CKAN as an implementation framework for the open data

portals

GFOSSGeorge Karamanolis

ICT ConsultantBologna 29/11/2012

Agenda• CKAN – introduction• User Groups and Features• Testing and customization for the

Decentralized Administration of Crete• Screens from the testing enviroment

• Implementation Toolkit • Added Value – Possible Synergies

About CKAN

• CKAN is a powerful data management system that makes data accessible – by providing tools to streamline publishing, sharing, finding and using data.

• Was developed by the non-profit Open Knowledge Foundation

• Aimed at data publishers (national and regional governments, companies and organizations)

• Used to power both official and community data portals, CKAN

• It now powers more than 40 data hubs around the world, including portals for local, national and international government, such as the UK’s data.gov.uk and the European Union’s publicdata.eu (beta version)

Ckan user groups

•Publishers• Local/national governments, data providers

•Open Data users• Researchers, journalists, programmers, NGOs,

citizens

Features for publishers

• Publish data through a guided process or import via API/harvesting from other catalogs

• Customize: add your own metadata fields, themes and branding

• Store data within CKAN or on external (e.g. departmental) sites

• Manage: Full access control, version history with rollback, INSPIRE/RDF support, user analytics

Features for data users

• Explore: search, add, edit, describe, tag, group datasets via web front-end or API •Collaborate: user profiles, dashboard, social network integration, comments •Use: metadata and data APIs, data previews and visualizations •Extend: full documentation for building extensions

Ckan flows

‘look and feel’ Customization

Integration with existing information systems or Content management

systems• extensions for full Drupal and Wordpress

integration• API that makes it straightforward to add

support for other CMSs and third-party catalogs

Community functionality• Comments extension – users can add comments and

discussion on a dataset. The extension can be enabled or disabled at any time.

• Share – users can quickly and easily promote and discuss a dataset using twitter and facebook integration.

• RSS/Atom feeds – create feeds of any changes and revisions to datasets and groups.

• Follow extension – ‘follow’ a dataset to be informed of any changes, updates or new activity.

• To do extension – flag a dataset with an issue or instructions of what is missing or still ‘to do’. This allows for a community driven effort for improving and adding to metadata.

Testing for the decentralized Administration of Crete

• Set up at Decentralized Administration of Crete for testing and customization

• Customize layout, look and feel• Publish test data sets to explore

functionality• Testing community features• Testing Interoperability features, apis etc

Localization (University of Crete)•English (100%)Spanish (100%)

•Portuguese (Brazil) (100%)

•Japanese (100%)

•French (100%)

•Italian (100%)Korean (100%)Chech (100%)

•Finnish (100%)

• Greek (100%) (80 => 100)

• Swedish (90%)• Serbian (82%)• Norwegian (100%)• Slovak (95%)• Russian (56%)• German (66%)• Polish (64%)• Dutch (70%)• Bulgarian (64%)• Hungarian (40%)• Slovenian (15%)• Latvian (21%)• Lithuanian (0%)• Romanian (3%)

ckan version 1.8

Basic information

Organization meta data

Multiple types of resources for each data set (eg API)

Relative items.. from Community

Federation• the data can be pulled regularly into CKAN from the

existing repositories.

• customizable “harvesting” mechanism which can fetch and import records from many different repository sources, including

Geospatial Servers Existing web catalogues Simple HTML index pages Other CKAN instances

This functionality is used on data.gov.uk to implement a Discovery Metadata Service used to fulfill the UK’s obligations under the EU INSPIRE directive. It is also used on publicdata.eu to pull in information from other catalogues to make them all searchable in one place.

Federation• The harvesting functionality can be used to pull in

metadata from other CKAN instances, it can also be used to create a federated network of CKAN nodes which share data between each other.

CKAN follows the DCAT standard for data catalogue metadata, so data can also be federated from other non-CKAN catalogues.

Ιmplementation Toolkit• 10 pg document• Guidelines for opening up data, focusing to to

existing tools (CKAN)• Ckan installation• legal issues and licensing

o greek and eu legislation and directiveso Feedback from HOMER PROJECT

• Cataloging data sets and Publishing data sets• Connecting with stakeholders, Building communities• Reusable for Homer Partner

Participation to an open source project

•A chance to actively participate for an Open source project

•GFOSS is willing to coordinate resources for further development • Eg python developers, web designers

Final Thoughts..• GFOSS cooperates with OKFN and Informatics

Directorate-General (DIGIT)•ADMS, Egov core vocabularies developed by

ISA Group or EUROVOC• .. ADMS can be used for representing reusable

semantic assets, e.g. schemas, ontologies, models, codelists...., hosted in metadata repositories. ADMS can act as a common layer among repositories that want to exchange data (see als http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/adms/description)

Final Thoughts..

• Utilize the whole experience for European level projects

• Synergies (eg athens greek hackathons)• Transparency project in Greece

links

•Ckan.org