data.govt.nz

Hi there. At the moment the records link to a HTML pages, rather than directly to the data. That's usually when those pages contain an index to multiple datasets, or when there's some important caveat included about the data (or any info at all - our summaries for the record summaries are short ). Documenting APIs and other ways into the data are things we're definitely looking at. We're also encouraging depts to provide things like auto-updating xml sitemaps. That kind of discussion is a big part of the project, but in the meantime, we've erred on the side of html.

Cheers

Mandating is not something we can decide, though since launch we've had a number of agencies asking what we'd like and how they can help. Standardising formats and creating solid internal processes about data release (including dealing with URL persistence) is the key. We're beginning to look at this now with other agencies and hopefully non-govt people.

Hi there, our definite preference is for open formats. As you say though, its about progress at this stage. Other parts of the public service are looking at standards (or at least coherent guidance) in this area, and that's a priority. We've been concentrating on making the data findable, in the first instance.

Where we index a non-open format dataset (or HTML dataset), we contact the owner agency and ask it be converted to something better.

Re linking to referring HTML pages rather than direct to the datasets, we need to let people see the licencing info and sometimes data disclaimer info. Possibly later this could be included in XML feeds or similar, removing the need, but at this stage we need to do this. Cheers

Hi Kuraki. Google's good, but there's a lot of stuff on our site that you'll find only after many results pages' worth of searching. We also check it with agencies where we need to, add metadata, license info etc. It's specialist site, Google's not. You'll be pleased to hear the site was built in-house, with min spending. Cheers