I had another acess request for GCN data this morning under the heading "'Data provision and interpretation (commercial)" with the reasons given being "I am an ecologist working for an environmental consultancy firm. I would like to request better access to records of amphibian species for use in Extended Phase 1 Habitat reports and amphibian surveys. "
Fair enough, this has been sent through under the correct heading but it still strikes me as a very general "shotgun" request that would, if granted, allow access to the whole dataset. Even if access was granted for a limited period then the whole dataset could be downloaded and kept for future use.
For GCN consultancy work, I am more used to seeing very site specific data requests, normally along the lines of "request all GCN records within 1-2km of point X! Certainly our local LRC, to which we send all of our data, provides chargeable data searches along these lines. I can see a significant loss of income for some LRCs or ARGs if all these very "send me all the data" request are granted.
I would be interested in the NBN view on how, as a data provider, I should manage requests of this nature now that the new version of the Gateway is in operation, along with the new data download facilities. In this instance I am probably going to refuse access to this very "open ended" request.
What would be very useful would be a "point search" facility for NBN data requests - if a user could specify "all records from your dataset within a specified distance of point X" this would be a very useful tool.