The European Data Portal: Opening up Europe’s public data data.europa.eu/europeandataportal it available in the first place? What we do And in what domains, or A third of European across domains and across More and more volumes of countries are leading the countries? Also in what data are published every day, way with solid policies, language should the data be every hour, every minute, every licensing norms, good available? second. In every domain. portal traffic and many local Across every geography, small initiatives and events Value focuses on purpose, or big. The amount of data re-use and economic gains of across the world is increasing Open Data. Is there a societal exponentially. A substantial gain? Or perhaps a demo- amount of this data is cratic gain? How many new collected by governments. Public Sector Information jobs are created? What is the is information held by the critical mass? Value is there. The European Data Portal public sector. The EU Directive The question is how big? harvests the metadata on the re-use of Public (data about the data) of Sector Information provides Public Sector Information a common legal framework The Portal available on public data and for a European market for geospatial portals across government-held data. It is The first official version of European countries. Portals built around the key pillars of the European Data Portal is can be national, regional, the internal market: free flow available since February 2016. local or domain specific. of data, transparency and fair Within the Portal, sections are They cover the EU Member competition. It is important to dedicated to: States, EFTA countries and note that not all of the Public countries involved in the EU’s Sector Information is Open Searching data sets: neighbourhood policy. Data. Categories have been established to structure the Open (Government) Data The launch of the European metadata harvested. refers to the information Data Portal is one of the collected, produced or paid key steps the European Providing Data: for by the public bodies (also Commis-sion is taking to Insights into understanding referred to as Public Sector support the access to public Open Data from the Information) and made freely data. Beyond making data perspective of a data provider. available for re-use for any across Europe accessible, the Using Data: purpose. Associated data Portal addresses the whole How Open Data is being licences specify the terms of data value chain: from data used, as well as the economic use. publishing to data re-use. benefits of Open Data. The strategic objective of the European Data Portal project Training and Library: is to address the Accessibility eLearning modules about For the period 2016-2020, and the Value of Open Data. Open Data as well as training the market size for Open guides and a knowledge base. Accessibility deals with Data is estimated at 325 questions like how to access bn EUR information about data and where to find it? How to make of many European countries. Searching data sets However, this is only a first The European Data Portal step. The key is to maximise The first version of the the re-use. There are four European Data Portal has over supports organisations in improving their publishing important steps before Open half a million metadata sets. Data can be re-used. To browse these data sets practices easily, categories have been The use of Open Data can established to structure the add value to people’s activities metadata. in various ways. Therefore, There are two main the first step is to define the The categorisation is based on approaches to harvesting purpose to which someone the Data Catalogue vocabulary additional metadata. First, wants to use Open Data. application profile (DCAT- owners of a data portal can fill AP) for describing public in a request to be harvested When the purpose of the sector datasets in Europe. by the European Data Portal. use of Open Data is defined The EuroVoc multilingual If the data holder meets the and the data set that fits multidisciplinary thesaurus, requirements (content and the users’ needs is found, covering the activities of the technical), the metadata can the openness of the data European Union, is used to be harvested and placed on needs to be checked. Users ensure an accurate multilingual the Portal. should make sure a licence is mapping. available, allowing the re-use Secondly, data holders that do of the data in the intended Providing data not yet share data can start way, e.g. commercial re-use publishing data. To support The initial content of the is allowed when developing a these organisations on their commercial application. European Data Portal path to ‘open by default’, the has been collected by Open Data Goldbook for Data After deciding that a specific harvesting national public Managers was created. data set is exactly what is data and geospatial portals. needed, the next step is to Progressively, additional local The Goldbook is a summary select the right file format. and domain specific portals of all what is needed to Most data sets can be will be harvested. successfully implement an downloaded in different file Open Data initiative within an formats. Based on ones’ organisation. The Goldbook skills and needs, the most covers basic organisational, appropriate file type can be technical and day-to-day chosen. Data challenges related to Open Re-users Data; from terminology to A final step is to check the processes, implementation to quality of the data. The data execution. might need to be curated to avoid duplicates or to see if European Using data information is missing. It is Data Data Portal also important to look at when Supplier the data is last updated. The European Data Portal will provide access to data By following these four it is changing the lives of The Library offers a central steps, one can start using everyone on our planet. access point to material data to create value. The training is designed to on and around Open be as practical as possible, Data. Material from many Define your purpose so that trainees not only European funded projects is gain knowledge about the made available in the Library. Check the licence most up-to-date techniques Also, all Open Data news and best practices but also items posted on the Portal Choose file format learn how to best apply are archived here. This that knowledge in their daily section of the Portal will Control the quality activities. grow over time, as more and more material is added. The offered eLearning modules differ in depth of Training and Library content. The first modules More than a Portal focus on general questions, Not everyone will be equally such as ‘what is data?’ A substantial part of the experienced in using Open and ‘how does Open Data European Data Portal Data. Some will not know lead to change?’ Further project is the creation of the what Open Data is. Others modules deal with more Portal. But the Portal is more will already use Open Data advanced technical details than just a repository for like data networks. on a daily basis. To bridge metadata. this gap, the European The learning section is Data Portal hosts a Training Beyond making data across divided into the following Europe accessible, the and Library section. In the subjects: learning section, thirteen Portal addresses the whole data value chain: from data eLearning modules are • What is Open Data? publishing to data re-use. available. In the Library, a • Unlocking value from growing archive of Open Open Data A series of support activities Data material, news and • Open Data. Agent of are designed to encourage other interesting readings the countries in publishing Change is stored and made easily more data. In addition, available. • Why do we need to the re-use of public data license? resources is encouraged, The Training section is an • Assessing Open Data as this will drive economic interactive online learning quality benefits and innovation. environment. Training has proven a vital step in • Measuring success Determining the state of providing the necessary • Sustainability play in Europe support to increase the • Open Data platforms The European Commission release of data sets. • Open Data formats wants to support the publis- How usable is my data? Our eLearning programme • hing, the access and the re- has been designed to • Cleaning Open Data use of public data in Europe. enable everyone to discover • Finding hidden data However, the way Open what Open Data is and how • Linking up the web of data Data is published and re-used differs across Creating economic value size, number of jobs Europe. created, public sector cost The use of Open Data yields savings, and efficiency Understanding these many benefits. Performance gains. differences will help the can be enhanced by Open European Commission to Data and contribute to For 2016, the direct market decide where to provide improving the efficiency of size of Open Data is common support activities, public services. Greater expected to be 55.3 bn EUR and where to offer further efficiency in processes and for the EU 28+. Between specialised training and delivery of public services 2016 and 2020, the market coaching assistance. can be achieved thanks size is expected to increase to cross-sector sharing with another 36.9%, to a Therefore, part of the of data, which can for value of 75.7 bn EUR in European Data Portal example reveal and avoid 2020. The number of jobs project is about determining unnecessary spending. is forecasted to grow at the state of play of Open an average rate of 7.3%, Data in Europe.