Overview

Open Open Data Census is an open source platform for conducting open data censuses and publishing their results. It was created as a bespoke platform for CFA's Police Open Data Census, reused and adapted for U.S. Open Data’s State Open Data Census, and here is being abstracted into a general-purpose platform for conducting open data censuses. This is meant to serve as a lightweight alternative to Open Knowledge’s Open Data Census, the pathbreaking platform in this space.

This is designed to run entirely on a local machine for development, and to be deployed in the form of its output, as static files (e.g., to GitHub Pages). It uses Google Sheets as its data store, retrieving that data via Tabletop.js. It’s built atop Bower, Gulp, and Node.

Deploying it right now would require a great deal of customization. For a developer, that would require a few hours of work, but for anybody else it would be an exercise in frustration. Contributors are in the process of abstracting this into a general-purpose platform.

Setting Up

git clone git@github.com:codeforamerica/OpenOpenDataCensus.git
cd OpenOpenDataCensus
npm install
npm install gulp -G
gulp readme

A model Google Sheet is available. Duplicate it into your own Google Docs account to serve as your data store.

It is relatively simple to add new types of data to be inventoried:

1. In Google Sheets, in the Dataset Descriptions worksheet, add a row for the datatype in question.
2. In public/datatype, create a new filename that matches the datatype's title in Dataset Descriptions, adhering to case (e.g., WeeklyInspections.html), by duplicating an existing file within public/datatype. Within the HTML, custom <title>, <h1>, and the pageType JavaScript variable.

Deploying

Before deploying to GitHub Pages, customize your domain name in public/common/CNAME, or delete the file to serve your site from a [yourname].github.io address.