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A Data Publication Service is an architectural building block of the EIRA Technical view - infrastructure supporting the Technical interoperability layer of the European Interoperability Framework.
It is included in the Enabler grouping Infrastructure Data Source Enablers.

Data Publication Service is a specialisation of Application Service. It shares the functionality of making data available for common use.

The Data Publication Service ABB  is salient for technical interoperability because it provides the functionalities to make public data freely available for use and reuse by others unless restriction aoply as stated in the EIF recommendation #eif02 - Publish the data you own as open data unless restrictions apply: "Publish the data you own as open data unless certain restrictions apply."

Examples

The following implementation is an example on how this specific Architecture Building Block (ABB) can be instantiated as a Solution Building Block (SBB):

European Data Portal
The European Data Portal harvests the metadata of Public Sector Information available on public data portals across European countries. Information regarding the provision of data and the benefits of re-using data is also included.

What is Open Data?

• Open (Government) Data refers to the information collected, produced or paid for by the public bodies (also referred to as Public Sector Information) and made freely available for re-use for any purpose. The licence will specify the terms of use.
• Public sector information is information held by the public sector. The Directive on the re-use of public sector information provides a common legal framework for a European market for government-held data. It is built around the key pillars of the internal market: free flow of data, transparency and fair competition. It is important to note that not all of the public sector information is Open Data.

Within the Portal, sections are dedicated to:

• Searching datasets: Categories have been established to structure the metadata harvested from the various countries. These categories follow the revision of the DCAT Application Profile and have been mapped against the Eurovoc Thesaurus.
• Providing Data: This section gives an insight into understanding Open Data from the perspective of a data provider. In addition, instructions are offered for those who wish their data portal to be harvested by the European Data Portal.
• Using Data: How Open Data is being used, as well as the economic benefits of Open Data are detailed in this section.
• Training and Library: eLearning modules about Open Data as well as training guides and a knowledge base referencing publications around Open Data and featured projects.

Portals can be national, regional, local or domain specific. They cover the 28 EU Member States, EEA, countries involved in the EU's neighbourhood policy and Switzerland.

Belgian Data Portal
The Belgian Data Portal provides data (more than 6500 datasets), tools and resources.

Open Data is a driver for innovation, economic growth, transparency and participation. According to a European study (ref.COM (2011) 882) the cumulative economic benefits arising from the provision of public data would amount to € 40 billion per year in the EU. These data lend themselves to reuse in the context of new products and services and can improve the efficiency of public authorities. Making public sector data accessible makes it possible to involve citizens more in political and social life and to make an active contribution to policy areas such as the environment, mobility, the economy, and so on.
The 2014-2018 Belgian government agreement states that the government will focus on opening public sector data (Open Data policy). Open public data is now the rule. Public services make available to citizens, researchers, companies and public authorities the reuse of data already available to them in the framework of their missions.
It is more specifically data that:

• Public services have collected as part of their data collection missions;
• Do not contain (more) privacy-sensitive information that is not protected by intellectual property rights held by third parties;
• Are published in a format that is easy to reuse automatically ("machine readable ");
• Can be reused for commercial and non-commercial purposes.

It is not only a matter of making public service data available, but also of building a community environment around these data. Companies can reuse some data and enrich it with their own information to market new products and services. Citizens benefit from more transparent public authorities and public services can help improve the quality of existing public data and services.

The latest release of the EIRA© is available on Joinup.

Source: European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA version 3) (url) (with information on the 3^rd release at the website of the ISA² - Interoperability solutions for public administrations, businesses and citizens).