Open Data and Standard APIs learning material for iCOINS: Industry 4.0 competences for SMEs - Awareness raising tools - project. The iCOINS project aimed at developing common EU competences for raising awareness of SMEs on Industry 4.0 through an innovative Training Course. The primary target groups are VET teachers, trainers and mentors. Additionally, iCOINS serves the needs of SMEs staff, higher education staff and students, vocational institutions, vocational higher education institutions/teachers, public administration staff.

1. Open Data
Definition and
Management
• Why is it necessary to understand
what open data means and why the
definitions should be followed?
• Simple answer:
Interoperability
• Interoperability means the ability of
diverse systems and organizations
to work together (inter-operate).
• Without interoperability building
large, complex systems becomes
near impossible — as evidenced in
the most famous Tower of Babel
myth, where the (in)ability to
communicate (to interoperate)
resulted in the complete
breakdown of the tower-building
effort

2. Open Data Definition and Management
• Open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for
any purpose (Open Definition)
• The most important precise details what this means: (OpenDataHandbook)
• Availability and Access: the data must be available as a whole and at no
more than a reasonable reproduction cost, preferably by downloading
over the internet. The data must also be available in a convenient and
modifiable form.
• Re-use and Redistribution: the data must be provided under terms that
permit re-use and redistribution including the intermixing with other
datasets
• Universal Participation: everyone must be able to use, re-use and
redistribute

3. Open Data Definition and Management
How is Open Data typically formatted? See What is Open Data?
video by U of G Library

4. Open Data Definition and Management
How can Smart Cities make use of Open Data? Read the following
article about Open Data and Open Source enabling Smart City
Development.

5. Standard APIs and Service
• APIs are specifications that govern interoperability between
applications and services (Vukovic et al. 2016)
• With APIs the development of new applications and services can be
enhanced by reusing and recycling code and productization of
programming interfaces (Moilanen et al. 2019)
• There are several types of APIs, typically categorized into three main
categories:
• Open Data API – for sharing open data
• Open API – for sharing data publicly or to partners
• Private API – for sharing data internally (Moilanen et al. 2019)

6. • Application programming interfaces can create value in the
following ways: (Moilanen et al. 2019)
1. APIs offer easier access to data
2. APIs can reduce complexity by standardizing the
implementation of tasks (e.g. retrieving and sending data)
3. APIs increase the visibility of services and support open
innovation
4. APIs can decrease the perceived risk, as switching from
one API to another can be done with relatively little effort
5. APIs can provide opportunities for development of content
by providing a new channel for data providers
Standard APIs and Service

7. • Standards make it easier for organizations to inter-operate
and co-operate. Using Standard APIs significantly lowers the
barriers for partners, customers and individual developers to
develop new applications and services
• Most common Standard web service APIs are:
• REST
• JSON-RPC
• XML-RPC
• SOAP
Standard APIs and Service

8. My first Quiz: Open Data Test 1
Which of these can be considered open data?
JSON document of GPS location information of objects
you can use for any purpose
Excel document of buildings and their coordinates you
can use for educational purposes
PDF document you can download from the Internet
Word document of students that have passed this
course that you can download but not share to others

9. My first Quiz: Open Data Test 2
Which of these are recommended Open Data formats?
Excel File Format (XLS)
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
Portable Document Format (PDF)
Comma-separated values (CSV)

10. My first Quiz: Open Data Test 3
How can Smart Cities benefit from sharing open data?
Share information of people that give negative
feedback about the city
Share information about salaries of their employees
Share information about events in the city
Share information about how much money they spend
investing in open data

11. My first Quiz: Standard API Test 1
Which of these are Standard web service APIs?
Representational state transfer (REST)
Microsoft Open XML Spreadsheet (XLSX)
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
XML-RPC (remote procedure call)