A Categorization of Cross-Domain Semantic Interoperability Challenges for Open (Government) Data

The benefits of open data have by now been extensively investigated. However, the generated
data grows at a rapid pace and, with it, a plethora of concerns including, among others, data
quality, interpretability, machine-readability, and interoperability. The present study aims to
review recent literature regarding the semantic interoperability challenges for open (and
government) data and to examine the status for difficult areas of research which have not yet
been sufficiently addressed. The literature review revealed various sector-specific but also
general, cross-domain challenges, which were then categorized into four groups according to
the source where the issue usually stems from. As far as the status of approaches to the
identified challenges is concerned, there appears to be a tendency to avoid fit-to-all solutions
and instead follow a more domain-specific strategy to enable semantic interoperability, and
allow for cross-domain reuse, wherever this is possible.