One thing really stuck in my mind in the summary was that badges should only be for direct data providers. In the discussion document it talks about the need to badge for HLF projects for example, but often the records from these (perhaps lead by a local authority or wildlife trust) will go on to the Gateway via an LERC (as with North Pennines Wildwatch and Coldblooded and Spineless HLF projects for example, which CBDC uploads for Cumbria (in a separate Gateway dataset) and ERIC NE for Northumberland and Durham (not in a separate Gateway dataset as their datasets are organised differently). Similar situations must occur with national projects and national schemes. Surely in cases where clear data flow to the Gateway is established through an NBN data provider, the project or organisation should be able to be badged, even though it will mean a bit of communication.

Anyway, the reason I went into this is that the data sharing badge presents an opportunity to encourage people to open their licences up a bit. People need to think about the sort of uses their licence is designed to prevent. The usual sticking point is "non-commercial": obviously nobody's going to make a million from your records. If the records are freely available they aren't worth anything to sell, tho people may sell services based on them. Generally I'd prefer my records to be considered in any services somebody might sell (eg planning, management plans). The only proviso being that sensitive species need blurred locations. (I leave others to define "sensitive"! especially with the growing interest in foraging)

If I see a badge on a survey I know that I don't need to submit to this cos they'll get my data direct from NBN when I submit via the Consultants Portal. (One day!). In fact without a proper shared GUID system I actually should NOT submit to this site to reduce data duplication.

Another aspect is that the IP licence (stated or implied) under which the data are collected must allow them to forward the data to NBN. Putting the badge on the website makes it clear this is going to happen, but ideally they also need a statement or CC licence (but not both!) describing what they want to be able do with the data. This can be part of our best practice guide (which I think was suggested at the meeting). This still leaves the question of legacy records when an established survey adopts the NBN data-sharing badge.

If implemented, these badges should indicate those who put the data on the NBN, not that there is a "potential" to do that.

SQL - http://guid.us/GUID/SQL
.NET - http://guid.us/GUID/ASP_Net
Javascript - http://guid.us/GUID/JavaScript

Just wanted to voice my support for this idea. It's perhaps not directly a badge issue and could be discussed in the working groups? My personal take on this would be that the NBN set an accepted data sharing standard whereby any new technologies that capture biological records must include the facility to generate a GUID for that record. Any record holding system should also have the facility to store and show and display that attribute. It's about establishing standard practice something the secretariat is in a position to lead on and the NBN as a whole can implement.

GUID's are simple enough to generate and it could all be done 'behind the scenes' without needing to interfere with the recording process.

There would of course still be issues (a record entered to multiple systems or sent to several places) but that will increasingly be tackled by more connected and collaborative recording systems and organisations (i wonder how we could flag that collaboration up to users..).

Just a reminder that, with the NFBR conference and workshop next week, it would be great to get any further thoughts you may have at this stage so that the discussions can start on a well informed basis.

After the workshop there will be scope to comment on an updated proposal further

Thanks for your time so far everyone!

Rachel

I once asked a recording scheme organiser why he wasn't putting his data on NBN and was told "the data on NBN are rubbish". So swamp the bad data with a mass of good data!

I guess there's also the concern that if they put it all online they're left with nothing to publish.

It'd be good to see an NBN badge against each recording scheme on the BRC recording schemes webpage. (It won't let me put links in so you'll have to Google for it!)

This is particularly the case with single-species distribution project websites. Somebody had a grant to look at a particular species - often an invasive. Funding finishes and they moved on, but the website is still wasting people's time entering records that will never be looked at (or perhaps they will - how can you tell?).

I'd like to see a link to a JPEG managed by NBN. The link would be specific to each data partner and the resulting JPEG would be managed by NBN (probably automatically by the database) to show whether the project was still live.

An interesting discussion so far, but I still don't see a badge as a motivational factor for volunteer recorders.  Volunteers record what they want out out personal interest, I can't really see people flicking through a choice of recording projects suddenly going - "ohh - this one has a NBN badge, lets do that one".  Having said that, knowledge of the existence of an "NBN Data Provider" badge may prompt recorders to ask project organisers what will happen to the data if one is not evident - I would see this as being more of a question for small local schemes or projects rather than the larger schemes and societies, most of whom provide NBN data already.
.

Why?
- we need to be clear as to the reasons why a badge is needed
- this is primarily to reduce confusion and ambiguity amongst recorders who do not know if a given record submission route will result in a publically available record on the NBN Gateway or not
- Badge needs to give clear and simple message that 'I share data with the NBN'/ 'This scheme puts its data onto the NBN Gateway'

Design
- must be immediately recognisable
- Must be simple
- Should be one colour
- Could borrow from the typical sharing icons we use on mobile device
- Must not make the badge design such that it becomes out of date if being used in printed literature and therefore having an 'up to date' category should be avoided
-It has been suggested that for online sites the badge icon could link to metadata or pop up with further information thought this will not be possible for printed literature and may be overcomplicating the scheme

Tiering
- generally people are not in favour of a complicated tiering/star system
- this could be de-motivational, especially for small schemes and organisations who have limited resources
- At most we should have two tiers.  Two suggested tiers are:
1) "NBN public sharing" and an "NBN restricted sharing" badge.
2) Direct sharing (e.g.via online systems/apps/consultants portal) and those submitted first ‘traditionally’  to some organisation.

Data licenses
- Data provision should not be associated with data license

iRecord
- how do we badge data submissions and sharing with iRecord?
- NBN dataflows are dependant on how each organisation wished to manage their data.  A good number of recording schemes prefer to download data from iRecord, incorporate this into their own existing (larger) dataset and upload the combined dataset to the NBN. 
- It has been suggested that the badges need therefore to be applied to the organisation or recording scheme, not to the iRecord records.

