[okfn-labs] data.okfn.org - update no. 2

Thu Aug 8 19:07:22 UTC 2013

Hi All,

Just wanted to mention there's a new update (the 2nd) on progress with
http://data.okfn.org/:

http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2013/08/06/data-update-2.html

This was kindly written by Labs member Neil
Ashton<http://okfnlabs.org/members/nmashton/>- thanks Neil!

Rufus

## New tools

Several tools which make it easier to use the Data Package standard
<http://data.okfn.org/standards/data-package> are now operational.
These include a Data Package creator
<http://data.okfn.org/tools/create>, a Data Package viewer
<http://data.okfn.org/tools/view>, and there’s progress on a validator
for Data Packages <https://github.com/okfn/data.okfn.org/issues/27>.
### Data Package Creator

Turning a CSV into a Data Package means creating a file,
datapackage.json, which houses the metadata associated with the CSV.
The Data Package Creator <http://data.okfn.org/tools/create>
simplifies this process.

Provide the Creator with the URL of a CSV and it will return a
well-formed JSON object with the required fields, as well as a raw
JSON URL (the JSON URL serves as a basic machine accessible API).

### Data Package Viewer

The metadata included with Data Packages makes it possible to
construct a simple view of the data. We now provide an online Data
Package Viewer <http://data.okfn.org/tools/view> to do this for you.

Just provide the link to your Data Package and Viewer generates a
user-friendly description, a graph of the data, and a summary of the
data fields. Here, for example, is the Viewer’s display ofUS wheat
production data
<http://data.okfn.org/tools/view?url=https://raw.github.com/rgrp/wheat-us/master/datapackage.json>.

## New datasets

The biggest data news was having our first ‘out-of-the-blue’
contribution of an ‘official’ dataset. Evan Wheeler
<https://github.com/ewheeler> pinged us to offer a comprehensive
collection of country codes
<http://data.okfn.org/data/country-codes-comprehensive> for the
world’s countries in Simple Data Format. Here is the:

   - Comprehensive Country Codes dataset on data.okfn.org
<http://data.okfn.org/data/country-codes-comprehensive>
   - Associated GitHub repo
<https://github.com/datasets/country-codes-comprehensive> for the
dataset

Also new:

   - Standard and Poor’s 500 Index Data including Dividend, Earnings,
and P/E Ratio <http://data.okfn.org/data/s-and-p-500> (GitHub
<https://github.com/datasets/s-and-p-500>)
   - US Consumer Price Index and Inflation monthly time series from
January 1913 <http://data.okfn.org/data/cpi-us> (GitHub
<https://github.com/datasets/cpi-us>)

If you want to contribute a new dataset, check out the instructions
<http://data.okfn.org/about/contribute#data> and the outstanding
requests <https://github.com/datasets/registry/issues>.
## New standards pages

Among data.okfn.org’s chief purpose is promoting simple standards for
data transport <http://data.okfn.org/standards> in the form of Data
Package and Simple Data Format - helping to create a world of
frictionless data
<http://blog.okfn.org/2013/04/24/frictionless-data-making-it-radically-easier-to-get-stuff-done-with-data/>.

Key here is providing simple, easy-to-understand, information and so
we’ve revamped the standards page <http://data.okfn.org/standards> and
created two new pages dedicated to providing simple introduction and
overview for Data Package and Simple Data Format:

   - Data Package Overview and Introduction
<http://data.okfn.org/standards/data-package>
   - Simple Data Format Overview and Introduction
<http://data.okfn.org/standards/simple-data-format>

## Get involved

Anyone can contribute, and it’s easy – if you can use a spreadsheet,
you can help!

Instructions for getting involved can be found here
<http://data.okfn.org/about/contribute>.

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