JISC calls for Linked Data projects…

Back in December, I met up with the Semantic Technologies Working Group at JISC to talk a bit about the rise of Linked Data and have a high-level look at who’s been doing what. It was a great talk, from my perspective, because I was speaking to a room full of folk who knew EXACTLY what I meant. Instead of stumbling over explaining basic principles, we were all able to have a pretty healthy discussion about the big picture—looking at companies and organisations who’ve told their stories in Nodalities Magazine, for example. I left with the impression that JISC certainly has its eye on the Linked Data ball, as it were.

My impression has been strengthened recently, as I read their commissioned Linked Data “horizon scan” paper published by Paul Miller over on Cloud of Data. The Horizon Scan makes several recommendations for further investigation into Linked Data for Higher Education, the gist of which is to keep their eyes out for good use cases and to engage the Linked Data community where it can to learn more.

Then, as a couple hundred folk gathered at the second Linked Data Meetup in London, JISC announced that it’s putting £750,000 up: “…for projects to make content available on the Web working using linked data approaches.” JISC is calling for Higher Education projects to build Linked Data!

Talis can help

So, it looks like there is some alignment with our purpose here at Talis, then. We often talk about building the web of Linked Data, and we’ve been pushing projects and building stuff to make that happen. Now, it’s your turn…

The deadline for receipt of proposals in response to this call is 12 noon UK time on Tuesday 20 April 2010.

So, there isn’t much time to get proposals in. One way we can help is to host any Linked Data needed for a project on the Platform through the Connected Commons initiative. As we’ve reviewed here before, Talis will host any public data as Linked Data in the Platform. By public, we simply mean rights-waived (using PDDL or CC0) so it can be reused. The Platform hosts data online, and will also give you a SPARQL endpoint and RESTful API for rapid development on top of your new Linked Data.

The other thing we can do is to provide free developer licenses for working with the Platform and the API. There is also an extensive archive of documentation over on the developers’ wiki. Let us know what you’d like to build, and we’ll see if we can help. We’re keen to see more projects surfacing Linked Data, and it’s exciting to see what you will be building!

Finally, I’d love to hear about your projects. I can tell your Linked Data story in Nodalities Magazine, or perhaps as a podcast—whether you’re using the Platform or not. It’s great to share success stories with the wider community, and this should provide many good stories!

JISC funds Higher Education projects in the UK, and their full eligibility criteria are up on their call post.