Present year 2017 is very promising for starting new era of Slovak public data. After many proposals, discussions and verifications, the concept of linked data shown very promising addressability to current problems of Slovak public data, such as usability of different data models and different data identifiers. This year, more key national linked data standards, such as the Central ontological model of Slovak public data, the Methodology of public URI creation and others were approved under the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office for Investments and Informatization of the Slovak Republic. However, the key success factor will relay more on effective process of ontologies governance and management than on ontologies perfection. So, this work presents an approach to implementation of the Methodology and tools for Metadata Governance and Management for EU Institutions and Member States adapted for Slovak conditions.
The usability of Slovak public data is still far from effective. One of the key problem is that the data are annotated only with semi-formal Data Catalog Vocabulary (KDP), which is a vocabulary specified and used only in textual form. Hence, machine processing and data validation is not possible. Therefore, almost every public administration information system and also every public service uses different data model and different data identifiers. Finally, the metadata governance and management of Slovak public data is very inoperative process. It suits more to ad-hoc software suppliers requirements (development first, standardization later), than to the contrary, hence the level of data interoperability is very low.
However, the new National Concept of Public Administration Informatization in Slovak Republic provides great opportunity to address mentioned problems. This year, five key milestones were achieved. On March 2, the Strategic priority – Data management [1] was approved, which defines strategic goals to improve data and metadata management based on ontologies and URIs. On May 17, the Checklist for new feasibility studies of public administration systems was approved, which verifies declarative usability of central ontological model of public data and government URIs in development process. Finally, on May 30, the Data standardization Work-group (PS1) approved the Methodology for public URI creation [3], the Central Ontological Model of Slovak Public Data [4] and set of 600 URIs which represent selected key resources (elements) [5].
Nevertheless, this all achievements constitute only promising start of new era of Slovak public data. It is obvious, that this linked data approach will be functional and beneficial not only if the ontologies will be perfectly specified and aligned with recommended ontologies from ISA2 or W3C. The crucial success factor will depend on how the overall process of data and metadata governance and management will be established.
This work presents the application of the Methodology and tools for Metadata Governance and Management for EU Institutions and Member States [6] adapted for Slovak conditions. First, the proposal for Slovak metadata governance (i.e. central ontological model) is presented such as scope determination, setup of governance structure, decision mechanisms and others. Second part is adaptation and specialization of metadata management with focus on metadata management life cycle.
[1] http://informatizacia.sk/ext_dok-uppvii_sp_manazment_udajov_vfinal/24196c
[2] https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=8B44120B4E993588!893&authkey=!ANJmr8CLZkF8OOs&ithint=file%2cdocx
[3] https://wiki.finance.gov.sk/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=16416826
[4] https://wiki.finance.gov.sk/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=21168495
[5] https://metais.finance.gov.sk/standardization/draftdetail/720
[6] https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/site/core_vocabularies/governance_and_management_of_structural_metadata/Methodology-and-tools-for-Structural-Metadata-Management-and-Governance-for-EU-Institutions-and-Member-States_v1.00.pdf
Miroslav Líška received the M.S. degree in informatics from the Technical University in Košice, Slovakia in 2002, and the PhD. degree in software and information systems from the Institute of Informatics and Software Engineering, Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava in 2010. His interests include semantic web, ontologies, software process engineering and semantic enterprise architectures. He is a co-author of several linked data standards for Slovak public data such as: the Central Ontological Model of Slovak Public Data (2017), the Methodology for Slovak Public URI Creation (2017), the National Strategic Priority – Data Management (2017) and many others. He is married and has two sons.
