[ckan-discuss] Setting up nl.ckan.net?

Fri Jun 18 07:17:25 BST 2010

Hi David,

Thanks for your response and answers! I'm happy to see nl.ckan.net moving
forward, and I think your answers to the questions mean we now, as the dutch
open data community at large, have a piece of infrastructure we can use with
the various parts of government we're involved with, and building a de facto
Dutch data catalogue that way.

Let me introduce you to Martin Borman. Martin together with Annemarie van
Campen runs 'verseoverheid.nl' (fresh government .nl) and is involved with
several open data related projects. Either by building widgets for local gov
using open data, or by working more intensively with a city like Delft to
use and promote open data more widely in their own gov services and
interaction with citizens. Also they're doing some work with the EC on open
data. As I said before, they also have been asked by ICTU (Dutch gov ICT
office) to write a short proposal to start a simple Dutch data-catalogue.
The nl.ckan.net instance can serve as building block for all of those
activities in the infrastructure way I described above.

Martin: David Read, as well as Rufus Pollock are part of the technical team
of CKAN. So, I'm sure that if you have more questions you can work with them
to sort things out. I suggest you join the CKAN discussion list as well.
I also copied James Burke (you know him I think) and Jonathan Gray into this
message. Jonathan is also with the Open Knowledge Foundation, and with me
the initiator of the monthly EU wide conference calls on Open Data.

I trust I now have established contact between Martin and all of us. Looking
forward to seeing CKAN being deployed widely in NL. In the coming days I
have some appointments with my own local gov, and having
nl.ckan.netavailable will certainly help me to move things forward
there as well.

Thanks again.

best,

Ton
-------------------------------------------
Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

ton at tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog
-------------------------------------------

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 5:57 PM, David Read <david.read at okfn.org> wrote:

> Ton,
>
> (Copying these technical questions to ckan-discuss list)
>
> Great to hear that CKAN looks to be useful in the Netherlands!
> http://nl.ckan.net/ is now up, so feel free to play with it and add
> data.
>
> Regarding your questions:
>
> 1. Adding the language translation file is no problem when that is ready.
>
> 2. It is easy for CKAN to be the database behind several front-ends.
> The easiest way would to have a field like 'region' with values
> 'Rotterdam' or 'Delft' etc. Each front-end can then specify the
> particular region with an extra search term when it calls the search
> API.
>
> 3. External front-ends connect to CKAN via the API - see
> http://knowledgeforge.net/ckan/doc/ckan/api.html
> There are also details here of various helpful modules in PHP, Drupal,
> Perl, Python etc.
> Or many CKAN sites simply use the bundled front-end which is easily
> customised through its templates.
>
> 4. If you have an RSS feed containing meta-data, it can be imported
> into CKAN with a script that loads it via the API. We have various
> example scripts of metadata coming from spreadsheets, CSV, XML feeds
> etc. written in Python to help.
>
> There are plenty of technical docs at
> http://knowledgeforge.net/ckan/doc/ckan/
> Any more technical questions, do ask!
>
> David Read
> CKAN technical team
>
> On 17 June 2010 13:53, Ton Zijlstra <ton.zijlstra at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi guys,
> > If there is a nl.ckan.net instance (as David already confirmed) the
> > following questions emerge:
> > 1) we'll need a Dutch translation (Edial Dekker is already working on
> that,
> > so will be available soon)
> > 2) Is it possible to have several websites use the same CKAN at
> nl.ckan.net
> > instance in the background? E.g. can the city of Delft have their
> datasets
> > listed in CKAN and only call upon those from their own data.delft.nl
> > website? And the same for other groups like ICTU. (This way we'll have
> one
> > data catalogue serving different parts of gov who don't see eye to
> eye right
> > now)
> > 3) Is how to connect a 'front-end' website to the CKAN instance covered
> in
> > the documentation in the CKAN wiki? If not, who of you can help Martin
> out
> > at this point to explain how to do that.
> > 4) There is already a bunch of stuff around gov datasets in the IBM
> cloud.
> > The RSS feed describing datasets, can that be fed into CKAN (not sure if
> I'm
> > even asking the question right here, as my tech knowledge on this front
> is
> > limited.)
> > 5) With whom of you should I put Martin Borman in touch.
> > Question 2 is important at the moment, as it will mean that some
> proposals
> > to different part of gov can be limited to explaining them all is needed
> is
> > a 'front-end' page, with CKAN doing the rest in the background.
> > Looking forward to hear from you soon.
> > I appreciate any help you can give us on these questions.
> > best,
> > Ton
> > -------------------------------------------
> > Interdependent Thoughts
> > Ton Zijlstra
> >
> > ton at tonzijlstra.eu
> > +31-6-34489360
> >
> > http://zylstra.org/blog
> > -------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 2:40 PM, David Read <david.read at okfn.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> James,
> >>
> >> No probs - I've installed your server nl.ckan.net. It just needs the
> >> DNS to propagate before it'll show up.
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >> On 17 June 2010 12:33, james burke <lifesized at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > sounds good!
> >> > please set it up and send me and ton login details so we can
> >> > get cracking.
> >> > thanks
> >> > /J
> >> >
> >> > On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 1:31 PM, Jonathan Gray <
> jonathan.gray at okfn.org>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> James: no sorry, I meant do any of the CKAN developers (Rufus, David,
> >> >> John, ...) have time to set this up! In first instance we can set up
> >> >> and host this at nl.ckan.net...
> >> >>
> >> >> Jonathan
> >> >>
> >> >> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM, james burke <lifesized at gmail.com>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> > Hey Jonathan,
> >> >> > i guess you mean we need a spare server which runs python? Maybe
> some
> >> >> > of
> >> >> > our
> >> >> > European friends, not necessarily in NL can lend us a hand if you
> are
> >> >> > already running CKAN. Can anyone spare us a sub-domain? No biggie
> if
> >> >> > at
> >> >> > this
> >> >> > stage we start life on a box somewhere else. It's open gov. data
> >> >> > afterall.
> >> >> > James
> >> >> >
> >> >> > On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Jonathan Gray
> >> >> > <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>
> >> >> > wrote:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> I'm not sure how fast these instances are to deploy -- but could
> >> >> >> someone perhaps help set up nl.ckan.net?
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> We're going to try to get a translation done in time for a
> possible
> >> >> >> launch in July!
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> All the best,
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Jonathan
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> --
> >> >> >> Jonathan Gray
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Community Coordinator
> >> >> >> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> >> >> >> http://blog.okfn.org
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> >> >> >> http://identi.ca/jwyg
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> >> ckan-discuss mailing list
> >> >> >> ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >> >> >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-discuss
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> > --
> >> >> > Web: www.lifesized.net  Phone:+31 (0)6 5244 6445 Twitter:
> @lifesized
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> --
> >> >> Jonathan Gray
> >> >>
> >> >> Community Coordinator
> >> >> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> >> >> http://blog.okfn.org
> >> >>
> >> >> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> >> >> http://identi.ca/jwyg
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Web: www.lifesized.net  Phone:+31 (0)6 5244 6445 Twitter: @lifesized
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > ckan-discuss mailing list
> >> > ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-discuss
> >> >
> >> >
> >
> >
>
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