A translation service for Open Data portals

There exists a huge variety of Open Data portals, some of them providing just a handful, and others, tens of thousands of datasets. The datasets they provide are expected to be supplied with metadata describing them. However, this metadata is typically available in one or two languages only, and, if translations exist, they are usually added manually. To build an inclusive data infrastructure, metadata should be available in as many languages as possible. The paper presents an approach for automatic translation of metadata within Open Data portals, based on Semantic Web technologies and using the metadata standard DCAT-AP. Based on this approach, new functionalities are possible, such as enabling users to search for datasets in their native language. The approach was implemented for and tested within a practical application in a production environment.