Linked Open Cube Analytics Systems: Potential and Challenges

Linked Open Cube Analytics (LOCA) systems enable the performance of analytics on top of multiple open statistical data (OSD) that reside in disparate portals. We present OSD's potential and highlight the problems hampering its integration and reuse. To overcome these problems, we introduce an approach for OSD integration. The proposed approach capitalizes on the data cube model and linked data technologies to enable unified access to multiple OSD published in disparate portals. Finally, we present an online analytical processing (OLAP) browser for linked data cubes as a proof of concept of LOCA systems. Throughout this article, we also outline the challenges that need to be addressed for the wide adoption of LOCA systems.