21. Canadian Urban Data Catalogue

Introduction: The surge in open data platforms such as CKAN and Dataserve has expanded the urban data landscape, yet data scarcity persists due to inadequate metadata, poorly tailored data presentation, and localization challenges (Ojo et al., 2016). Decentralization of repositories further complicates data discovery and metadata inconsistencies and obstructs dataset identification, comparison, and deduplication. The Canadian Urban Data Catalogue (CUDC) addresses these issues by providing a comprehensive catalogue of both accessible and restricted Canadian urban datasets and web services. It incorporates a dataset metadata maturity model that ranks datasets by metadata completeness, where higher maturity denotes greater detail. Following Fox et al. (2024), the levels assess search-relevant attributes, extending to licensing, governance, and compliance with FAIR and indigenous data principles, ensuring a structured and mature metadata framework for catalogue entries.

Methodology: The development of CUDC involves a user-centric approach, focusing on its users' practical needs and behaviours. The architecture integrates the maturity model with an advanced knowledge graph database for metadata analysis, developed as an open-source CKAN plugin that provides: 1. Cataloguing: a metamodel, extension support, upload capabilities, and API access points, ensuring accessible and transparent data access policies. 2. Search Functionality: a wide range of searchable metadata organized for easy data entry and retrieval. 3. Dataset Usage Quality: encourages comprehensive metadata provision for determining dataset applicability and relevance. 4. Search Behaviour Analysis: offers insights into dataset search models and tools, identifying key metadata across domains.

Ojo, A., Porwol, L., Waqar, M., Stasiewicz, A., Osagie, E., Hogan, M., Harney, O., and Zeleti, F. A. (2016, October). Realizing the innovation potentials from open data: Stakeholders’ perspectives on the desired affordances of open data environment. In Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises (pp. 48-59). Springer, Cham.

Fox, M., Gajderowicz ,B., Lyu, D. (2024), A Maturity Model for Urban Dataset Meta-data. Manuscript under review.