The SASSCAL Data and Information Portal is an open online data and information portal that can be accessed freely using any web browser at
HTTPS://DATA.SASSCAL.ORG
With this data portal, SASSCAL in collaboration with strong African and international partners from research, public service and private sector, will host, safeguard and make available data and information resources openly, yet ensure the integrity and ownership of the contributing parties.
The SASSCAL Data & Information Portal is jointly developed by SASSCAL and the Geographic Information Science Group of the University of Jena, Germany.
The SASSCAL Data & Information Portal is fully inter-operable and highly user-friendly.
Functionality of the portal
The SASSCAL Data and Information Portal allows for the management, analysis, visualisation, linkage and presentation of various types of data and resources, including time series data, geospatial data, space-time data, publications, documents and others.
The powerful search functionality of the Portal is supported and enabled by comprehensive metadata records for all resources, that the system makes available. The metadata model is based on ISO standards (e.g., ISO, 2005) and further adheres to specifications of gazetted metadata standards in the SASSCAL countries.
Open system for open data
The portal offers a fine-grained user permission control approach which allows the data owner to upload and update data but also permits setting up access permissions.
Notably, the resources hosted by the SASSCAL Data and Information Portal are not limited to the SASSCAL research outputs, but also extend to publicly accessible data from other sources relevant to SASSCAL researchers and stakeholders, including the research community, decision makers and the public.
The SASSCAL Data and Information Portal is based exclusively on open source solutions, while ensuring data interoperability and allowing extensibility. The system is based on a three-tier architecture with user frontends and server functionality for database operations. All data are processed on the server, putting less strain on hardware capacity at the end user’s side.
Left to right: The SASSCAL Data and Information Portal is enabled by a metadata catalogue, allowing for powerful search functionality, and to ensure credibility, as well as traceability. The SASSCAL Data and Information Portal is based on a three-trier architecture with user front-ends and server functionality for database operations. The landing page of the SASSCAL Data and Information Portal.
The SASSCAL Data and Information Portal allows for the management, analysis, visualisation, linkage and presentation of various types of data and resources, including time series data, geospatial data, space-time data, publications, documents and others. The above screenshots show (from left to right), the portal allows to geographically map GIS data, resources in the portal can be searched by pre-defined areas of interest, time series data can be represented as graphs, the resources include soil profiles and time series data can be analysed for gaps in the record.
