Clear Byte – Inclusive and collaborative digital development

2022-01-242022-05-31

Gothenburg University Library: episodic digital transformation through open source

Koha is an international community and open source library system that was first put into operation in New Zealand in 2000. The Koha library system is distributed as free software under the GNU v3 (LGPL-3.0) licence and in Sweden there are over 70 organisations that are part of the community and use the system. Gothenburg University Library (GUL) joined the Koha community in 2016 and put the system into operation in 2018 after an evaluation between purchasing library systems on the market or using an open source solution. I have interviewed Camilla Gillén, who is library manager for Digital Services at GUL, about the organisation’s motives and decision to use open source code instead of procuring a system solution on the market.

2021-11-022021-12-08

EU Commission report: open source importances for the Union’s innovation and competitiveness

The European Commission recently published a comprehensive study on how open source and standards can contribute to the Union’s capacity for an independent, innovative and competitive internal digital market. Econometric (economic forecast) analysis from 2018 shows that open source accounts for 65 to 95 billion euros in economic value within the Union. Furthermore, the report highlights a profitability analysis ratio of 1: 4 for every euro invested and that the work effort developers contribute to open source projects corresponds to a cost of labour of almost one billion euros within the EU. This is a brief summary of the report to highlight different policies, mechanisms and regulations to contribute to the competitiveness of the Union and the public sector.

2021-05-102022-04-19

Clinical terminology SNOMED CT: experiences from the implementation of a terminology standard in the Swedish region of Västra Götaland

The Västra Götaland region is the first region to implement the Snomed CT standard in Sweden to standardise the clinical terminology within the region. This happens at the same time as the region undergoes a huge undertaking to implement a new medical record system – Millennium, that only partially supports the Snomed CT standard. Which imposes challenges when the region wants to utilise the standard to create a decision support system to provide individual-based diagnosis and treatment. This is a portrayal of the initial phase of the implementation of the Snomed CT on what challenges and lessons the region has acquired in the implementation of clinical terminology standards aimed to achieve seamless reuse of patient and healthcare information in the region.

2021-02-092021-05-17

Implementation of SNOMED CT clinical ontology within the Swedish healthcare sector from a Covid-19 perspective

The National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) in Sweden has been working with the Snomed CT standard since the mid-2000s, to enable seamless national exchange of information within the healthcare sector. The Covid-19 pandemic has showed how much work that remains to implement seamless exchange of information between regions and authorities in Sweden. We have talked to the NBHW about challenges and lessons learned about implementing semantic interoperability.

2020-08-242022-05-23

RDF elementary guide part 3: SPARQL querying knowledge graphs and datasets with semantic meaning

Resource Description Framework (RDF) is an open standard by W3C for describing concepts and resources digitally with semantic meaning. The SPARQL standard is syntax and protocol for making querying and manipulating datasets in RDF format. The standard is comprehensive and includes everything from searching, updating, exporting and maintaining RDF datasets and can be compared with the SQL standard for relational databases. With the difference that SPARQL is applied to datasets with triplets pattern – subject, predicate, object and has a semantic meaning. The guide is based on the previously presented knowledge graph with artists and paintings.

2020-05-262022-05-23

RDF elementary guide part 2: Creating Ontologies and Knowledge Graphs with RDF-Schema

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is an open standard by W3C to describe concepts and resources digitally with semantic meaning. Data described in RDF format can be exchanged and reused with retained conceptual understanding of concepts between businesses, industries and countries. This is the second article in a series that introduce the basics of describing digital resources with semantic meaning. The model in the article interlink resource descriptions from Wikidata (Wikipedia) to relate to equivalent concepts to create context. The previous article describe how classes and properties are defined with RDF-Schema (RDFS).

2020-04-282022-05-23

RDF elementary guide part 1: Class and property definition in RDF-Schema

Resource Description Framework (RDF) is an open standard of the W3C to describe digital resources with semantic meaning. Data described in RDF format can be exchanged and reused while maintaining a conceptual understanding of resources between businesses, industries and countries. This is the first article in a series of guides to get started describing data with semantic meaning. The first article describes how concepts with associated attributes are defined with RDF-Schema.

2020-01-072020-06-18

Congruent organisational structure – digital value creation part 2

In order for businesses to gain added value from partnerships, they need to be structured and adapted to collaborate. Which facilitate quick and efficient implementation of decision-making processes, project change, knowledge transfer et cetera. Congruent structures are the second general mechanism identified in the study of data and information exchange within a partnership between train operators and the Swedish Transport Administration. The first mechanism highlights interoperability for digital resources and infrastructure.

2019-10-092020-06-18

State-of-art of linked data and semantic web

Resource description framework (RDF) is a technical framework for data exchange and interpretation of concepts published on the Web. This used to be called the semantic web, which never became a reality. Now, almost 20 years after its launch, interest seems to be on the rise to address some of the issues that the digitalised society faces.

2019-10-022020-01-13

Interoperability for digital resource and infrastructure – Digital value creation part 1

A recently completed study examined railway operators perspectives on digital value creation within the partnership between Swedish Transport Administration and national railway operators for data and information exchange. The first mechanism identified of three, highlights value creation of data and information exchange and alignment of information system used within the collaboration.