This repository comprises examples I have forked and modified using Mike Bostock's d3.js (Data Driven Documents) library to support data visualization. Where his examples use the bl.ocks pastebin, I am storing these to GitHub, routed through jsFiddle, to make them easy to fork.
Contents include:
My premise here is that Open Data projects will benefit most from:
- Data Visualization
- Data Enrichment
- Smart Adaptation
Client-side libraries like d3.js provide superior Data Visualization. When access to open data is combined with tools for making these data more meaningful, the quality of the data is improved.
Projects like the Yosemite Project suggest that RDF can be used as a universal language for representation of information. Mapping various information standards into RDF has the benefit of facilitating both standardization and transformation; but there is another benefit of mapping industry-specific information into a more generic format like RDF, as this will allow clinical documents and messages containing lab results or prescriptions to non-clinical assets, like product brochures and other ancillary services.
Smart adaptation is a term I have started using to refer to any adaptation into a JSON format, especially when the JSON format is Atom-based. I am borrowing the idea of "JSON Bundles" from HL7 FHIR, but essentially, these are just Atom syndication (similar to RSS), implemented using JSON instead of XML.
Smart adaptation is smart because JSON is more useful on the client-side than XML; but XML, which can be thoroughly validated, is more useful on the server-side. So they both have their charms.