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Topic: Queries about upload format for recorder and other party names

The guidance notes for NBN's darwin core imports state that recordedBy is a required field.  Is there a convention for how this field should be filled in if the recorder is unknown.

I'm currently planning to set this as 'unknown' but would prefer to leave it blank if that would be acceptable (as 'unknown' is generally a nuisance for data users).

I have quite a large number of records where the recorder is unknown but there is a known compiler, so the record is not completely without provenance.  I don't want to shoe-horn the compiler's name into the 'recordedBy' field (in several cases the records are historic, created before the compiler was alive, so this would look like an error). Even where the recorder is known, 'compiler' is still useful information as it can help indicate the veracity of the record. I can't find an appropriate Darwin Core term to use for 'compiledBy'.  Do you know of anything usable that I've overlooked?

Tom Humphrey
Database Officer,
Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI)

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Re: Queries about upload format for recorder and other party names

It is okay to leave recordedBy blank, if that is what you would prefer.

I can't find anything suitable for 'compiled by'. I think the best options are the occurrenceRemarks term or use a dynamicProperty.

Thanks, Sophie

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Re: Queries about upload format for recorder and other party names

Thanks for your reply.

It's good to hear that 'recordedBy' can be left blank.  I should think that that should only be contemplated for records where the recorder really is unknown - rather than as a backdoor way of masking details - which I'm not a fan of.

Tom Humphrey
Database Officer,
Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI)

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Re: Queries about upload format for recorder and other party names

When I uploaded a couple of large citizen-science / public participation survey datasets to the old Gateway, we had all the recorder names set to essentially read "Project Recorder", with the assumption that if somebody really wanted to know the recorder names they could discuss it with the organiser of the survey.