This summer, the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada launched the Federated Open Data Search Pilot Project.
This project is a collaboration between our two programs that is fostering the creation of a federated open data search capability. This ‘federation’ (a simultaneous search of multiple resources) means that visitors to the open data portal of Canada are now able to search and download open data available from both jurisdictions.
And although both our programs made this pilot project look easy, it came with a significant amount of work including:
- aligning the metadata of both partners;
- creating a controlled vocabulary;
- defining the functional specifications and technical architecture;
- mapping workflow between the two portals; and
- translating Alberta open metadata into French.
It takes two to collaborate BUT the credit goes to the good people at the Government of Canada for the heavy lifting of the tasks mentioned above.
Why is this important? Previously, Canadians had to search our portal in order to locate the data they needed. Now, they are able to access data from both jurisdictions through the Government of Canada’s portal.
And it’s noteworthy to state that Alberta is the first province to demonstrate that this type of collaboration is possible. We hope our success will inspire other open data/open government jurisdictions to collaborate with the Government of Canada’s Open Data program as well.