However, I am still none-the-wiser as to what the publicAttribute field indicates.

Permitted values appear to be either TRUE or FALSE.

I thought it might be something to do with public access & access controls but it doesn't appear to correlate with indicating which records were obtained through special "enhanced access".

So what does publicAttribute indicate?

With values that can be:

D, DD, Y, YY, O, OO, -Y, ND, U, P

(empirically determined by examining lots of records)

But what do those values actually mean or indicate about the date type? It's not obvious to me.

I have tried hard to find a full explanation of dateTypekey or a clear and detailed guide to the NBN data exchange format but have found none. Closest I got was this forum link which had someone asking a similar question to the one I'm asking now: forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=5825

Can anyone explain each of those dateTypekey values to me, or point me to a useful explanatory link?

Thanks.

You can see the problem demonstrated at https://data.nbn.org.uk/Documentation/W … rade_Maps/ if you scroll down to where it says "You can see the default view of the acknowledgment service when no css is provided in the following sample"

The error is "HTTP Status 500 - Request processing failed; nested exception is com.sun.jersey.api.client.ClientHandlerException: org.codehaus.jackson.map.exc.UnrecognizedPropertyException: Unrecognized field "licenceID" (Class uk.org.nbn.nbnv.api.model.TaxonDataset), not marked as ignorable"

Jim Bacon.

I'm new to exploiting the NBN webservices so you will have to excuse me if I am doing something dumb.

I want to characterise an area by doing a point buffer query to get the number of species ever recorded there.

But the results I get back are very high!  13,778 records and 3,574 species for a 100m radius circle in Edinburgh - which seems a little excessive. I wasn't expecting to get anything.

I paste below the query URI and also the non URL encoded polygon.

I'd be really grateful for any advice. Am I doing something stupid with my query construction or is the service resolution only to recorder district or something like that.

Many thanks,

Roger

p.s. the forum won't let me post links so I have removed the h t t p s

://data.nbn.org.uk/api/taxonObservations/species?absence=false&polygon=POLYGON%28%28-3.198712+55.966303%2C+-3.198434+55.966289%2C+-3.198163+55.966249%2C+-3.19791+55.966183%2C+-3.197681+55.966093%2C+-3.197483+55.965982%2C+-3.197322+55.965854%2C+-3.197204+55.965712%2C+-3.197132+55.965561%2C+-3.197107+55.965405%2C+-3.197132+55.965249%2C+-3.197204+55.965098%2C+-3.197322+55.964956%2C+-3.197483+55.964827%2C+-3.197681+55.964717%2C+-3.19791+55.964627%2C+-3.198163+55.964561%2C+-3.198434+55.96452%2C+-3.198712+55.964506%2C+-3.198991+55.96452%2C+-3.199261+55.964561%2C+-3.199515+55.964627%2C+-3.199744+55.964717%2C+-3.199942+55.964827%2C+-3.200102+55.964956%2C+-3.200221+55.965098%2C+-3.200293+55.965249%2C+-3.200317+55.965405%2C+-3.200293+55.965561%2C+-3.200221+55.965712%2C+-3.200102+55.965854%2C+-3.199942+55.965982%2C+-3.199744+55.966093%2C+-3.199515+55.966183%2C+-3.199261+55.966249%2C+-3.198991+55.966289%2C+-3.198712+55.966303%29%29

POLYGON((-3.198712 55.966303, -3.198434 55.966289, -3.198163 55.966249, -3.19791 55.966183, -3.197681 55.966093, -3.197483 55.965982, -3.197322 55.965854, -3.197204 55.965712, -3.197132 55.965561, -3.197107 55.965405, -3.197132 55.965249, -3.197204 55.965098, -3.197322 55.964956, -3.197483 55.964827, -3.197681 55.964717, -3.19791 55.964627, -3.198163 55.964561, -3.198434 55.96452, -3.198712 55.964506, -3.198991 55.96452, -3.199261 55.964561, -3.199515 55.964627, -3.199744 55.964717, -3.199942 55.964827, -3.200102 55.964956, -3.200221 55.965098, -3.200293 55.965249, -3.200317 55.965405, -3.200293 55.965561, -3.200221 55.965712, -3.200102 55.965854, -3.199942 55.965982, -3.199744 55.966093, -3.199515 55.966183, -3.199261 55.966249, -3.198991 55.966289, -3.198712 55.966303))

e.g. for Kingfisher I get:

 {"taxonVersionKey":"NHMSYS0000530141","querySpecificObservationCount"
:5,"taxon":{"taxonVersionKey":"NHMSYS0000530141","name":"Alcedo atthis","authority":"(Linnaeus, 1758
)","languageKey":"la","taxonOutputGroupKey":"NHMSYS0000080039","taxonOutputGroupName":"bird","commonNameTaxonVersionKey"
:"NBNSYS0000168157","commonName":"Kingfisher","organismKey":"NBNORG0000060603","rank":"Species","nameStatus"
:"Recommended","versionForm":"Well-formed","gatewayRecordCount":90703,"href":"https://data.nbn.org.uk
/Taxa/NHMSYS0000530141","ptaxonVersionKey":"NHMSYS0000530141"}},

but for Skylark I only get:

