[okfn-labs] data.okfn.org - update #1

[Rufus Pollock]

Hi All,

I've put together a short update on some of the things that have been
happening with data.okfn.org over the last few weeks:

<http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2013/05/28/data-okfn-org-update-no-1.html>

Key points are inlined below. A big shout-out to everyone who has
contributed code and suggestions so far.

And if you want to contribute, its easy and, especially on the data
site, does not require any complex skills (if you can use google docs
spreadsheet you can help!)

<http://data.okfn.org/about/contribute>

All the best,

Rufus

### 1. Refactor of site layout and focus.

We've done a refactor of the site to have stronger focus on the data.
Front page tagline is now:

> We're providing key datasets in high quality, easy-to-use and open form

Tools and standards are there in a clear supporting role. Thanks to
all the suggestions and feedback on this and welcome more - we're
still iterating.

### 2. Pull request data workflow

There was a nice example of the pull request data workflow being used
(by a complete stranger!):
<https://github.com/datasets/house-prices-uk/pull/1>

### 3. New datasets

For example:

- US house prices <http://data.okfn.org/data/house-prices-us>
- Annual consumer price index <http://data.okfn.org/data/cpi>

Looking to contribute data check out the instructions
<http://data.okfn.org/about/contribute#data> and the outstanding
requests: <https://github.com/datasets/registry/issues>

### 4. Tooling

- We have a DataPackage.JSON creator tool in progress at
http://data.okfn.org/tools/dp/create ([here's the relevant github
issue][1])
- We have a new [data package viewer created by James Smith][tools]

[1]: https://github.com/okfn/data.okfn.org/issues/28
[tools]: http://data.okfn.org/tools

### 5. Feedback on standards

There's been a lot of valuable feedback on the [data package and json
table schema standards][standards] including some quite major
suggestions (e.g. substantial change to JSON Table Schema to align
more closely with JSON Schema - thx to jpmckinney)

[standards]: http://data.okfn.org/standards

### Next steps

There's plenty more coming up soon in terms of data and the site and tools.

- Complete the [datapackage.json generator][1] (support for gdocs especially)
- Complete the [datapackage.json validator][2]
- More [datasets especially key indices][3]

[2]: https://github.com/okfn/data.okfn.org/issues/27
[3]: http://data.okfn.org/about/contribute#data