Getting ready for the next stage of the Yukon open government portal

Yukon’s open government portal launched in 2019, and has been growing ever since. It’s a go-to resource for Yukon government data and information that can be freely accessed, used and shared.  

Update: interested vendors should see the Request for Qualifications for CKAN-related open government portal services (RFQ-2024-7-3831) and apply before the Sept. 18, 2024 at 4pm Yukon time closing date

Every month, hundreds of people visit the portal, to find information on government statistics, historical documents, geospatial data, scientific research, and more. Since 2021, departments have also proactively published a range of internal information like organizational charts and audit reports.  

The Access to Information Registry, also hosted by the open government portal, includes a wide range of resources on privacy and access to information for Goverment of Yukon employees and the public alike. You can also use it to find responsive records from completed Access to Information requests. 

What’s coming up 

The open government portal is due for a software upgrade that’s planned for next year. We’re planning to migrate from the current software (DKAN, a Drupal extension) to CKAN, a widely-used open data management system. CKAN is open-source and is used by hundreds of organizations and governments around the world.  

Here in Canada, CKAN is used by a number of jurisdictions, including the British Columbia, Ontario, and federal open data portals and catalogues. Colleagues in all three of these jurisdictions have already provided a lot of thoughtful guidance and advice to help us plan our next steps.  

We’re really glad to be part of a cross-Canada open government community of practice and to be able to learn from others’ expertise and experience. 

What’s changing 

So far, we don’t expect any dramatic changes to how you find and access data and information on the open government portal. We’ll share more updates as we begin implementing and testing the new portal. You might notice some minor visual changes, and – hopefully! – also notice some improvements to features like the search function, API access, or data visualization capabilities. 

We’re all really looking forward to the new platform, and to be able to continue providing easy-to-use public access to government data and information.  

If you have thoughts or feedback on the existing portal, or ideas for the future, get in touch! We have a short online questionnaire to gather feedback, and we’d love to hear from you. You can also reach out by email at eservices@yukon.ca. Stay tuned for more updates in the year ahead!