 {"taxonVersionKey":"NHMSYS0000530139","querySpecificObservationCount":20,"taxon"
:{"taxonVersionKey":"NHMSYS0000530139","name":"Alauda arvensis","authority":"Linnaeus, 1758","languageKey"
:"la","taxonOutputGroupKey":"NHMSYS0000080039","taxonOutputGroupName":"bird","organismKey":"NBNORG0000060601"
,"rank":"Species","nameStatus":"Recommended","versionForm":"Well-formed","gatewayRecordCount":225122
,"href":"https://data.nbn.org.uk/Taxa/NHMSYS0000530139","ptaxonVersionKey":"NHMSYS0000530139"}},

I also don't get common names for
Emberiza calandra (Corn Bunting, NHMSYS0001688304)   
Linaria cannabina (Linnet, NHMSYS0021004282)   
Poecile palustris (Marsh Tit, NHMSYS0001688303)   
Pyrrhula pyrrhula (Bullfinch, NHMSYS0000530802)   
Sturnus vulgaris (Starling, NHMSYS0000530628)   
Turdus philomelos (Song Thrush, NHMSYS0000530678)   

but when I look them up at https://data.nbn.org.uk/Taxa/XXXXXXXX they all have well-formed common names (but admittedly don't have common names in the "Taxon" panel for some reason).

(I'm only using taxonObservations/species in order to obtain common names and groups that I can then attach to records downloaded using taxonObservations (which doesn't provide either) so it's not very helpful when some common names aren't even provided by taxonObservations/species).

Keith

https://data.nbn.org.uk/api/taxonDatasets doesn't appear to have been modified to provide this information though?

Is there a way via web-services to discover which licence applies to each downloaded record so that we can know how each record may be used?

Keith

https://data.nbn.org.uk/api/taxonObservations?featureID=3374725&startYear=2000&ptvk=NBNSYS0000005078

but I just get an empty list. (Adding spatialRelationship=overlap doesn't make any difference). If I replace the featureID with gridRef, i.e.

https://data.nbn.org.uk/api/taxonObservations?gridRef=TL1234&startYear=2000&ptvk=NBNSYS0000005078

I get three records for that 1km square. The query

https://data.nbn.org.uk/api/features/3374725

seems to suggest that I'm using the right featureID for our record centre, so am I doing something wrong or is there a problem with using featureID?

Thanks, Keith

https://data.nbn.org.uk/api/designations/ENGLAND%20NERC%20S.41/species

returns only scientific names. Is there a way to get the common names too please (without having to do 893 follow-up queries).

Thanks, Keith

organisationHref within the returned data however doesn't return what I expected, which was a link to the provider's page. It instead contains an api call. e.g.

instead of  (Note the capital O too):

Is this what was intended or a mistake? It necessitates an extra api call for every organisation that returned data to find out the true URL for their web-page! Or more likely I'll just do a string replace of "api/o" with "O", assuming it works consistently...

Keith

Many of our improved access requests were time limited, have since uploaded new datasets and have or are about to expire and others never received a response. However, i do not want to pester the organisations which were kind enough to provide open ended use via the Gateway. The administration 'organisational access request' screen is difficult to work or do anything meaningful with.

What is the best way to go about requesting for improved access only against those datasets where we do not already have it?

It would also be useful if there was some method of clearing the 'pending' section (in total or after a set time period) as they are currently clogging up the interface.

I have just applied for access to Collembola and Acari records and while setting the filters made sure that i set the expiry to 1 year from today (the default). However, on checking that my requests have been sent (via my account) the "Request expires" field lists 'Indefinitely' instead of the date i selected. Bug?

It possibly not a major problem but i know as a provider we are somewhat more wary of granting 'unlimited' access to data, especially sensitive species even for research, and i have a tenancy to limit access for those types of BSc/MSc requests to a year unless the requester has stated otherwise.

The missing date information is more of a problem and seems a little more difficult to explain. These are invalid records and i don't see why they are on the Gateway, when we upload any problems like this would be flagged and the records removed. There also seems to be no consistency to where they occur and are scatted through a number of the major datasets we access.

Is it possible the missing dates have been caused by the recent database issues? It appears to have started to occur around the same time.

Having my first go at using web services and running into some problems Using Geocortex Workflow Designer which may not mean anything to anyone.

Query string is "https://data.nbn.org.uk/api/taxonObserv … ip=overlap" which works in a browser but gives
"Error: Unhandled exception: 'One or more errors occurred.' in activity '1.12: WebRequest'.
  One or more errors occurred.
    The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized." when put in a WebRequest.

Possibly the login isn't working properly, but it seems to process. Using "https://data.nbn.org.uk/api/user/login? … ember=true"

Any suggestions?

Thanks

"Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request."

As I haven't changed my code recently I presume this is a problem at the NBN end?

(Using taxonObservations/species to return a species list for a gridRef is still working okay).

Regards, Keith