Skip to main content
View expanded cover

International Conference on Web Engineering

ICWE 2018: Web Engineering pp 433–447Cite as

OpenBudgets.eu: A Platform for Semantically Representing and Analyzing Open Fiscal Data

Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNISA,volume 10845)

Abstract

Budget and spending data are among the most published Open Data datasets on the Web and continuously increasing in terms of volume over time. These datasets tend to be published in large tabular files – without predefined standards – and require complex domain and technical expertise to be used in real-world scenarios. Therefore, the potential benefits of having these datasets open and publicly available are hindered by their complexity and heterogeneity. Linked Data principles can facilitate integration, analysis and usage of these datasets. In this paper, we present OpenBudgets.eu (OBEU), a Linked Data -based platform supporting the entire open data life-cycle of budget and spending datasets: from data creation to publishing and exploration. The platform is based on a set of requirements specifically collected by experts in the budget and spending data domain. It follows a micro-services architecture that easily integrates many different software modules and tools for analysis, visualization and transformation of data. Data is represented according to a logical model for open fiscal data which is translated into both RDF data and a tabular data formats. We demonstrate the validity of the implemented OBEU platform with real application scenarios and report on a user study conducted to confirm its usability.

Keywords

  • Fiscal Data
  • Spending Data
  • Microservice Architecture
  • Participatory Budgeting
  • Open Data Architecture

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-91662-0_35
  • Chapter length: 15 pages
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
eBook
USD   64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • ISBN: 978-3-319-91662-0
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
Softcover Book
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Learn about institutional subscriptions
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 6.

Notes

  1. 1.

    www.openbudgets.eu.

  2. 2.

    https://www.w3.org/standards/techs/egov#w3c_all.

  3. 3.

    https://github.com/fathoni/icwe-2018-openbudgets-supplement.

  4. 4.

    https://github.com/openspending/os-packager.

  5. 5.

    https://github.com/openspending/os-viewer.

  6. 6.

    https://github.com/shurkhovetskyy/obeu-vis.

  7. 7.

    https://github.com/okgreece/RDFBrowser.

  8. 8.

    https://github.com/okgreece/KPIs.

  9. 9.

    https://github.com/openbudgets/integration.

  10. 10.

    https://github.com/fathoni/icwe-2018-openbudgets-supplement.

  11. 11.

    http://kpi.okfn.gr/.

  12. 12.

    https://goo.gl/Kqkbc6.

  13. 13.

    https://openspending.org/.

  14. 14.

    https://docs.openspending.org/en/latest/developers.

  15. 15.

    https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-data-cube/.

  16. 16.

    http://cubeviz.aksw.org/.

  17. 17.

    https://socrata.com/.

  18. 18.

    http://www.junar.com/index9ed2.html?lang=en.

  19. 19.

    https://opengov.com/.

  20. 20.

    https://www.wikibudgets.org/.

References

  1. Attard, J., Orlandi, F., Scerri, S., Auer, S.: A systematic review of open government data initiatives. Gov. Inf. Q. 32(4), 399–418 (2015)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  2. Tim Berners-Lee. Linked data - design issues (2010). https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

  3. Dudáš, M., Klímek, J., Kučera, J., Mynarz, J., Sedmihradská, L., Zbranek, J., Seeger, B.: The openbudgets data model and the surrounding landscape (2016). http://openbudgets.eu/assets/deliverables/D7.7.pdf

  4. Gökgöz, F., Auer, S., Takis, J.: D4.2: Analysis of the required functionality of openbudgets.eu. http://openbudgets.eu/assets/deliverables/D4.2.pdf

  5. Graft, A., Verhulst, S., Young, A.: Open Data’s Impact - Brazil’s Open Budget Transparency Portal: Making Public How Public Money Is Spent. Technical report, Govlab, January 2016

