A step-by-step process. Got questions? Email info@openaq.org .
If your government entity is interested in adding in station-level real-time air quality data to OpenAQ, here is the process:
- Pat yourself on the back! Seriously. You and your org are awesome open data champions!
- Assess whether your data are available programmatically. Are the data available in a machine readable way, as opposed to data requiring human interaction (e.g. viewing on a website or even clicking a ‘download’ button)? Examples of programmatic means of data sharing include: an Application Programming Interface (API), an ftp server, or even a csv file that is predictably formatted. An example of an API that has been able to be easily added to our system comes from SIATA in Medellin, Colombia. See it here. If you would like to discuss this step in more detail, contact us at info@openaq.org.
- Check our data requirements. In order to add in a data source, it must meet a few minimum requirements, in terms of the data type and meta data shared. We can accept seven different types of pollutants: PM2.5, PM10, Ozone, NO2, SO2, CO, and Black Carbon. The full description of required data to meet our format requirements is here.
- Contact us with your programmatic data source! If you haven’t yet, reach out via info@openaq.org. Once the required data and meta data are provided in a programmatic means by a government entity, we will insert the “new data issue” into our GitHub project here. Here is an example again from SIATA in Medellin, Colombia. As part of this step and as part of the data requirements, do tell us how you would like your organization credited and give us an appropriate hyperlink.
- Now the ball is in our court. This “issue” to add the new data source can then be picked up by a volunteer community member, often a software developer who is graciously donating their time, to write the code connecting the data source to our system. Sometimes, this might require going back and forth with you and your team on a few questions or modifications.
- And the data goes live! We’ll announce it to our community, and we encourage you to announce it to yours as well. It’s a big deal! Suddenly, the data you are working hard to measure and make open will be getting seamlessly ingested into to diverse projects around the world to fight air pollution.
Other notes:
- If we are working on a pro bono basis to add your data, we can’t guarantee a timeline of when a volunteer will pick up the new issue to add the data.
- Relatedly, adding in a source of data to the OpenAQ system is also always subject to our ability to sustain the system (e.g. we would hesitate adding in 10,000 sensors all at once, but 100 here or there is usually just fine).
- Our system is currently optimized to adding in real-time government data. We don’t yet have a great way to add in non-real-time QA/QC’d data — mainly from the standpoint of being able to differentiate it from the real-time data layer. Still reach out to us, if you can only share non-real time data. We are working on adding in this functionality.