Name
- Alternative name suggestion of "NBN Dataset Provider Badge"

Awarding
-Two suggestions have been proposed so far
1) when dataset is uploaded to the NBN
2) when a data sharing agreement has been made with the NBN Secretariat.

Motivation
- For the majority of commited recording organsiations it is liekly that this will not be a motivation as they are already doing all that is possible without a badge.
- However we do need to understand the reasons why others don't share their data

Additional ideas beyond these badges
-Could we develop a searchable "verification organisation" page on iRecord so you can see that, for example, records of bees are verified by BWARS?

Don't forget that the two documents for your consideration can be found on the Online Recording Working Group webpage on the NBN Website here:
http://nbn.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/n … ng-online/

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The Questions 

Name: NBN Data Sharing Badge (Simplest option)
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Awarding
Badges should be awarded when a data sharing agreement has been made with the NBN Secretariat. Presumambly adoption of an approved online system/app would simplify that.

The resulting questions relate to how the actual sharing might be policed. What if a project has problems following through on its intentions? Or what if just 100 out of 100,000 records are shared? Would the badge be suspended? The important things are the commitment to share and encouraging that to happening. Volunteers who aren't able to see their own records are unlikely to be supportive or help attract others. Provided there is an effective online system in place or the NBN Secretariat is happy with the data sharing agreement (based on past experience) the badge should be awarded. Where funders are concerned an agreement or the necessary preparation should be a pre-requisite.

What about data which are shared to a LERC, National Scheme or Society or any public body and then mobilised onto the NBN Gateway? Covered by the above.
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Motivation
Will these badges motivate you to share your data with the NBN via the NBN Gateway?
1.    Yes
2.     No

Ideally, all data should (barring the usual issues) be shared with the NBN via the Gateway whether directly or indirectly.

I think it’s necessary to unpack this particular question a little. Firstly, lots of organisations have been sharing data (in some form) via the Gateway for many years. Others haven’t. What is the motivation for either group to suddenly adopt badges?
For me, it comes at the point of the individual recorder or local group choosing to give their time to a particular survey (or not) because they would be quickly aware that the information they supply would be passed on and be more likely to be useful (a local project contributing to the national picture). There is also incentive for funders to only support projects that commit to sharing data. This should then encourage those devising such projects to ‘badge up’ because they will be more likely to get funding and more volunteers. Local groups and national schemes will also be more likely to attract new contributors - if they can show that they are committed to sharing.  Some lack a website but will probably have a presence on the new Gateway (relevant Atlas) so their badge could be displayed there (Computer -show me all the NBN approved recording projects in my area.)

Promotion of badged recording schemes by the NBNT and others will give added incentive, particularly where there is a wish to attract more support for recording under-recorded species and encouraging those who have had involvement with their first simple citizen science project.

I expect that the knee-jerk response to the question as stated from the majority of committed recording organisations might well be “No, we’re already doing all that is possible without any badge”.

However, provided a simple system can be set up so that it is of minimal bother to add to what everyone is already doing AND the wider benefits of encouraging more sharing, more generally, I would expect many more to be in favour of this approach. (It’s a question of adopting the right system and of getting across those wider benefits AND how they’ll feed back to the particular badged project/organisation aas well as to UK recording as a whole. It's definitely worth learning from the mistakes of past useful ideas that failed to gain traction because they didn't take account of user needs and the approach taken here looks to be off to a good start).

For those who aren’t currently sharing, it would be interesting to understand the reasoning of those who remain in the 'No' camp. Is it the badge approach as they understand it or are there other reasons/obstacles which simply preclude sharing (currently)?
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Badge structure
The potential benefits of a simple badge system would seem to take the Partnership a significant way forwards. Complicating this would act as a deterrent taht ought to be avoided at all costs. (Thought could be given to revision in later years but there are better ways of achieving twiddly bits of uncertain merit). KISS, KISS KISS. This extends to the badges themselves.

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Approaches  1 and 2:

1.    Which approach would be most suitable? Neither
Simplification should rule over complication. There are dangers in penalising various organsiations that do a sterling job within available resources but for various reasons aren’t able to share data as openly or as quickly as others. That would serve as a deterrent to badging.

The only possible split I would consider here would be direct sharing (e.g.via online systems/apps/consultants portal) and those submitted first ‘traditionally’  to some organisation. The main points being the need (potentially) for the online systems to adhere to agreed standards to be badged and for some way to ensure that e.g. beetle data collected online for a particular project will end up being shared with available to the county beetle recorder.

2.    Are there other options we could consider? Simple badge. Capture other information in metadata/flags.

3.    Do we need to reflect the age of the data by including an ‘up to date’ as a category?   What is ‘up to date`? No. This would seem to devalue efforts to digitise historic data (which because of its rarity is potentially  much more important). Encouraging data collection and sharing by letting the individual recorder know that their data will be passed along should be the sole goal.

4.    Do we need to show the level of data resolution in the badge or is this over complicating the scheme?  Unhelpful over-complication that should be avoided if you wish to maximise take-up..
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Data licenses
1.    I agree with the stated approach; data sharing is not the same as providing access to shared data.

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Addenda
The possibility of feedback on how datasets to which a recorder/citizen scientist has contributed have actually been used  would seem to be an incentive to volunteers to spend time making records or supporting particular projects in future. This would then provide motivation for collators to share data (promptly). And that would also provide feed back to funders about how and where their support is having an impact, which should then encourage greater support, data collection and sharing.

Has a badge approach been trialled/adopted elsewhere?