1 Reply by charlesroper

  • charlesroper
  • charlesroper
  • Digital Development Manager
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  • From: Field Studies Council
  • Registered: 26-03-2006
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Re: Recorder Web and the NBN

This message was inspired by this post.

The idea of making Recorder data available on the web (via web services or otherwise) is one that has often been talked about. What concerns me is that there is potentially a great deal of wheel-reinvention going on, which different record centres making their own bespoke systems, doing the same thing over and over in different parts of the country(s). I would imagine there is a lot of commonality in what is required and it would make sense to pool resources where appropriate and perhaps make an open source project of it. I don't know, it just seems like much more could be accomplished if LRCs pooled their resources (if they have any, that is) together on projects such as this. Perhaps backing the Recorder Web Toolkit project might be worth looking at?

Of course, the downside of pooling resources together is that added layer of bureaucracy and process which can slow a project down. Sometimes small, simple, focussed and agile is the best solution.

Finally, any reason for not making use of the NBN web services? We don't because we simply don't have any data on the gateway for various reasons, but we do intend to make use of the Gateway in the future. I think hearing views on why organisations may shy away from making data accessible via Gateway would be interesting to hear. For me its the (percieved?) effort involved in preparing data for the Gateway; it would take a lot of time away from our limited resources for what benefit? And I think that is, for us, the key question: what are the core benefits of making data accessible via the Gateway? I think its a discussion that needs to be had.

Charles Roper
Digital Development Manager | Field Studies Council
http://www.field-studies-council.org | https://twitter.com/charlesroper | https://twitter.com/fsc_digital

charlesroper's Website

2 Reply by guypopbio

  • guypopbio
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  • Registered: 16-08-2006
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Re: Recorder Web and the NBN

Since we designed the Recorder Web tool kit some days we were thinking about ways how to fund it. Recently John van Breeda suggested a open source Recorder web interface which would cost much less than the original web tool kit, but it may be worth to join our efforts to build it as a first step. Our Museum (www.mnhn.lu) could make this year a small financial contribution to help to get it started. Please contact John van Breeda for further details.

Cheers Guy

3 Reply by guypopbio

  • guypopbio
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Re: Recorder Web and the NBN

By the way, we have a complete technical desgin document which describes in detail all the features of the recorder web toolkit. So if there is anyone interested in this we can send the document. We also designed a GIS interface for the web toolkit which would use open source GIS packages.

Best wishes,

Guy

4 Reply by Darwyn Sumner (LERC)

  • Darwyn Sumner (LERC)
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  • Registered: 07-06-2006
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Re: Recorder Web and the NBN

Charles Roper's "key question"
I'll take Charles "Recorder data" to refer to species, sites and habitats as a whole - as this is the range of data managed by an LRC that is capable of being disseminated through the NBN Gateway services.
As many will be aware, LERC has worked closely with the NBN Gateway team for some time. We do have a substantial number of species datasets up there (and would now be updating them on a regular basis were it not for Recorder export glitches), we also have our Local Wildlife Sites up there.
As far as I'm concerned the worries about the impact of disseminating data in this way are unfounded. Our commercial enquirers use the Gateway take a quick look at what might be in their area of interest then contact this LRC for a full and detailed report. We've noticed no deterioration in commercial income whilst this data has been available on the NBN Gateway (a couple of years now), in fact it rose and now remains steady despite a 50% increase in our charging rates. We did work extensively on preparing a project (together with Andy Brewer and Oliver Grafton) which would study in detail the impact that disseminating data in this way would have on commercial services and so on - the project was very much supported by NBN. We just missed out on Defra funding for the project and a unique opportunity to provide LRCS with detailed reassurance was missed. All you're left with is my reassurances and the similar experiences gained by other LRCs who are putting their toes into the water.
Just a few quick observations on the impact this has had:
1. Rapid dealing with general enquiries - just direct them to website and many enquirers are delighted with the wealth of information there
2. 90,000 enquiries in 2005/6 - good stats for your partners
3. A rise in commercial income
4. Double the number of records available through the National Schemes and Societies which have records for your area already on the site
There is little effort required to submit a dataset to the NBN Gateway, Recorder has this facility built in (if only the ZIP part of it worked!). After that you just need to spend a little time managing access to your datasets on the Gateway - and a small fraction of these requests for access are from commercial enquirers whom you can charge.
This subject you've raised, Charles, is a huge can of worms - probably requiring a conference rather than a few posts on this site.
If any LRC wants to have a go I would suggest the following:
1. Get your LRC charging policy fully sorted out (include Data Access policies and what you are going to charge for commercial access to downloadable datasets & GIS layers from the Gateway)
2. Sort out the datasets you want to be made available and ensure that you fulfil all requirements for security through your Data Exchange Agreements with your providers.
3. Ensure that your data products and services to commercial enquirers are tip-top
4. Submit dataset and learn how to manage metadata etc. on Gateway
5. Submit your Local Wildlife Sites as a simple mif layer (no standards for this as yet but minimum seems to be site name and a unique reference)
6. Experiment with web services for your own site (plenty of support from Gateway team for this)
There are a couple of published items about this topic, I did one entitled "The Gateway's Golden Eggs" in an NBN Newsletter and there should be another from me in the Wildlife Trusts "Site Matters" shortly.
Don't ask me for technical details of web data extraction, my colleague Richard Wilkinson (on this site) is dealing with the techie stuff.