Blog: Rensselaer Team Shows How to Analyze Raw Government Data

Rensselaer Team Shows How to Analyze Raw Government Data
RPI News (11/15/10) Marshall Hoffman; Mark Marchand

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Tetherless World Research Constellation have developed a method for finding relationships buried within government data, using mash-up technology that can combine it to identify new relationships. "We're working on designing simple yet robust Web technologies that allow someone with absolutely no expertise in Web Science or semantic programming to pull together data sets from Data.gov and elsewhere and weave them together in a meaningful way," says Rensselaer professor Deborah McGuinness. The approach also enables U.S. government agencies to share information more readily. The researchers developed a Web site that provides examples of what the approach can accomplish. The RPI researchers used Semantic Web technologies, enabling multiple data sets to be linked even when the underlying structure is different. "Data.gov mandates that all information is accessible from the same place, but the data is still in a hodgepodge of different formats using differing terms, and therefore challenging at best to analyze and take advantage of," says Rensselaer professor James Hendler. "We are developing techniques to help people mine, mix, and mash-up this treasure trove of data, letting them find meaningful information and interconnections."

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