HolonIQ indexes collections of data unto units we call “datasets”. A dataset is a parcel of data - for example, it could be higher education enrolments for a region, the change in spending by government education department, or student loan balances for various states. When users search for data, the search results they see will be individual datasets.
A dataset contains the following:
Information or “metadata” about the data. For example, the title and publishing organization, date, what formats it is available in, what license it is released under, etc.
A number of “resources”, which hold the data itself. A resource can be a CSV or Excel spreadsheet, XML file, PDF document, image file, linked data in RDF format, etc. HolonIQ can store the resource internally, or store it simply as a link, the resource itself being elsewhere on the web. A dataset can contain any number of resources. For example, different resources might contain the data for different years, or they might contain the same data in different formats.