Since last summer we’ve been working on upgrading the Yukon open government portal. The open government portal hosts Yukon government data and information that can be freely accessed, used and shared. It also powers the Access to Information Registry that provides resources on privacy and access to information, as well as completed Access to Information requests.
The new portal is being built with CKAN, a widely-used open-source data management system. We’ve been lucky to work with several open-source vendors to incorporate Yukon’s branding and digital service standards into the CKAN user interface, and to host our updated portal on scalable cloud infrastructure.
Moving to CKAN for our open government portal provides a number of benefits, both to the public and to Yukon government staff:
- A more user-friendly, modern interface that meets the Yukon’s accessibility standards and works well on different screen sizes
- Better search functionality and faster access to specific types of searches from the homepage
- Widely-supported Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that let the public retrieve metadata and data automatically directly into other software systems, including data visualization tools, and let Yukon government staff automatically update datasets with new data
- Self-serve publishing capabilities for Yukon government staff, speeding up the release of new publications and datasets
- Improved cybersecurity through the use of modern, actively updated open-source software and cloud infrastructure
We’re planning to launch the new portal software in early August 2025. If you’d like to help beta test the new software (either as a member of the public, or as a Yukon government employee), send an email to [email protected]. We’d love your insights and feedback!
We’d also like to thank the central ATIPP Office, the ECO Digital team, and the Yukon government’s data and analytics community of practice for their support as this project comes together. Stay tuned for more updates as the new portal launches!