A data portal is an interactive web interface for discovering, filtering, aggregating, visualizing, and downloading data. It helps analysts and stakeholders work with large, complex public datasets without processing every record locally. section 10.3.3
Typical portal-supported tasks include:
- Searching a repository for a relevant dataset or topic. section 10.3.3
- Filtering records and selecting only the columns needed for analysis. section 10.3.3
- Aggregating, visualizing, and downloading subsets directly through the website. section 10.3.3
NYC Open Data and rat sightings
The NYC Open Data portal contains the 35-million-row 311 service-request dataset. Filtering the descriptor for “rat sighting” reduces it to about 236,000 records, producing a more manageable input for statistical modeling. section 10.3.3
Figure 10.19 The NYC Open Data portal allows you to filter, aggregate, and create simple charts.
The portal interface demonstrates filtering, aggregation, and simple chart creation before data is extracted. section 10.3.3
