DKAN Engineer Stefanie Gray on DrupalEasy Podcast: ‘It’s truly a global project’
Engineer and Open Data Specialist Stefanie Gray was interviewed in a recent DrupalEasy Podcast to talk about how the open source open data platform DKAN works and the worldwide community that contributes to its growth.
The convo took several fun, geeky turns — like how SimCity 2000 inspired a generation of geospatial techies and how Leslie Knope of ‘Parks and Recreation’ would have used DKAN to organize and publish the city of Pawnee’s data to better serve citizens — but ultimately focused on explaining DKAN’s place as the Drupal-powered open data platform.
Interview topics included:
Stefanie’s road to Drupal + DKAN
“After studying Geography and GIS in college and finding few career options upon graduation, I started volunteering my GIS skills to civic and nonprofit organizations. This led me into the world of civic tech and eventually to a startup called NuCivic, the birthplace of DKAN and my first exposure to the Drupal-verse. I’ve been with DKAN ever since, following it to its current home at CivicActions. The word ‘civic’ seems to be my destiny — I should probably get it tattooed at this point!”
What do the letters in DKAN stand for?
“Drupal-based Knowledge Access Network!”
DKAN vs. CKAN
“CKAN (the predecessor of DKAN) is awesome, but it requires you to have a codebase for data and a whole different codebase (like WordPress) for content. DKAN saves you that trouble by tying content and data all together into one Drupal distribution to eliminate extra layers. Then you can organize and catalog all your open data while also getting the benefits of Drupal as a content management system.”
How data is organized in DKAN
“Resources — the data pieces themselves — are stored inside datasets, much like you would store printed maps or spreadsheets inside manila envelopes. And, just as you would label the envelopes to classify what’s inside, the datasets contain the metadata information that tells the ‘who, what, when, where, why’ of the resources within. Then you can organize the datasets into groups according to who published the data (like the Health Department or Transportation Department). Governments that have lots of departments and agencies, each with their own data publishing needs, can appoint administrators to handle the data within their specific group.”
Is DKAN like a document management system, but with data?
DKAN definitely helps people organize, manage, and update data — but it’s not so much about archiving the data as keeping a full catalog of it that’s living, engaging, and accessible. There’s no use building a library if you’re just going to let the books sit there — you want people to access them, use them, and build community around the ideas in them. DKAN lets you open your data in a way that makes it useful to whatever members of the public will be reaching out for it.
Who uses DKAN besides governments?
“Lots of non-government organizations use DKAN, especially in Europe! There’s a German transportation network that used open transit data to create an Alexa app so you can ask Alexa about transit updates near you. And a nonprofit group in Sicily is using DKAN to help stop mob rule and corruption. There are so many cool examples of DKAN ‘in the wild’ — anyone can build a DKAN site because it’s open source, and it’s hugely inspiring to see what people come up with.”
Plans for a Drupal 8 DKAN
“We hope to have an MVP version of Drupal 8 DKAN in time for DrupalGovCon in late August. There will be a one-day sprint that’s open to the public for anyone who wants to contribute to DKAN. And we hope to see lots of folks at the annual DKAN Summit, a mini-event within DrupalGovCon that’s focused on learning and sharing in the open data community.”
Who works on DKAN?
“Of course there are CivicActions folks building it, but there is lots of involvement from the DKAN Slack network and from GitHub. There are so many people who want to improve DKAN and help it be the best open data platform it can be because we’re living in a world where data is increasingly being shut off in terms of access. There are many users from government and other industries who are committed to open data on a philosophical level. It’s truly a global project.”
Learn DKAN basics
For an overview of DKAN basics, including how to get started using an out-of-the-box DKAN site, watch Stefanie’s presentation at DrupalCamp 2018.
