The Open Research Data Portal is Universiti Brunei Darussalam’s platform for publishing, discovering, and downloading open research datasets, built and operated by the Institute of Applied Data Analytics (IADA). It pairs a standards-based open-data catalogue with an always-available AI assistant, CARe, so that researchers, students, and the public can find data and understand it without specialist tooling.
Visit the portal: 10.1.7.18 (accessible on the UBD internal network)
What it does
Research groups register as organisations and publish datasets with rich metadata, multiple downloadable resources (CSV, XLSX, and more), and topic-based browsing. Visitors can search the full catalogue, explore datasets by organisation or topic, and download resources directly. Every dataset and every page carries an “Ask CARe” entry point to the built-in assistant.
The dataset catalogue, with faceted search by organisation, format, tags, and licence.
A dataset page: description, licence, tags, and downloadable resources, with the publishing organisation (here, IADA’s detected-trees geospatial data).
The CARe AI assistant
CARe is a research-data assistant embedded on every page. It answers questions about the catalogue, explains what a dataset contains and how its columns are defined, and helps users decide which resource fits their analysis. This lowers the barrier to reuse: a visitor can ask plain-language questions instead of reading raw column dictionaries.
The CARe assistant answering a question about a dataset, reachable from a floating button on every page.
Open data, done properly
Datasets are organised for findability and reuse, with clear descriptions, variable-level documentation, and per-resource downloads. Current holdings span economics and geospatial science, including employee wage microdata, GDP-per-capita series (time-series, panel, and cross-section), and IADA’s own detected-trees dataset of individual tree crown areas and heights derived from remote sensing.
Organisations publishing open data on the portal, including the Institute of Applied Data Analytics.
Built for trust
The platform records administrative activity through a transaction log so that data stewards can audit changes, and it uses role-based access for organisations and editors. An admin dashboard gives stewards a live view of the catalogue: totals, growth over time, visibility split, and the most-viewed datasets. It runs entirely on UBD infrastructure, keeping institutional research data under local governance.
The admin analytics dashboard: catalogue stats, growth over time, public and private split, most-viewed datasets, and top organisations and tags.
Technology
The portal is built on a CKAN open-data management core with a modern Next.js interface, and integrates a large language model to power the CARe assistant. It is self-hosted by IADA and served over the university network.
Project collaborators
Centre for Advanced Research (CARe)
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Dr Siti Mazidah binti Hj Mohamad
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Dr Slesman Ly
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Dr Khadizah binti Hj Abdul Mumin
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Dr Valatheeswaran Chinnakkannu
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Dr Evi Nurvidya Arifin
Institute of Applied Data Analytics (IADA)
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Dr Murtadha Arif Bin Sahbudin
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Prof Liyanage Chandratilak De Silva
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Dr Rosyzie Anna binti Awg Hj Mohd Apong
Students
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Shakir Zufayri Bin Abdullah
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Mohamad Francis Juelar Bin Mohamad Wahid