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Data.gov.uk goes public – and its using CKAN!

January 21, 2010 in CKAN, Exemplars, External, News, OKF, Open Data, Open Government Data, Releases

Data.gov.uk goes public today, and we’ve very proud that it is using CKAN, our open source registry of open data, to list official UK government datasets (as we announced in October):

  • We’ve been working closely with the Cabinet Office team to get this out the door, and over 2500 datasets have been released via the site!

In the Cabinet Office press release, Sir Tim Berners-Lee says:

> Making public data available for re-use is about increasing accountability and transparency and letting people create new, innovative ways of using it. Government data should be a public resource. By releasing it, we can unlock new ideas for delivering public services, help communities and society work better, and let talented entrepreneurs and engineers create new businesses and services.

The new launch has received lots of press coverage – even making the front page of the BBC news website! Below is a selection:

Data.gov.uk

Related posts:

  1. Data.gov.uk Launched – and it’s Using CKAN The UK Government’s public sector data site launched last week in a private beta — and it’s using CKAN as its backend for storing all its dataset info! They’ve got more than a 1000 existing data sets, from 7 departments,...
  2. CKAN 0.9 Released We are pleased to announce the release of CKAN version 0.9! CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects. Changes include: Add version attribute for package Fix purge to use new version of...
  3. New Linking Open Data group on CKAN Our Open Data and Semantic Web workshop is coming up next Friday 13th November in London, kindly sponsored by Talis. In preparation for the workshop, we have started a Linking Open Data group on CKAN, our open-source registry of open...

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  • http://inkdroid.org Ed Summers

    This is great news. I was wondering has anything been written up about how you are doing the technical integration between data.gov.uk and ckan.net? I’m curious if you are dumping the data, or if some sort of web apis, feeds, etc are being used.

  • http://ckan.net David Read

    Hi Ed,

    Expect linking up of the two sites soon, now that data.gov.uk is public.

    If you’re looking to get hold of a dump of all the government metadata then we’re distributing it at http://ckan.net/dump/

    David Read, OKFN

  • http://www.flourish.org Francis Irving

    Do you have a list of which data sets of the 2500 are new releases of information, and which are data that has been / would have been published anyway?

    It’s really great to have a directory of all the data, and I hope it starts populating search results so people can find data more easily.

    But quite a lot of he 2500 seem to be ONS data sets which have been around for a while. I’d like to pick apart the new data that might be of a different nature!

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  • http://okfn.org/members/admin/ admin

    @Ed to follow up David’s comment: in the current set up, data.gov.uk is talking to a CKAN instance using CKAN’s API

    @Francis: this is a really good question – and one we don’t know the exact answer to! While we’ve been working with the data.gov.uk team to get datasets into the data.gov.uk CKAN instance, given the pace of work, we ourselves haven’t been able to look through the datasets in detail yet! Some datasets that I’m certain are newly available (or at least in the form found there) include the traffic count material and the edubase DB.

  • http://inkdroid.org Ed Summers

    @Rufus interesting, so if an instance of ckan is running at data.gov.uk does that mean the ckan api is available there as well?

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  • http://www.metin2turkey.com metin2 hileleri

    @Rufus interesting, so if an instance of ckan is running at data.gov.uk does that mean the ckan api is available there as well?

  • http://okfn.org/members/rgrp/ Rufus Pollock

    @Ed, Metin2: the basic answer is currently no as the RESTful JSON API on the CKAN backend is not being exposed by the data.gov.uk frontend. However, there are plans afoot to a) expose the API on the frontend b) sync all the dataset info from data.gov.uk onto ckan.net where you will be able to get at it with the ckan.net API.

    In the mean time, if you’d be willing to get the data in bulk there’s a nightly dump of all data.gov.uk packages/datasets at http://ckan.net/dump/

  • http://www.annebebekgelisimi.com anne bebek gelisimi

    @metin2hileleri interesting, so if an instance of ckan is running at data.gov.uk does that mean the ckan api is available there as metin 2 the?

  • http://www.reviewdiets.net Wendy

    Wow just seen this and thought wow you let the UK government use your opensource software! Surely they would have over paid you for it like they would do for most things? Sadly the property prices are not being released

  • http://herturden.com Mirajini

    But quite a lot of he 2500 seem to be ONS data sets which have been around for a while. I’d like to pick apart the new data that might be of a different nature!

  • http://webmastercollective.com Webmaster Forum

    opensource will power the world one day :)

    Good job on getting the government on board

  • http://www.tajpalacebristol.com/ taj

    opensource is the way forward so many implementaions accurate discisions

  • katalog Tasarım/Web Tasarımı

    very nice application, I support the government’s transparent application.

  • http://www.turbotuning.gen.tr motor

    @Rufus interesting, so if an instance of ckan is running at data.gov.uk does that mean the ckan api is available there as well?

  • http://www.rcjetshop.co.uk/ RC Jet Builder ‘n Flyer

    The UK government seems to be quite progressive in the OpenSource, Crowdsourcing, Altruism etc arena – I read the New Scientist and it must be about every two issues you read something by the UK governement (directly or funded by) launching an open data set, or collaboration initiative.

    Makes up for some of the crap things they’re doing! :)

    Well done you guys

  • http://www.sanayigazetesi.com.tr Sanayi Gazetesi

    “Neden olmasın… interesting, so if an instance of ckan is running at data.gov.uk does that mean the ckan api is available there as well? ” OSB Gazetesi & Good job on getting the government on board olabilir”

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