Reference: New to DataWA and publishing Geospatial? See the Introduction for Geospatial Data Publishers article first.

This article will introduce how the geospatial data you publish through data.wa.gov.au’s geospatial Data Upload Tool (DUT) becomes discoverable in data.wa.gov.au’s data catalogue. 

Info: Making data discoverable and sharing data is a key government priority. All data published through the Data Upload Tool will be discoverable through the data.wa.gov.au data catalogue.  

Discovering data vs sharing data

Data that is discoverable on data.wa.gov.au isn’t necessarily shared with the world. 

“Data is easily discoverable by being accessible through the Government of Western Australia’s online data portal, data.wa.gov.au. The portal will provide a single and convenient access point to open data in Western Australia. Publishing data with metadata will better enable users to search for and understand how to best use the data.” – Western Australian Government Open Data Policy

Discoverable data merely means: 

• knowledge that the data exists  
• which organisation publishes the data 
• and what the data describes is made publicly available. 

In essence, you are publishing a metadata record for your dataset that documents its existence, what it contains, and who publishes it. 

Info: Sharing access to your data is entirely within your control. There are a range of options that allow you to fine tune how much is shared publicly and how much is shared privately.

Reference: Refer to the Setting Access Restrictions section of the Geospatial data publishing: High-level overview article for a more detailed discussion of the options available.  

Making your data discoverable

Making your data discoverable in the data.wa.gov.au data catalogue is a straightforward process. Provide a few key pieces of information about your data; much of it should already be available from the data management practices applied by your organisation. This should include: 

• A description of your dataset that provides a comprehensive overview of the nature, type, purpose, and lineage of the data. 
• A data dictionary that describes the structure of the data. 
• Fundamental information to describe the data and make it discoverable, such as a theme, a set of tags describing it, who maintains it, etc. 
• Any additional supporting resources or documentation available. 

Reference: Remember, you can refer to the Preparing great metadata article for a more in-depth discussion of preparing metadata, as well as examples and templates to use. 

Info: This is an important step in the data publishing process. The information provided on the data catalogue is essential to complete the next step in the data publishing process - registering a new dataset in the Data Upload Tool. 

 Login to the data.wa.gov.au data catalogue 

1. Navigate to the data catalogue sign on page - https://catalogue.data.wa.gov.au/user/login 
2. When prompted, enter the username and password for the DataWA Account you created during the setup process. If you haven’t received access to publish data, please refer to the Getting set up as a geospatial data publisher article for further guidance.
3. Choose the “My Datasets” tab on your dashboard and choose “Add Dataset”. 

Adding a new dataset 

The process of adding a new dataset to data.wa.gov.au data catalogue is relatively quick and straightforward.

How long will this take?

Time: If you have completed the preparation outlined in the Preparing great metadata article, then the actual process of adding a dataset should take no more than 10 minutes. 

Reference: Please refer to the Publishing a dataset article for a step-by-step walkthrough of adding your dataset. 

Next steps 

You’ve successfully added your dataset to the data catalogue and can now begin the process of registering a new dataset in the Data Upload Tool.