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OpenDataServices / cove

CoVE is an web application to Convert, Validate and Explore data following certain open data standards - including 360Giving, Open Contracting Data Standard, IATI and the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard
http://cove.opendataservices.coop
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Is there a role for CoVE to offer multiple flattened versions of the same data? #1191

Open robredpath opened 5 years ago

robredpath commented 5 years ago

For example - a version that contains all the original data, and one that contains just the fields in the schema.

jpmckinney commented 5 years ago

Similar to comments in https://github.com/OpenDataServices/flatten-tool/issues/307#issuecomment-498606612, the OCDS Data Review Tool's primarily role is data review, and its flattening features are included in that context (e.g. give a reviewer access to an easy-to-use format to investigate the errors). For people who simply want to flatten data, it's not the obvious or intended tool to use.

ocdskit-web was created to be a simple toolkit / web interface for command-line tools. It already has an interface for flatten-tool. I think that would be the more appropriate place to develop this (e.g. add form fields and check-boxes to configure flatten-tool's CLI options).

jpmckinney commented 5 years ago

Opened issue: https://github.com/open-contracting/ocdskit-web/issues/26

robredpath commented 5 years ago

I think that multiple flattened versions of the same data might still meet a need in the context of review; certainly not exposing all of flatten-tool's myriad options but two or three combinations that we think might be useful in certain contexts.

ocdskit-web is the natural place for a more nuanced interface I think, although we'd probably still want to curate instead of exposing all of the options. It's also supposed to be simple to use!

There's something that we haven't explored much around spreadsheets as an output format in the context of review. For example, seeing a spreadsheet that contains only the subset of the data that uses the schema could make it obvious to a reviewer what would be missing from data when consumed by a tool that used OCDS, or a researcher wanting to understand what they can do with some data they've got might want different flattening behaviour from a publisher.

jpmckinney commented 5 years ago

We have confirmed needs for flattened data in the context of use, so that should be implemented first (in ocdskit-web); we can continue that conversation in open-contracting/ocdskit-web#26 (which proposes both basic and advanced web interfaces to Flatten-Tool; we might just start with the basic interface, since that need is confirmed).

In terms of additional flattened data formats for review, do we have analytics on the number of spreadsheet downloads from the OCDS Data Review Tool? I have not heard demand for additional formats for review, so although we can envision how they would be useful, it's important to assess whether they will actually be used. (#1202)