Useful, well-described datasets
- Publish approved soil moisture, temperature and environmental datasets.
- Share historical agricultural sensor readings with researchers.
- Organize datasets with metadata, descriptions and licences.
Research & data integration
Turn agricultural sensor data into discoverable research datasets
CKAN is an open-source platform for organizing, cataloguing, publishing and sharing datasets. ThingsCommute could help farmers, universities and researchers make approved agricultural datasets available for discovery and reuse.
CKAN is primarily a data catalogue and publishing platform, not a live sensor monitoring dashboard.
Illustrative future workflow
From farm sensor readings to research-ready datasets
Proposed flow: Farm Sensors → ThingsCommute → optional Jupyter Notebook → CKAN Data Catalogue. Jupyter Notebook is an optional preparation step, not a mandatory CKAN dependency.
Discovery and reuse
What approved datasets can support.
Research and learning
- Support university research and student projects.
- Make authorized agricultural datasets discoverable and reusable.
- Help users understand a dataset’s subject, source and terms of use.
Only datasets approved for sharing by their authorized owner would be considered. Private farm data is not automatically exposed or published.
Before publishing
Requirements to plan for.
- A ThingsCommute account with authorized access to the sensor data being considered.
- Access to an existing CKAN portal or a separately hosted CKAN instance.
- Appropriate permission in that CKAN portal to publish datasets.
- A dataset approved for sharing by its authorized owner.
- An optional Jupyter Notebook or Python environment for cleaning, transforming and preparing data. Neither is required by CKAN.
- Potential third-party hosting costs, depending on where CKAN is hosted and who manages it.
Guided publishing · Coming Soon
Publish a Dataset
A planned guided workflow for preparing an approved CSV or JSON dataset and publishing it to a CKAN portal with suitable descriptions and licence information.
Requirements
- A ThingsCommute account with authorized access to the selected sensor data.
- An existing CKAN portal and an account permitted to create or update datasets.
- Owner approval for sharing, plus a suitable title, description, metadata and licence.
- Optional: a Jupyter Notebook or Python environment to clean and prepare the data before publishing.
Possible future steps
- Select an approved dataset and confirm the intended audience and reuse terms.
- Prepare a CSV or JSON file and add clear dataset descriptions and metadata.
- Use authorized CKAN publishing access to submit the dataset for review.
- Confirm the published catalogue entry and access settings.
Automated publishing · Coming Soon
Automated Dataset Publishing
A planned workflow using the CKAN API to publish or periodically update approved datasets. No CKAN connection or scheduled publishing is currently provided.
Requirements
- A ThingsCommute account authorized to access the specific sensor data selected for sharing.
- An existing CKAN portal with an authorized publishing account and API access arranged by its administrator.
- An approved dataset, including agreed metadata, licence and intended audience.
- If updates are planned, an agreed schedule and process for correcting or withdrawing records.
Possible future steps
- Confirm which approved datasets may be published and who can access them.
- Agree how often data should be updated and how changes will be reviewed.
- Arrange and review authorized CKAN API access with the portal administrator.
- Test publication and establish monitoring, correction and withdrawal procedures.
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