Data Publication Service

The San Diego Regional Data Library’s Data Publication Service gives governments and nonprofit organizations in San Diego County an easy way to store, publish, document, and distribute data to the Internet. Using a simple Web service, data producers can quickly upload data to share and find data that other organizations have published.  The service is secure, reliable, and easy to integrate into an organization’s existing website.

Organizations will also have free access to data published by other organizations, significantly reducing the cost of data acquisition and the effort required for data analysis projects and data-driven decisions.

Highlights

Free for basic use. Organizations can publish up to 20 datasets for free. Organizations can have an unlimited number of users who can administrate the account or access datasets.

Public or private. Users can publish datasets publicly, or restrict them to members of their organization.

Backup data for long-term storage. The Data Publication Service uses Amazon Web Services (S3 and Glacier) to provide the highest level of reliability for long-term storage. Organizations can ensure that valuable data remains secure and accessible.

Indexed search. Public data is indexed in search engines to make it easy to find. Private datasets are searchable only on the repository website, and only for authorized users.

Professional support.  The staff of the Data Library can help you prepare your data for publication and ensure that it is properly documented.

Benefits

Collaboration with others. Easily share data with partners and the public.

Better data for your operation. Sharing data also means it is easier for your organization to get data from other sources.

Community analysis. The Data Library works with volunteers, students, and professionals to analyze socially valuable data. These volunteers can provide free, valuable analysis for data you upload.

Keeping valuable data secure. The Data Publication Service is backed by the most secure, reliable cloud data storage system, Amazon Web Services. Contributing data to the library ensures that your data will always be available.

Enhancements for your website. Directories and links to data files can be integrated into your organization’s existing website.

Using The Service

The Data Publication Service is an expanded version of the Data Library’s existing data repository, which you can preview at http://data.sandiegodata.org.

  • Register for an account
  • Configure your Organizational Account
  • Invite users
  • Upload or email data

Register for an Account

During the beta period, contact eric@sandiegodata.org to create an account for your organization.

Configure Your Organizational Account

Each organization that uses the Publication Service gets an Organizational Account. Administrators of the Organizational Account can add and remove users and set permissions.

Organizational users with editor-level permission can upload data files for the organization and can mark them as either public or private. Files marked private are only accessible to other users in the same organization.

Upload a logo, write some descriptive text, and your Organizational Account is ready to use.

You can preview the existing Organization Accounts on our data repository.

Invite Users

Users can create free accounts on the site. After a user creates an account, the Organizational Account administrator–usually the person who created the Organizational Account–can add the user to the account and set permissions for the user.

User permissions can be set to administrator, dataset editor, or read-only user. User permissions allow organizations to grant access to private datasets.

Upload or Email Data

Once you have established an Organizational Account, you can begin creating datasets and uploading data. Or email your files to Data Library staff and we can do it for you.

Get Started

To get started sharing data, visit our data repository to explore the datasets that have been uploaded, then contact Eric Busboom at eric@sandiegodata.org to get your Organizational Account.