The Scottish Government’s new open data platform has gone live today as a ‘public beta’ service – featuring datasets from 14 different public sector organisations.
The new data.gov.scot platform, which will replace the current statistics.gov.scot portal, is designed to make it easier to find, access and reuse public sector data about Scotland, while providing improved tools and support for data publishers to publish data openly.
Organisations which have published datasets on the new platform include the Care Inspectorate, National Records of Scotland, NatureScot, Public Health Scotland and Social Security Scotland.
Martin Macfie, head of open data at the Scottish Government, said in a LinkedIn post: “We have been hugely encouraged by the interest, engagement and support we have received throughout the development of the service, and we would like to thank everyone who has contributed their time, expertise and feedback along the way.
“It’s been great to work with people from a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, specialisms and sectors. I have personally learned a great deal about building a new digital service. I have also thoroughly enjoyed talking about data, hearing about user needs, and working in an open and transparent way.”
The service has been developed with the assistance of Edinburgh digital transformation specialist Storm ID, and went live after the completion of security, accessibility and user acceptance testing.
Existing datasets have been migrated from statistics.gov.scot to data.gov.scot, with the former due to be decommissioned by October 31.
The new platform is part of a wider programme to bring more data and services together over time and improve how data is shared across Scotland. The Scottish Government also published a blog post about the new service.