This week, Link Digital will post the first in a series of seven Tuesday Tutorials on topics related to the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), by one of our global team of developers, Brett Jones.

Last update: April 30, 2024

Launched in 2006, CKAN can be developed to function as an open data platform or internal data repository once it is deployed and hosted on a web server. Link Digital has been involved with CKAN since its beginning and we have extensive experience in using it in the development of cutting-edge data portals, internal data management systems, and metadata catalogues, as well as managed cloud hosting for CKAN.

Link Digital takes our relationship with CKAN and the diverse open source community around it very seriously. We are a CKAN co-steward, one of its largest contributing developers, and are always keen to assist the software’s users to get the very most out of its always expanding functionality.

The Tuesday Tutorials will focus on the following topics:

  • April 30: CKAN Platform – install using Docker Containers
  • May 7: CKAN Platform – install DataStore and DataPusher
  • May 14: CKAN Extensions – install into a new Docker Development environment
  • May 21: CKAN Extensions – Updating Templates
  • June 11: CKAN Extensions – Using the CKAN Plugins toolkit
  • June 18: CKAN Extensions – Creating a blueprint
  • June 25: CKAN Extensions – Actions and Authorisation

All these articles can be viewed as accompanying Brett’s CKAN Installation Walkthroughs, which were posted on our YouTube channel in 2023, as well as his two articles, ‘CKAN on Kubernetes’ and ‘Improving build times with CKAN and Docker,’ both of which remain the most visited pages on our website.

Video tutorials

Brett’s material also complements the 18 videos recently posted on our YouTube channel by another of our developers, Sergey Motornyuk. These focus on how CKAN’s functionality as open source software can be maximised through the deployment of a variety of plugins and extensions. 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.

Taken all together, Link Digital believes that these videos and articles represent one of the most comprehensive and detailed collections of CKAN instructional material available on the Internet. 

Related online forums

If you are interested in CKAN and want to know more, there is a wealth of case studies and other articles on our site that showcase the power of CKAN and the ability of Link Digital help you on the next step on your data journey.

There are also two online forums you might like to check out. Both are free to attend and open to everyone.

The first is CKAN Monthly Live. This is a monthly event designed for CKAN users and is a space for the community to meet, get to know each other, and learn about the open source technology’s uses and applications. Each event includes multiple sessions and a live Q&A forum. You can find more details here: https://ckan.org/blog/were-launching-ckan-monthly-live

The second is Link Digital’s Monthly Forum, which is usually held on the last Thursday of every month, Australian EDT. These 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. You can register to join the next Monthly Forum here.