Use of linked.data.gov.au

The AGLDWG can create URIs - web addresses - using linked.data.gov.au that redirect to things published by Australian government. These URIs, because they use a redirection system and can be edited, enable the same web addresses to be used for a resource changes to the system that deliver that resource. Such change inevitably happens over time as technology changes. Also, because linked.data.gov.au isn't tied to a particular department, it is somewhat immune to Machinery of Government changes that might change normal government-issued departmental or functional domains.

Stability of the domain

In 2017 and 2018, the AGLDWG established a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between several Australian Federal government agencies to reserve the use of linked.data.gov.au for PID URIs and to ensure that no changes are to be made to that domain without wide consultation. That MoU is now in place. The signed MoU document is here:

• MoU regarding the use of linked.data.gov.au

In late 2018, the AGLDWG may seek to further strengthen the agreements around the use of this domain within Australian government.

Legacy PID domains

The group also manages some legacy domains previously used to create PID URIs: environment.data.gov.au & reference.data.gov.au. We also maintain http://lab.environment.data.gov.au which is the PID URI for the ACORN-SAT project's output, an early Linked Data demonstrator.

We will continue to maintain the redirection of URIs created using these domains indefinitely however we will not be allocating new PID URIs using them.

PID URI Allocations

We can allocate linked.data.gov.au-based PID URIs for Linked Data resources as long as they meet certain criteria. Those criteria are defined in our:

• URI Guidelines

In addition to meeting Guidelines criteria, requesters of PID URIs will need to lodge requests in, and follow the steps of using, our PID Allocations Catalogue:

• catalogue.linked.data.gov.au

Note that the information here will only be corrected and fully in effect if approved by the Group at the 2018 AGM on the 2nd of August.

References

[1] International Organization for Standardization / International Electrotechnical Commission "ISO/IEC 11179, Information Technology -- Metadata registries (MDR)", standard. http://metadata-standards.org/11179/, accessed 2018-06-07.