Representing verifiable statistical index computations as linked data

In this paper we describe the development of the Web Index linked data portal that represents statistical index data and computations. The Web Index is a multi-dimensional measure of the World Wide Web’s contribution to development and human rights globally. It covers 81 countries and incorporates indicators that assess several areas like universal access; freedom and openness; relevant content; and empowerment. In order to empower the Web Index transparency, one internal requirement was that every published data could be externally verified. The verification could be that it was just raw data obtained from an external source, in which case, the system must provide a link to the data source or that the value has been internally computed, in which case, the system provides links to those values. The resulting portal contains data that can be tracked to its sources so an external agent can validate the whole index computation process. We describe the different aspects on the development of the WebIndex data portal, which also offers new linked data visualization tools. Although in this paper we concentrate on the Web Index development, we consider that this approach can be generalized to other projects which involve the publication of externally verifiable statistical computations.