#1144: Support DSPL

timmcnamara — Thu, 19 May 2011 00:06:49 GMT

DSPL, the Dataset Publishing Language, is being promoted by Google for its "Google Public Data Explorer" system. It is an XML format with metadata.

The format is described on the developer docs ofthe Google Code site.

Google provides a Python script which reads CSV data and generates DSPL

Sample from http://code.google.com/apis/publicdata/docs/dspl_sample.html:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<dspl xmlns="http://schemas.google.com/dspl/2010"
    xmlns:geo="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/geo"
    xmlns:geo_usa="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/geo/us"
    xmlns:time="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/time"
    xmlns:quantity="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/quantity"
    xmlns:entity="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/entity">
  <import namespace="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/time"/>
  <import namespace="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/quantity"/>
  <import namespace="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/entity"/>
  <import namespace="http://www.google.com/publicdata/dataset/google/geo"/>
  <info>
    <name>
      <value>My statistics</value>
    </name>
    <description>
      <value>Some very interesting statistics about countries</value>
    </description>
    <url>
      <value>http://www.stats-bureau.com/mystats/info.html</value>
    </url>
  </info>
  <provider>
    <name>
      <value>Bureau of Statistics</value>
    </name>
    <url>
      <value>http://www.stats-bureau.com</value>
    </url>
  </provider>
  <topics>
    <topic id="geography">
      <info>
        <name><value>Geography</value></name>
      </info>
    </topic>
    <topic id="social_indicators">
      <info>
        <name><value>Social indicators</value></name>
      </info>
      <topic id="population_indicators">
        <info>
          <name><value>Population indicators</value></name>
        </info>
      </topic>
      <topic id="poverty_and_income">
        <info>
          <name><value>Poverty & income</value></name>
        </info>
      </topic>
      <topic id="health">
        <info>
          <name><value>Health</value></name>
        </info>
      </topic>
    </topic>
  </topics>
  <concepts>
    <!-- As noted in the tutorial, this concept should extend quantity:amount.-->
    <concept id="population">
      <info>
        <name>
          <value>Population</value>
        </name>
        <description>
          <value>Size of the resident population.</value>
        </description>
      </info>
      <topic ref="population_indicators"/>
      <type ref="integer"/>
    </concept>
    <!-- This country concept is defined for educational purposes only. A country
    concept exists in the Google geo dataset. See:
    http://code.google.com/apis/publicdata/docs/canonical/geo.html -->
    <concept id="country" extends="geo:location">
      <info>
        <name>
          <value>Country</value>
        </name>
        <description>
          <value>My list of countries</value>
        </description>
      </info>
      <type ref="string"/>
      <property id="name">
        <info>
          <name><value xml:lang="en">Country name</value></name>
          <description>
            <value xml:lang="en">The official name of the country</value>
          </description>
        </info>
        <type ref="string"/>
      </property>
      <table ref="countries_table"/>
    </concept>
    <!-- This US state concept is defined for educational purposes only. A US state
      concept exists in the Google geo US dataset. See:
      http://code.google.com/apis/publicdata/docs/canonical/geo.us.html -->
    <concept id="state" extends="geo:location">
      <info>
        <name>
          <value>State</value>
        </name>
        <description>
          <value>US states</value>
        </description>
      </info>
      <type ref="string"/>
      <property concept="country" isParent="true"/>
      <table ref="states_table"/>
    </concept>
    <concept id="gender" extends="entity:entity">
      <info>
          <name>
          <value>Gender</value>
        </name>
        <description>
          <value>Gender, Male or Female</value>
        </description>
        <pluralName><value>Genders</value></pluralName>
        <totalName><value>Both genders</value></totalName>
      </info>
      <type ref="string"/>
      <table ref="genders_table"/>
    </concept>
    <concept id="unemployment_rate" extends="quantity:rate">
      <info>
        <name>
          <value>unemployment rate</value>
        </name>
        <description>
          <value>The percent of the labor force that is unemployed, not seasonally
            adjusted.</value>
        </description>
        <url><value>http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm</value></url>
      </info>
      <topic ref="social_indicators"/>
      <type ref="float"/>
      <attribute id="is_percentage">
        <type ref="boolean"/>
        <value>true</value>
      </attribute>
    </concept>
  </concepts>
  <slices>
    <slice id="countries_slice">
      <dimension concept="country"/>
      <dimension concept="time:year"/>
      <metric concept="population"/>
      <table ref="countries_slice_table"/>
    </slice>
    <slice id="states_slice">
      <dimension concept="state"/>
      <dimension concept="time:year"/>
      <metric concept="population"/>
      <metric concept="unemployment_rate"/>
      <table ref="states_slice_table"/>
    </slice>
    <slice id="countries_gender_slice">
      <dimension concept="country"/>
      <dimension concept="gender"/>
      <dimension concept="time:year"/>
      <metric concept="population"/>
      <table ref="countries_gender_slice_table"/>
    </slice>
  </slices>
  <tables>
    <table id="countries_table">
      <column id="country" type="string"/>
      <column id="name" type="string"/>
      <column id="latitude" type="float"/>
      <column id="longitude" type="float"/>
      <data>
        <file format="csv" encoding="utf-8">countries.csv</file>
      </data>
    </table>
    <table id="countries_slice_table">
      <column id="country" type="string"/>
      <column id="year" type="date" format="yyyy"/>
      <column id="population" type="integer"/>
      <data>
        <file format="csv" encoding="utf-8">country_slice.csv</file>
      </data>
    </table>
    <table id="states_table">
      <column id="state" type="string"/>
      <column id="name" type="string"/>
      <column id="country" type="string">
        <value>US</value>
      </column>
      <column id="latitude" type="float"/>
      <column id="longitude" type="float"/>
      <data>
        <file format="csv" encoding="utf-8">states.csv</file>
      </data>
    </table>
    <table id="states_slice_table">
      <column id="state" type="string"/>
      <column id="year" type="date" format="yyyy"/>
      <column id="population" type="integer"/>
      <column id="unemployment_rate" type="float"/>
      <data>
        <file format="csv" encoding="utf-8">state_slice.csv</file>
      </data>
    </table>
    <table id="genders_table">
      <column id="gender" type="string"/>
      <column id="name" type="string"/>
      <data>
        <file format="csv" encoding="utf-8">genders.csv</file>
      </data>
    </table>
    <table id="countries_gender_slice_table">
      <column id="country" type="string"/>
      <column id="gender" type="string"/>
      <column id="year" type="date" format="yyyy"/>
      <column id="population" type="integer"/>
      <data>
        <file format="csv" encoding="utf-8">gender_country_slice.csv</file>
      </data>
    </table>
  </tables>
</dspl>

