[ckan-discuss] Fwd: Some Feedback on CKAN

Wed May 25 04:58:17 BST 2011

Thanks Seb, by the way - I've just noticed that I've forgotten to add
"Search".

Tim McNamara
Professional \\  paperlessprojects.com
Personal \\  @timClicks <http://twitter.com/timClicks>  |  timmcnamara.co.nz

On 19 May 2011 21:08, Seb Bacon <seb.bacon at gmail.com> wrote:

> That's a really useful suggestion.  I'll make sure it doesn't get lost
> when the time comes for improving our home page!
>
> Seb
>
> On 19 May 2011 01:59, Tim McNamara <paperless at timmcnamara.co.nz> wrote:
> > Thanks for your input Mark, I think this is very useful. Your impressions
> > concur with my initial ones.
> > One of the difficulties with CKAN.net is that it doesn't have a defined
> > target market. It's necessarily general in which data are included. I
> > wonder, however if we could do something similar to what you're
> suggesting
> > for our landing page.
> > Please excuse the ASCII wireframe:
> > ==================
> > CKAN: the data hub
> > ==================
> >
> >     ADD DATA         [http://                            ] [submit]
> >
> > WHO IS THIS FOR?      LATEST DATA                WHY OPEN DATA?
> > [For scientists]      *dataset 1*                 -  .......  ...
> > [For librarians]       .....   ...  .........        ..   .....
> > [For analysts  ]                                  -  ....   ....
> > [For officials ]      *dataset 2*                 -  ..   .......
> > [For designers ]       ....  ......   .......
> >                        ..........  ..   .....
> >
> >
> > On 2 March 2011 01:58, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Some really useful feedback from Mark Hahnel of Science 3.0 / FigShare
> >> with whom I had a very good chat last week. (Mark tried sending direct
> >> but the email kept disappearing -- if anyone else encounters this
> >> please let me know).
> >>
> >> One of the key things I got from chatting with Mark was the importance
> >> of providing ultra-simple mini-gateways into a CKAN instance oriented
> >> to a specific community.
> >>
> >> I'm wondering if we can work on groups to deliver this sort of feature
> >> -- groups already provide a way for a given group / community of
> >> people to have a bespoke web page and list of datasets but we could
> >> add to this, for example by providing a default search box that just
> >> searches a groups datasets.
> >>
> >> Rufus
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >> From: Hahnel, Mark
> >> Sent: 28 February 2011 18:55
> >> To: ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >> Subject: Feedback
> >>
> >> Dear CKAN team,
> >>
> >> I am writing to offer some feedback with regards to how I view
> >> http://ckan.net/ -This is a follow up to a conversation I had with
> >> Rufus and he suggested I should pass these opinions on to the whole
> >> group.
> >>
> >> As a practising scientist, the front end of the site does not make
> >> uploading data easy for me. In that, I’m a little confused as to who
> >> the site is for, can I use it? Ie. There is no mention of what types
> >> of data are being uploaded and whether scientific data is suitable. I
> >> only find science related stuff if I search ‘science’, so maybe
> >> something along the lines of, “What subject are you looking for data
> >> on?” is needed.
> >>
> >> We spoke with reference to http://FigShare.com which is offering a
> >> service with a lot of overlap, it’s still being developed as a micro
> >> publishing platform for scientists to share all of their data,
> >> including the rarely published/still important negative data. So the
> >> target audience here is your average researcher. Hopefully we’ll
> >> generate a good dataset which can go into CKAN.
> >>
> >> But my point here is the average researcher, the people from my field
> >> with the data needs to be spoon fed into uploading data. They’d need
> >> to see something saying ‘scientists click here’...now what...’upload
> >> your data or search the available data’. And then when they do want to
> >> upload they/we again need it simple. Is all the meta data necessary,
> >> could that not be optional following a simple ‘addition of a dataset’?
> >> I suppose it depends what the overall goal is. If you want linked data
> >> in a standardised form, then I understand. But personally I feel
> >> acquisition of data in any form should be the priority. The power of
> >> the platform lies in the API, and the subsequent analysis of the data.
> >>
> >> When it comes to data uploading, the average researcher would not know
> >> which license to put their data under and they do not have the time to
> >> research which one it should be. Especially not all 75 that you have
> >> an option of on the CKAN data upload form. Due to the legal
> >> connotations of a ‘license’ I think this question might be enough to
> >> put a lot of my colleagues off and this could be the point that their
> >> data upload ends. I don’t even know what the ‘extras’ are for and I
> >> like to think that I’m quite well versed in this kind of thing.
> >>
> >> My second point is incentives. I know about the benefits of open
> >> access etc but a lot of people do not, again it needs to be spoon fed,
> >> “WHY should I do this” – Maybe even have a tab saying this. All we get
> >> is “CKAN makes it easy to find, share and reuse open content and data,
> >> especially in ways that are machine automatable.” – Is this a good
> >> thing? How can I personally benefit from spending 5 minutes of my
> >> precious time doing this?
> >>
> >> I should note that Rufus has since made a few changes which may have
> >> corrected some of the things I’m referring to. I should also note that
> >> I am aware that this is just the viewpoint from one angle and that the
> >> site is for many types of data, each of which will have different
> >> specs. These are not complaints, I love what OKFN and CKAN are doing,
> >> I’m just trying to help.
> >>
> >> Thanks for your time,
> >>
> >> Mark Hahnel.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> ckan-discuss mailing list
> >> ckan-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-discuss
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/ckan-discuss
> >
> >
>
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