Linked Open Data

Synonyms

Linked data; LOD; Open linked data; Web of linked data

Definition

The term Linked Open Data refers to all data that is published on the Web according to a set of best practices, the Linked Data Principles [1]. The idea behind these principles is, on the one hand side, to use standards for the representation and the access to data on the Web. On the other hand, the principles propagate to set hyperlinks between data from different sources. These hyperlinks connect all Linked Data into a single global data graph, similar as the hyperlinks on the classic Web connecting all HTML documents into a single global information space.

Technically, Linked Data relies on Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) for the identification of entities, the Resource Description Framework (RDF) as unifying data model, and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) for accessing entity descriptions. An RDF link connects the descriptions of two entities published by different data sources. Linked Data applicatio ...