The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

open data portal for the storage and distribution of

open data Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...

. Initially inspired by the package management capabilities of

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

Linux, CKAN has developed into a powerful data catalogue system that is mainly used by public institutions seeking to share their data with the general public. Since its inception, CKAN has evolved and is the leading open data platform software in the world, used by governments including the US and UK, to publish millions of public datasets.

Rufus Pollock Rufus Pollock (born 1980) is a British economist, activist and social entrepreneur. He has been a leading figure in the global open knowledge and open data movements, starting with his founding in 2004 of the non-profit Open Knowledge Foundatio ...

developed its first version in 2005-2006. CKAN's

codebase In software development, a codebase (or code base) is a collection of source code used to build a particular software system, application, or software component. Typically, a codebase includes only human-written source code system files; thu ...

is maintained by the

Open Knowledge Foundation Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) is a global, non-profit network that promotes and shares information at no charge, including both content and data. It was founded by Rufus Pollock on 20 May 2004 in Cambridge, England. It is incorporated in Engla ...

. The system is used both as a public platform on Datahub and in various government data catalogues, such as the UK's data.gov.uk, the Dutch National Data Register, the United States government's

Data.gov Data.gov is a U.S. Government website launched in late May 2009 by the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States, Vivek Kundra. Data.gov aims to improve public access to high value, machine-readable datasets generated by th ...

and the Australian government's "Gov 2.0". The state government of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

also makes government data freely available to the public on the CKAN platform. The Italian government makes available the open data of the Data & Analytics Framework on the CKAN platform.

Internal technology

CKAN's back end, the part running on the Web server, is written mainly in Python. The web pages it offers to users browsers include

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

. CKAN maintains information about the data sets to be offered to users in

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL ( ) also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source software, free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. PostgreSQL features transaction processing, transactions ...

databases. Searches are implemented by

Solr Solr (pronounced "solar") is an open-source enterprise-search platform, written in Java. Its major features include full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, real-time indexing, dynamic clustering, database integration, NoSQL features ...

. CKAN installations can be queried through

Web API A web API is an application programming interface (API) for either a web server or a web browser. As a web development concept, it can be related to a web application's client side (including any web frameworks being used). A server-side web AP ...

Future of the project

The CKAN Stewardship proposal jointly put forward by Link Digital and Datopian received support from the Open Knowledge Foundation Board. In appointing joint stewardship put up jointly by Link Digital and Datopian, the Board felt there was a clear practical path with strong leadership and committed funding to see CKAN grow and prosper in the years to come. The Open Knowledge Foundation will remain the ‘purpose trustee’ to ensure the Stewards remain true to the purpose and ethos of the CKAN project.

Similar projects and alternatives

Dataverse The Dataverse is an open source web application to share, preserve, cite, explore and analyze research data. Researchers, data authors, publishers, data distributors, and affiliated institutions all receive appropriate credit via a data citation ...

provides similar functions and is widely used for open data. * DKAN is a

Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide ...

-based open data portal based on CKAN.

References

External links

* {{Official website
Open Knowledge Foundation

South Australian Government Data Directory

Commonly Used Open Data Platforms
Open data Archive networks Software using the GNU Affero General Public License