USAID MISRA is looking for a Developer for upgrade of the Open Data portal (further Consultant)



USAID MISRA is looking for a Developer for upgrade of the Open Data portal (further Consultant)

Position:                               Developer (further Consultant)

Location:                               Chisinau, Moldova

Period of Performance:    March – May 2023

Total Level of Effort:         up to 20 working days

Work Plan Activity:           Task: 1.1 Enhance institutional capacity of the E-Governance Agency (EGA).

                       

Background

The USAID Moldova Institutional and Structural Reform Activity (MISRA) is a five-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Nathan Associates Inc. MISRA’s objective is to stimulate a sustainable and inclusive recovery from the regional crisis, improve the institutional, business, and trade enabling environment in Moldova by supporting Moldova’s public institutions and the private sector to accelerate the implementation of trade liberalization mechanisms, adopt structural and investment climate reforms, accelerate financial sector reforms, improve economic governance in the public sector, and enhance strategic communications between the private and public actors. MISRA builds on prior and ongoing USAID and US Government activities in the business enabling environment and trade facilitation space to strengthen Moldova’s economic growth and resilience, and by doing so, increase transparency and accountability.

 

Activity Overview

The Open Data Portal (https://date.gov.md/) is a public informational resource aimed to provide the public with data collected and produced by authorities, state institutions, and Government in general. The Open Date Portal is a governmental service that offers possibility for entities to access authentic, upright, and accurate data from registers and state information systems, in real time, in line with their legal purpose. This is statistical data or structured data that is reflected in a list or non-narrative form and that can be transmitted in digital format and processed automatically. Open government data is freely available to anyone for use, copying, transmission, distribution, modification, transformation, republication, without any restrictions or control mechanisms.

Currently 12 Ministries and 5 Governmental institutions publish open data sets on the referred Portal with more than 1170 open data sets on various categories containing structural, statistical data either reflected as a list or in non-narrative form, published and available to the public in various formats, like XLS, xlsx, PDF, CSV, Docx, Docs, ZIP, Xlsb, TXT. The data exposed through this interface is retrieved in an automated and real-time way via the MConnect interoperability platform.

From the technical standpoint, the Open Data Portal solution is developed based CKAN Portal, (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, an open-source technology used worldwide by different Governments, companies for managing open data), which is an opensource portal for open data for storing and distributing open data. The CKAN backend, the part that runs on the Web server, is mainly written in Python. The web pages they offer to users' browsers include JavaScript. CKAN retains information about the datasets to be offered to users in PostgreSQL databases. Searches are implemented by Solr. CKAN installations can be queried through web APIs.

The current version of CKAN, 2.4., is already outdated and consequently generates deficiencies in the use of the portal both by the entities (providers of data) as well as by the administrator. The scope of the work is to upgrade the Open Data Portal to the most recent version of CKAN, and make sure all functionalities work as expected.

 

Responsibilities and Tasks

 

The consultants will be responsible, but not limited to, for carrying-out the following tasks:

  • Suport the development team on the upgrade of the Open Data Portal platform to the latest CKAN version.
  • Review and update the container image building script.
  • Review the CI/CD (Continuous Integration, Delivery, and Deployment) scripts.
  • Review of the helm package.
  • Suport the development team in migrating the existing users to the new version of CKAN.
  • Migrate data from the current production environment to the new version.
  • Suport the development team in preparing the user guide.
  • Suport the development team in updating the integration guide.

Deliverables

  • Container image building script reviewed and updated.
  • CI/CD scripts for Open data portal reviewed.
  • Helm package reviewed.
  • Open Data Portal https://date.gov.md/ upgraded to the latest CKAN version.
  • New user guide developed, and the integration guide upgraded.
  • Existing users migrated to the new version of CKAN.

Data from the current production environment to the new version migrated.

Consultants Qualifications Requirements

Qualification requirements for Developer:

  • 2 years experience working with Kubernetes and helm;
  • Experience in PostgreSQL configuration;
  • Experience in working with Azure Developer is an advantage;
  • Experience in configuration Solr and Redis is an asset.

 

Supervisory Responsibilities and Reporting

The consultant will work in close cooperation with the Software developers. He/she will be in charge of ensuring smooth operation of the software development and the upgrade of the CKAN.

The consultant will report to Team Lead for Component 1.

How to Apply

We welcome your CV and, preferably, cover letter at Moldovajobs@nathaninc.com. Please apply by March 31, with “Development” in the subject line. This short-term position will remain open until filled.