CKAN, the most commonly used software platform to build open data portals, now supports responsive designs. This interface technology automatically provides a uniform experience to visitors viewing and navigating websites, from large screens (i.e. desktop monitors) to small (i.e. mobile phones).
The code was developed by Open Knowledge and the Swedish company Metasolutions on behalf of the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova for the Swedish open data portal. The graphical design of the portal was not overhauled in the latest update but it now automatically provides a consistent user interface for all visitors, independent of the device they are using.
The code implementing the responsive design has been contributed to CKAN and is part of version 2.3, making this functionality available for all CKAN-based open data portals.
Automation
Another feature added to the Swedish open data portal is the possibility to incorporate new datasets that have not yet been defined in the portal. Public agencies can now have new datasets harvested by the portal if they conform to the DCAT (Data Catalogue Vocabulary) standard. This RDF language provides a metadata specification vocabulary allowing the exchange of datasets over the web.