22/12/2020 Frequently Asked Questions - Humanitarian Data Exchange

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Getting Started About the Humanitarian Data Exchange

Organisations
The Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) is an open platform for sharing data across crises and organisations. Launched in July
Sharing and Using Data
to make humanitarian data easy to find and use for analysis. Our growing collection of datasets has been accessed by users in o
Geodata
territories.
Search
Metadata and Data Quality HDX is managed by OCHA's Centre for Humanitarian Data (https://centre.humdata.org/#), which is located in The Hague. OCHA
Resources for Developers Nations Secretariat and is responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencie
HXL and HDX Tools includes OCHA sta and a number of consultants who are based in North America, Europe and Africa.
Sensitive Data
For the latest content about HDX, click here (https://centre.humdata.org/category/article/). A selection is below:
Data Licenses
Contact UN DESA - Humanitarian Data Exchange: Making Data Accessible for the COVID-19 Pandemic (https://covid-19-response
data/hdx-making-covid19-data-accessible/)
Thomson Reuters Foundation - In a World Awash with Data, Aid Workers Contend with Gaps (https://news.trust.org/item
Don't see an answer?
56ry0)
Search FAQ: Good Code Podcast - The UN on Humanitarian Data (https://soundcloud.com/chine-labbe/the-un-on-humanitarian-dat
UN Radio - Saving lives with data: how the UN is developing digital tools for improved humanitarian aid
(https://news.un.org/en/audio/2018/12/1028891)
Capacity4Dev.eu - Q&A: The challenge of open data in humanitarian response (https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/articles/
data-humanitarian-response)
AcademyHealth - Sixth Annual Health Data Liberator Award Honors Work to Increase Use and Impact of Humanitarian D
(https://www.academyhealth.org/blog/2018-04/sixth-annual-health-data-liberator-award-honors-work-increase-use-a
humanitarian-data)
Devex - Opinion: Humanitarian world is full of data myths. Here are the most popular (https://www.devex.com/news/op
world-is-full-of-data-myths-here-are-the-most-popular-91959/)

To find our logo files and other materials, please click here (https://centre.humdata.org/design-assets/).

Getting Started

How does HDX define humanitarian data?

Is HDX open source?

What browsers are best to use for HDX?

How do I register an account with HDX?

What if I forget my username and password?

What are the benefits of being a registered user?

What does it mean to 'follow' data?

How do I request access to a dataset where I can only see metadata?

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22/12/2020 Frequently Asked Questions - Humanitarian Data Exchange

How do I contact a data contributor?

Organisations

What is an organisation?

Where can I see how popular an organisation's datasets are?

How do I create an organisation?

How do I request organisation membership?

How does organisation membership work?

I'm an organisation admin. How do I add/remove members?

I am an organisation admin. I don't want anyone to request membership and want to manuall
members.

Can I be part of more than one organisation?

I don't see my organisation. What should I do?

Can an organisation have more than one administrator?

How do I create a branded organisation page on HDX?

How do I use the Group Message feature?

I changed my job - what happens to my account?

Sharing and Using Data

How do I share data on HDX?

What is the difference between a dataset and a resource?

How do I add a dataset?

Can I just share metadata?

How can I add links and formatting to my dataset page?

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22/12/2020 Frequently Asked Questions - Humanitarian Data Exchange

How do I edit a dataset?

How can I add graphs and key figures to my dataset?

How can I add data visualizations to my dataset?

How can I check errors in my HXL-tagged spreadsheet?

What are the recommended data formats?

What are the best practices for managing resources in a dataset?

What are the recommended best practices for naming datasets and resources?

Is there a limit on file size for the data that I upload?

Can I share data hosted elsewhere?

Can I drag&drop files from my computer?

How can I share data from my Google Drive?

How do I share a live Google Sheet?

How do I share a live spreadsheet from Dropbox?

If the dataset date on HDX did not change automatically after updating my remote resource, ho
it to the correct date?

Geodata

How can I generate a map with my geographic data?

Why is the geodata preview only working for one layer in my resource?

Search

How does search work on HDX?

How do I find the Common Operational Datasets in HDX?

How do I find a set of high quality datasets for a specific country? (How do I use the Data Grid?

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22/12/2020 Frequently Asked Questions - Humanitarian Data Exchange

I shared a private dataset but cannot find it.

Metadata and Data Quality

What metadata do I need to include when sharing data?

How does HDX ensure data quality?

What should I put for expected update frequency?

What does the green leaf symbol mean?

Does HDX make any changes to my dataset?

What does it mean for a dataset to be 'under review'?

Resources for Developers

How do I access the HDX API?

Where can I read about coding with HDX?

HXL and HDX Tools

What is the Humanitarian Exchange Language?

What are HDX Tools?

How can I add Quick Charts to my dataset?

How can I add Quick Charts to my own web sites or blogs?

Why isn't Quick Charts recognizing the HXL hashtags in my dataset?

How does HXL Tag Assist work?

How does Data Check work?

Sensitive Data

How does HDX define sensitive data?

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22/12/2020 Frequently Asked Questions - Humanitarian Data Exchange

Can I share personal data through HDX?

How can I assess and manage the sensitivity of data before sharing on HDX?

How does HDX assess the sensitivity of data?

Data Licenses

What data licences does HDX offer?

Contact

How do I contact the HDX team?

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