#1145: Support the Handle System

timmcnamara — Thu, 19 May 2011 00:26:15 GMT

The Handle System is an initiative to provide persistent references for resources. That is, it's basically a proxy system for preventing link rot.

Its documentation is here: http://www.handle.net/. Servers running CKAN could host a "Local Handle Service", which redirects a hash of a resource to an actual URL.

Some suggested use cases:

Researcher would like to cite where data came from
Agencies would like to have a way to prevent vendor lock-in from CKAN if they decide to move to another platform

#1179: Support tag aliases

timmcnamara — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:47:01 GMT

A small number of tags are near-duplicates of each other.

Perhaps we could support word stemming from NLTK and/or manual tag aliases:

statistics statistik ... survey surveying surveys

#1182: Comments from deleted packages appear in "Recent Comments" feed

timmcnamara — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:24:11 GMT

When a package has been deleted, say for spam moderation, comments still appear in the recent comments section.

This is a problem because non-admin users will be shown a warning that they're not authorised to view the package if they click on the link.

At CKAN.net currently, this affects the most recent comment.

#1184: Support Wuala as CKAN storage option

timmcnamara — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:59:11 GMT

Most of CKANs storage options are tied to the USA. This brings concerns of data security for some organisations who may wish to adopt the system. Wuala is a distributed file system that stores data in a peer-to-peer manner. The company behind it, LaCie? sells storage for a fee. However, they also enable clients to have 'free' storage space when machines act as a storage node.

In order to be a storage node, a machine needs to be online for more than 14% of the time - roughly 4h per day. Most CKAN servers are likely to have a far greater uptime than this.

Supporting Wuala would go some way to enabling CKAN to be used in a secure manner. That is, CKAN could be promoted for organisational use where there is lots of data to be stored and large geographic distances to be managed. There is a Python client available and a fairly long Google Tech Talk that overviews the system.

#1185: Administrators can't delete packages from web UI

timmcnamara — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:23:38 GMT

Administrators have "View", "Edit" and "History" tabs. However, I can't see a way to delete a package from the web UI.

Version: CKAN.net as of today

#1227: Display packages' tags in search results

timmcnamara — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:11:02 GMT

In when displaying search results, it would be useful to also display the tags of a package. Sometimes it's difficult to infer the scope of what the package does from the title and the first sentence of the description. Tags are quite concise way to display rich information.

ENV=datacatalos.org, with CKAN 1.4.2a