data.okfn.org - update no. 1

Posted on 28 May 2013 by Rufus Pollock

This is the first of regular updates on Labs project http://data.okfn.org/ and summarizes some of the changes and improvements over the last few weeks.

1. Refactor of site layout and focus.

We’ve done a refactor of the site to have stronger focus on the data. Front page tagline is now:

We’re providing key datasets in high quality, easy-to-use and open form

Tools and standards are there in a clear supporting role. Thanks to all the suggestions and feedback on this and welcome more - we’re still iterating.

2. Pull request data workflow

There was a nice example of the pull request data workflow being used (by a complete stranger!): https://github.com/datasets/house-prices-uk/pull/1

3. New datasets

For example:

US house prices http://data.okfn.org/data/house-prices-us
Annual consumer price index http://data.okfn.org/data/cpi

Looking to contribute data check out the instructions http://data.okfn.org/about/contribute#data and the outstanding requests: https://github.com/datasets/registry/issues

4. Tooling

We have a DataPackage.JSON creator tool in progress at http://data.okfn.org/tools/dp/create (here’s the relevant github issue)
We have a new data package viewer created by James Smith

5. Feedback on standards

There’s been a lot of valuable feedback on the data package and json table schema standards including some quite major suggestions (e.g. substantial change to JSON Table Schema to align more closely with JSON Schema - thx to jpmckinney)