Welcome to the new-look Datahub

Yesterday the Datahub was updated to run CKAN 2.0.1, the latest version of CKAN. This means that Datahub users can take advantage of the shiny new features in CKAN 2.0, such as the ability to follow datasets and groups, activity streams, dashboards, improved UI, and more. The Datahub has also had a makeover with a custom theme. We think it looks rather swish.

What is it?

The Datahub is a free, public platform for cataloguing and publishing data (of course, using CKAN). Its 'groups' can be used to bring together collections of data in a particular area, or even for lightweight data publishing by small organisations. As with a wiki, the ability of any user to edit metadata (e.g. to fix broken links) helps keep it relevant and up-to-date.

New features

Using CKAN 2.0 brings major improvements to the Datahub, such as:

• Improved, clearer interface for adding new datasets.
• Activity streams, letting users follow datasets and groups of interest. For instance, you could make a Datahub Group for data you publish on another website. People could use it to search your data and get notifications when you publish new or updated data.

For a full list of what's new in CKAN 2.0, see this post. Note: at present, CKAN 2.0's "Organizations" are not available on the Datahub. Organizations are about controlling authorisation, whereas the Datahub is about collaborative editing by anyone. (If you want control, you probably want your own CKAN!) However, we're looking at ways to make Organizations available to selected users in the future.

Using the Datahub

If you haven't used the Datahub before, it's easy to sign up and start registering data, which can be published anywhere on the Internet. (Data can't be stored directly on the Datahub at the moment.) You may find the CKAN User Guide handy, and you can practice adding datasets, groups etc on the CKAN Demo.

Backup and more help

The upgrade shouldn't cause any problems, but just in case, the old version of the site is still available, in read-only mode, at http://old.datahub.io. It will stay there for a month in case of any problems. (If, for some reason, you need the old site to be up for longer than a month, please get in touch.) If there are features or extensions you'd like to see enabled on the Datahub, why not discuss them on the mailing lists?