Cataloguing open data with 

Who?

• International non-profit founded in 2004
• using advocacy, technology and training to promote open knowledge

Who?

ckan worldwide

check  ckan.org/instances

Who?

Features

• Search and discoverability for users
  • ​Central full-text search
  • Faceted search on main metadata fields
  • Previews and data exploration for most data types

 

• Data management for publishers
  • ​Metadata edition
  • Workflow and approval
  • Fine grained authorization controls
  • Download and view statistics
  • Structured data storage

• Interoperability & Standards compliance
  • harvester components for many exchange formats
  • support for metadata standards (e.g. DCAT, ISO19139)
  • compliance with EU directives

 

• Extensible architecture and APIs for developers
  • Extensible page templates
  • Extensible metadata schema
  • Extension API
  • REST API
  • Specialized extensions: data API, analytics, harvesting, spatial...

Features

extensions

some official CKAN extensions

• ckanext-qa                

• ckanext-datastore   

• ckanext-harvest

• ckanext-spatial

• ckanext-scheming

• ckanext-dcat

• ckanext-disqus

• ckanext-pages

• ...

 

many other community-driven extensions :

https://extensions.ckan.org/

open data quality assesment

data storage

harvesting of remote sources

support for geospatial data

custom metadata schemas

DCAT metadata standard support

enable user comments

CMS functionalities

Features

Architecture

CKAN

Web portal

HTTP interfaces
JSON,RDF,DCAT,ISO,...

Harvesters

remote CKAN

DCAT

ISO

data storage

metadata storage

...

Federation

DCAT

DCAT

ISO

DCAT

search : opendata.vlaanderen.be

Examples

statistics : opendata.vlaanderen.be

Examples

visualization : opendata.vlaanderen.be

Examples

visualization : opendata.vlaanderen.be

Examples

custom style : data.surrey.ca

Examples

advanced customization : data.gouv.fr

Examples

many others examples

Examples

Open source means

• no license costs, only deployment/maintenance costs
• either use in-house tech resources, or hire externals

 

Standard deployment

• small-sized virtual machine
• junior sysadmin profile with some python skills
• ~4 hours setup
• basic styling (colors, logo) easily done through the UI

 

Maintenance

• regular sysadmin work - CKAN as an application is very stable and does not require specific maintenance skills

 

Deployment & maintenance efforts

Cost

Customization

• custom extensions, advanced styling
• seasoned developer
   

Community support

• Very active and reactive community
• widely used in many governments and municipalities worldwide --> large community-based documentation
• benefit from other portals custom work
   

Commercial support

• Hosted & managed solutions
• ad-hoc consultancy
• see https://ckan.org/commercial

Deployment & maintenance efforts

Cost

philippe duchesne

phd @ highlatitud.es

@ pduchesne

thank you

questions?

check out ckan.org