January 2012: The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) has released a new publication, titled “Linked Open Data: The Essentials,” which was launched to help decision makers understand knowledge management.

The publication provides an introduction on how to maximise the interconnection between knowledge brokers and providers. It is subtitled “A Quick Start Guide for Decision Makers,” and was authored by Florian Bauer (REEEP) and Martin Kaltenböck (Semantic Web Company). It was published ahead of a workshop sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) titled “Linking Open Data to Accelerate Low- Carbon Development,” which convened at the Masdar Institute on 18 January 2012, organised by REEEP. The publication describes the principles of linking data and defines terms such as Open Government, Open (Government) Data and Linked Open (Government) Data.

It also highlights that, in order to benefit from Open Data, information and data need to be put in a context that creates new knowledge and enables useful services and applications. The publication further explains, through best practices and examples, that Linked Open Data facilitates innovation and knowledge creation from interlinked data. [Publication: Linked Open Data: The Essentials]