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The origin of Linked Data

The concept of linked data was coined in 2006 by Tim Berners-Lee when discussing the Semantic Web

Linked data is a standard method of publishing structured data by using vocabularies that can be connected and interpreted by machines. The term was coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 2006 where he talked about the Semantic Web project based on the concept of linked data.

In 2006, he outlined four principles of linked data.

  1. Use a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to name (identify) things, or data.
  2. Use Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) URIs so that these things can be looked up or interpreted.
  3. Provide information about what a name identifies when it is looked up using open standards such as RDF or SPARQL, for example.
  4. Finally, refer to other things using their HTTP URI-based names when publishing data on the Web.

Looking for more open data related news? Visit the European Data Portal news archive and follow the EDP via mail, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Also, keep an eye out for the EDP's feature highlight series that will discuss Linked Data, Linked Data Vocabularies, DCAT and DCAT-AP, the technical details behind DCAT and DCAT-AP, and how EDP validates DCAT-AP.

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