Open data portals: A checklist for success
- By Amanda Ziadeh
- Jul 13, 2015
When deciding which open data portal makes sense for a government agency, it is important to know what exactly makes for an effective platform.
According to a recent webinar led by Dale Lutz and Stewart Harper of Safe Software, agencies should think carefully about the type of data they will share, and the gauge whether a solution being considered can deliver on the following criteria:
Updating data
- Provide data as a published feed, via either API or RSS so users don’t have to re-download Excel sheets or datasets
- Connect the open data platform directly to the master database so a duplicate is not needed
- Enlist the help of data integration software to sync master data stores with open data repositories for automated or scheduled configurations
Projection support
- Provide a coordinate system for spatial data
- Provide projection options for advanced users and GIS-type datasets
- Provide local and global projections
Quality of data
- Use a CSV quality checker (here)
- Use or create a data quality check list (here)
Delivery mechanisms
- Provide both machine- and human-readable data formats
- Suggested tabular formats: CSV, JSON (API)
- Suggested spatial formats: GeoJSON, ShapeFile
- Other recommended formats:
- Tabular: Excel, XML
- Spatial: AutoCad, Esri File Geodatabase, KML, Mapinfo TAB
About the Author
Amanda Ziadeh is a former reporter/producer for GCN.