DKAN Open Data Platform

About

DKAN is a Drupal-based community-driven, free and open source open data platform offering a full suite of cataloging, publishing and visualization features.

With DKAN, organizations and individuals have ultimate freedom to publish and open up data to the public.

​

​

Ready to Use

DKAN was identified by the U.S. federal government’s Project Open Data as a “ready-to-use” tool “that will help agencies jump-start their open efforts” and a “real, implementable solution developed to significantly reduce the barrier to implementing open data at your agency.”

Who is DKAN for?

Publishers:

• City, state or local government agencies that would like to share information about education, the environment, health care, transportation and more.
• Non-profits, NGOs or universities that are also interested in opening up their data.

Users:

• Citizens, researchers, students and journalists who wish to access public data and make use of it.

DKAN Adoption

30

35

5

Countries

Cities

U.S. states and federal agencies

Core Values

• Community and User Empowerment
• Transparency and Openness
• Collaboration and Creativity
• Inclusiveness and Accessibility
• Sustainability and Extensibility

What makes open data ‘open’?

​

Open data is about availability and accessibility.

Data should be:

• Published in a convenient, modifiable form that can be linked elsewhere and easily shared.
• Provided in a standard, structured format so that it is machine-readable.
• Guaranteed to be available and consistent over time.
• Traceable back to where it originates.

What makes open data ‘open’? (continued)

​

Reusability

• Open data is data that is free to access, use and share.
• Open data can be easily redistributed.

Open to the general public

• The general public must be able to freely use, re-use and redistribute the data.

​

​

• ​

How Does DKAN Organize Data?

There are 3 content types for organizing data in DKAN:

• Groups: These represent data publishers or agencies. Groups contain datasets.
• Datasets: Datasets help categorize data and label it with the appropriate metadata. Datasets contain resources.
• Resources: The actual data resources, which can be files stored on the site, remotely linked files, or imported APIs.

​

Group �“Department of City Planning”

📁

Dataset

“Zoning Maps and Data”

📁

Dataset�“Demographics 2018”

📋

Resource�“Survey2018.csv”

📖

Resource�“CityStats.pdf”

​

Resource�“Zones.shp”

📊

Resource �“ZoneData.xlsx”

Metadata

Metadata is the who, what, when, where, and why of data.��DKAN is built to comply with a wide number of national and international metadata standards, including DCAT and Project Open Data.

Custom specifications can be added.

​

📁

Dataset

“Zoning Maps and Data”

Additional content types in DKAN

• Pages - Used for an About page, FAQs, etc.
• Visualizations - Create charts (bar, pie, line, and more) within DKAN to illustrate your data.
• Data Stories - With a Data Story, you can create posts using charts, maps and more to present key points.
• Data Dashboards are similar and fulfill the need to present multiple visualizations on one page.

Data Publishing Features

• Metadata compliance and customization tools
• Tags, Topics and Taxonomies for easy browsing and organization.
• Roles and permissions for moderating user workflows.
• Data harvesting for expanding the listings of your catalog.
• APIs to allow your data to be used elsewhere, such as within a mobile app.

Data Publishing Features (continued)

• Data uploader for resources from one’s hard drive or from a remote source.
• Chart and map previews of data resources for publishers and end-users.
• DKAN Datastore efficiently parses and stores large datasets
• Integrated CMS for adding blogs, videos, slideshows and more.
• Multilingual translation available

Data Previews

You can preview resources within DKAN in three different formats:

• Grid
• Graph
• Map

(DKAN Data Previews are different from Visualizations.)

​

​

Built-In Visualizations

• Bar/line/pie charts
• Scatter plots
• Stacked charts
• Lat/long point maps

These charts can all be created easily, without code, from within DKAN.

External Visualizations

• Tableau charts and maps
• ArcGIS maps and previews of shapefiles (.shp)
• Carto (formerly CartoDB) maps and visualizations.

DKAN Data Stories

DKAN supports Data Stories:

• Create posts using charts, maps and more to present key points.
• Data Stories can be posted sequentially, similar to a blog.
• For example, a city open data portal could feature monthly Data Stories about a successful project with charts and maps accompanying the details.

DKAN Data Dashboards

​

Another content type built into DKAN is Data Dashboards:

• Data Dashboards are similar to Data Stories and fulfill the need to present multiple visualizations on one page.
• Data Dashboards provide a “one-stop shop” for viewing/publishing data with a common theme.

Roles / Permissions / Workflows

DKAN offers 3 roles for moderating user permissions and workflows:

• Site Manager
• Editor
• Content Creator

The DKAN Workbench module allows content to move through moderation states of “Drafts,” “Needs Review” and “Published.”

Tech Specs

• Drupal
• PHP
• Can support data resources of up to 10 gb

Framework

Support

Global ecosystem of custom development, services and support

Hosting

• Self / on-premise
• Third party

License

DKAN is freely-available under the GPLv2 (or later) open source license.

Roadmap

• Quarterly: Minimum two developments items per quarter
• Frequent: Security updates, bug fixes, minor enhancements
• Learn more: getdkan.org/roadmap

Maintainer

CivicActions provides critical financial and development support to keep Project DKAN open and fully sustainable.

Connect

• Web: getdkan.org
• Email: info@getdkan.org
• Slack: dkan.slack.com
• Twitter: @getdkan
• GitHub: github.com/getdkan
• Facebook: facebook.com/getdkan