Link Digital is happy to announce the final in a series of Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN)-related video tutorials that have been uploaded to our YouTube channel.

A further eight videos have been uploaded, all out together by one of Link Digital’s global team of CKAN experts, Sergey Motornyuk. These new videos add to the ten already posted on our YouTube Channel. They showcase the abilities of CKAN and how its functionality as open source software can be maximised through the deployment of a variety of extensions and plugins.

Along with the CKAN installation and walk-through videos already posted on our YouTube channel by another one of our CKAN developers, Brett Jones, we believe these represent one of the most comprehensive and detailed collections of CKAN instructional videos available on the Internet. 

As a CKAN ‘co-steward’ and one of its largest contributing developers, Link Digital is keen to assist CKAN’s users and contributors to get the most from these.

The latest videos cover the following topics:

HTML and cascading style sheets (CSS) in CKAN installation: the crucial role of HTML and CSS in CKAN installations and particularly the function of CSS, a key component of the World Wide Web, for specifying the presentation and styling of web pages written in markup language such as HTML.

The new CKAN plugin and Blueprint: extending CKAN’s functionality using Python programming and CKAN’s existing plugin architecture.

Custom dataset fields: an examination of customised dataset fields and how they interact with organisational structures in data management.

CKAN application programming interface (API): a look at the key aspects of utilising the CKAN API to create datasets and make POST requests (one of the main Hypertext Transfer Protocols (HTTP) methods used in web development and API communication).

Code structure and auth validation: the basics of writing and structuring code correctly, including the importance of leveraging validators to write well-structured and easily testable code.

Creating new tables in a database: including defining models, generating columns, and establishing relationships between tables.

An exploration of Facets: a powerful search tool for Elasticsearch, an open-source search and analytics engine that allows users to extract statistical information from search results.

Datastore, scheming and spatial: how to Utilise schemas – the organization or structure for a database – to improve your data management.

The videos are in Russian language but non-Russian speakers are able to listen to them by utilising the Chrome Browser plugin called Language Reactor, available here.

  • Click on the ‘Add to Chrome’ button,

  • Then click on the ‘Add Extension’ button in the pop-up window.

The plugin will then be added to the Chrome browser extensions and made available (and running) when viewing Sergey’s videos on YouTube. Other languages, apart from English, are also available.

If you have found this post useful, you might be interested in taking part in a series of forums being held by Link Digital on the last Thursday of every month, Australian EDT. These forums will connect you with like-minded experts who are passionate about the importance of open data and want to stay updated on the latest developments in the field. They are free to attend and open to everyone. Register today.