    Google Scholar 

  6. Höffner, K., Martin, M., Lehmann, J.: Linkedspending: openspending becomes linked open data. Semantic Web 7(1), 95–104 (2016)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  7. Huijboom, N., Van den Broek, T.: Open data: an international comparison of strategies. Eur. J. ePractice 12(1), 4–16 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Ioannidis, L., Bratsas, C., Karabatakis, S., Filippidis, P., Bamidis, P.: Rudolf: An HTTP API for exposing semantically represented fiscal OLAP cubes. In: SMAP, pp. 177–182. IEEE (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Klímek, J., Škoda, P., Nečaský, M.: LinkedPipes ETL: evolved linked data preparation. In: Sack, H., Rizzo, G., Steinmetz, N., Mladenić, D., Auer, S., Lange, C. (eds.) ESWC 2016. LNCS, vol. 9989, pp. 95–100. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47602-5_20

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  10. Machado, A.L., de Oliveira, J.M.P.: DIGO: an open data architecture for e-government. In: EDOCW, pp. 448–456. IEEE Computer Society (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Musyaffa, F.A., Orlandi, F., Jabeen, H., Vidal, M.-E.: Classifying data heterogeneity within budget and spending open data. In: Proceedings of the 11th ICEGOV. ACM (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Mynarz, J., Klímek, J., Dudáš, M., Škoda, P., Engels, C., Musyaffa, F.A., Svátek, V.: Reusable transformations of data cube vocabulary datasets from the fiscal domain. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Semantic Statistics Co-located with 15th International Semantic Web Conference (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Mynarz, J., Svátek, V., Karampatakis, S., Klímek, J., Bratsas, C.: Modeling fiscal data with the data cube vocabulary. In: SEMANTiCS (Posters, Demos, SuCCESS), vol. 1695 of CEUR Workshop Proceedings. CEUR-WS.org (2016)

  14. Open Data Barometer. Global report: Open data barometer (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Open Knowledge Barometer. Place overview: Global open data index (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Orlandi, F., Dong, T., Karampatakis, S., Hernandez, P., Musyaffa, F., Liu, H.: D7.7 large-scale trial report including best practices. http://openbudgets.eu/assets/deliverables/D7.7.pdf

  17. Shadbolt, N., O’Hara, K., Berners-Lee, T., Gibbins, N., Glaser, H., Hall, W., Schraefel, M.C.: Linked open government data: lessons from data.gov.uk. IEEE Intell. Syst. 27(3), 16–24 (2012)

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  18. Sunlight Foundation. Open data policy guidelines (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Tygel, A.F., Attard, J., Orlandi, F., Campos, M.L.M., Auer, S.: How much? is not enough: an analysis of open budget initiatives. In: Proceedings of the 9th ICEGOV, pp. 276–286. ACM (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Walsh, P., Pollock, R., Björgvinsson, T., Bennett, S., Kariv, A., Fowler, D.: Fiscal Data Package. Open Knowledge International, 0.3.0 edn. https://frictionlessdata.io/specs/fiscal-data-package/

Download references

Acknowledgments

The work presented is co-funded by the EU H2020 for the project OpenBudgets.eu (GA no. 645833), Fathoni Musyaffa is supported by a DAAD scholarship.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Fathoni A. Musyaffa, Lavdim Halilaj, Fabrizio Orlandi & Hajira Jabeen

  2. Fraunhofer IAIS, Sankt Augustin, Germany

    Lavdim Halilaj, Yakun Li & Fabrizio Orlandi

  3. TIB Leibniz Information Center Science and Technology, Hannover, Germany

    Sören Auer & Maria-Esther Vidal

  4. L3S Research Center, University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Sören Auer

  5. Simón Bolívar University, Caracas, Venezuela

    Maria-Esther Vidal

Authors
  1. Fathoni A. Musyaffa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Lavdim Halilaj
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Yakun Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Fabrizio Orlandi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Hajira Jabeen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Sören Auer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Maria-Esther Vidal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fathoni A. Musyaffa .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Helsinki University, Helsinki, Finland

    Tommi Mikkonen

  2. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Ralf Klamma

  3. University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain

    Dr. Juan Hernández

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this paper

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Musyaffa, F.A. et al. (2018). OpenBudgets.eu: A Platform for Semantically Representing and Analyzing Open Fiscal Data. In: Mikkonen, T., Klamma, R., Hernández, J. (eds) Web Engineering. ICWE 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10845. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91662-0_35

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91662-0_35

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91661-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-91662-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)