CKAN Monthly Newsletter #2, March 2023

Hello, fellow CKANers,

As many of you may know, February marked the release of a new major version of CKAN. With this release, we are excited to introduce a variety of new features that we hope will make your experience even better! We are eager to hear your feedback about these new features and learn how we can continue to improve the CKAN platform.

Highlights

• CKAN 2.10 is here - a new major version 2.10 is released!
• Ask CKAN - we're launching a new initiative called “Ask CKAN” aimed to support our new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Have a question? Ask CKAN!

Announcements

• CKAN 2.10 is here
  
  • A new major version 2.10 released! So many valuable updates are out 😊The changelog is hefty, it can be observed here. Some major features are:
    • CSRF protection to the frontend forms to protect against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks
    • Refactored the Authentication logic to use Flask-login instead of repoze.who
    • Signals support added to allow subscriptor-based features in extensions
    • CLI commands added for API Token management
    • It’s much more out there!
    • Read more>

• Ask CKAN - we’re launching a new initiative
  We're launching a new initiative called “Ask CKAN” aimed to support our new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Starting this month, we will be running a social media campaign that will ask users to submit their questions to us via Twitter, LinkedIn, or this form. We will be using the hashtag #CKANFAQ to make it easier for users to find and follow our campaign. Read here>
  
  
• National Science Foundation CKAN POSE project
  
  • A team from the University of Pittsburgh and datHere have been working to develop a plan to strengthen the CKAN ecosystem thanks to support from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program. The team has collaborated with members of the ecosystem to co-create a list of questions it is working to answer through its ecosystem discovery activities, and has started to conduct interviews with people that play different roles in the ecosystem, including stewards, maintainers of the code base, code and documentation contributors, and people that install or manage CKAN implementations. Interested to know more? Read here>
  • There are two ways to be involved in the ecosystem discovery work:
    
    • Schedule an interview with members of the project team. If you’re able to have a conversation about your role and experience in the ecosystem, please send an email to pose.ckan@pitt.edu.
    • Participate in a series of asynchronous activities and workshops this spring. These activities are designed to capture additional ecosystem context. One of the first activities involves the creation of a collaborative CKAN timeline. Keep an eye on project website for more information - everything will be posted there.

• FAQ page
  
  • The FAQ page on ckan.org has been filled out with an initial set of responses gathered by Yoana Popova and Adria Mercader, and is ready for further expansion. Every question that will be answered for newcomers will be added to the FAQ, building up self-service ability with actual solutions that newcomers require. Take part in our initiative Ask CKAN!

• CKAN Monthly Live
  
  • Last meetup
    It was insightful CKAN Monthly Live with Oleg Lavrovsky where he shared own experience and insights drawn from it around possibilities and struggles of open data hacktivism. Oleg has a wealth of knowledge to share drawn from his active position in the open data community.
    • Recording from the meetup: How to survive, and thrive, in the murky depths of any Portal
  • Next meetup
    When: March 15, 2023 at 1 pm (UTC)
    • Topic: City of Warsaw Open Data Portal
    • Reserve your spot here.

GitHub Updates

Open Data Events

• Open Data Day (s)
  
  • Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. Groups from around the world create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. As a way to increase the representation of different cultures around the world, in this edition, we offer the opportunity for organisations to host the Open Data Day(s) event will take place from March 4th to 10th 2023. It is organized by the Open Knowledge Foundation.
    
    • When: March 4th to 10th 2023
    • Where: Online
      
      
• NYC Open Data Week 2023
  
  • NYC Open Data Week is an annual festival of community-driven events organized and produced by the NYC Open Data Team at the Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI), BetaNYC and Data Through Design. New York City celebrates its Open Data Law every year on March 7th. Interestingly, this day coincides with International Open Data Day, which is celebrated on the first weekend of March. NYC Open Data Week provides an opportunity for the civic tech and open data communities to engage with municipal open data and learn about its importance and benefits.
    
    • When: March 11th to 18th
    • Where: Online and in New York City

Have something to share?

As we prepare for the upcoming issue, we would like to encourage everyone to share any relevant information or updates with our team. To facilitate this process, we kindly request that you send your contributions to either Alex or Yoana. Thanks for being part of this!

Want to get involved?
We're a diverse and distributed community of 240 contributors from all over the world and diverse backgrounds, united by our mission to create the best data management system on the internet.

If you love data and python then join one of the weekly Dev Meetings. These are open to anyone so feel free to drop by and ask questions or just listen in. Maybe you can even help with issues marked as Good for Contribution or tackle some of the project's Rockstar Tickets listed here.

• Chat with us on Gitter
• Join Dev Meetings

Need help with CKAN?
If you’re stuck on anything, chances are the answers await you on Stackoverflow or in the docs. GitHub Discussions is the place to connect with the community, share your projects and ask questions or support requests about CKAN.

If you want to report a bug or an actual issue with the CKAN software or documentation, please post it on the issue tracker. For security-related issues please email security@ckan.org.

• GitHub Discussions
• Check Stackoverflow
• Create an issue on GitHub
• Chat with us on Gitter
  

Share Your Experience
Join the conversation on @CKANproject and share your experience using #CKAN! Don’t forget to subscribe to the CKAN Association YouTube Channel to receive updates!

Stay Connected
Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube and join our LinkedIn Group to get notified and be able to sign up for future sessions. You can also visit our website and blog to learn more! Our LinkedIn Page is brand new - follow us there and spread the word!

Thank you for being a part of the CKAN community, and we look forward to keeping you informed and engaged in the months ahead!

Best regards,
CKAN Project Team