Dkan

DKAN is an open-source data portal platform designed to publish, manage, and share open data. It is implemented as a Drupal distribution, enabling organizations to host a catalog of datasets with rich metadata and multiple data distributions. DKAN is commonly used by government agencies, universities, and non-governmental organizations to create public data portals.

Key features include dataset lifecycle management, metadata fields (title, description, keywords, publisher, license), and support for various distributions such as CSV, JSON, and API endpoints. The platform offers search and facet navigation, along with programmatic access through APIs. It also supports data harvesting to ingest records from other catalogs and aims to align with metadata standards such as DCAT to promote interoperability.

Architecture and ecosystem: DKAN is built on the Drupal framework and is designed to be extended through Drupal modules and DKAN-specific components. Its modular design supports theming, localization, data previews, and customizable workflows. The project emphasizes interoperability with other data portals and external data services, often integrating with existing organizational IT environments.

Licensing and development: DKAN is released under the AGPL-3.0 license. It is maintained by a community of contributors and organizations, with development conducted in public repositories. The project provides documentation, installation guides, and developer resources to support setup, theming, data publishing workflows, and ongoing maintenance.

Adoption and use: Deployments of DKAN aim to increase transparency and data reuse by enabling organizations to publish catalogs of open data, including datasets, distributions, and metadata. It is used to create discoverable, machine-readable data portals that support research, policy analysis, and public accountability.