1 (edited by matt.debont 10-02-2015 15:26:00)

Topic: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

I have been passed a short piece of text regarding our (JNCC's) position to some of the issues regarding the current status of development on the NBN Gateway, to try and keep our users and contributors in the loop I have posted the text below;

Paul Gilbertson wrote:

I wish to put out our current position with regards to GBIF and the development of Record Commenting functionality.

GBIF – As you may or may not be aware GBIF consulted on changing their terms and conditions around submitted datasets, at various points this included moving to a CC0 stance. At the same time a consultation was undertaken on NBN access controls and reporting requirements.

This threw up a number of issues between the NBN Terms and Conditions and GBIFs. Additionally the removal of the ‘view only’ control (as part of Gateway 5) would potentially cause a number of additional datasets that previously would not have been pushed to GBIF to be uploaded a decision was taken to suspend updating datasets until the issues were resolved.

It is my understanding that the forced move to CC0 is off the table, so the worst clash has gone, but there are three remaining issues:

  • Reporting: We guaranteed to data providers that any viewing or downloading of records would be tracked on the Gateway and reported to administrators. We cannot track data on the GBIF portal, so data passed to there could be downloaded and viewed freely and we would not track this.

  • Legal Issues: There are a number of legal issues around the NBN Terms and Conditions and their incompatibility with the GBIF portals. You grant us the right to distribute data under the NBN’s, we cannot arbitrarily re-licence that data. This is important to a number of data providers.

  • Data Withdrawal:  GBIF were looking into a mechanism around DoIs that would mean that data providers could not remove data from the GBIF portal. Given that we provide a mechanism for you to change access controls to withdraw or blur data, we needed GBIF to be able to reflect your wishes.

In order to solve the above, we have decided that the best way to tackle the situation would be to develop an opt-in mechanism for exporting to GBIF. Dataset administrators could opt datasets in and acknowledge that they were accepting GBIF’s T&Cs. This is still the plan. However, the NBN Gateway budget took a significant hit this year as part of general Government cut backs, and unfortunately development was halted.

In parallel the NBNT is currently working with GBIF to try and align the two mechanisms better but in the interim the publication to GBIF has been frozen.

Record Commenting –The feedback from the NBN strategy workshops has raised this as valuable to reinstate and also highlighted the importance of unique IDs for records in the UK NBN system. Work is continuing around developing the functionality for record verification and record commenting, and this will be tested by Gateway User Group first. However, the pace of work has also been affected by the cuts. We plan to get a first release of some functionality before the User Group this financial year.

I hope this answers your questions, and I wish the news were better. The Gateway has always operated under a small budget and a ‘best effort basis’. Government cutbacks have caused the pressure on that budget to increase, and so we cannot with all the will in the world, proceed any better than we are.

Matt Debont
Application Developer
Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Monkstone House, City Road, Peterborough PE1 1JY, UK

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

Thanks for this, Matt. For those of us not in the know, what is meant by "a CC0 stance" ?

Janet

Janet Simkin
British Lichen Society

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

CC0 refers to Creative Commons 0 Licence, basically putting your data completely within the public domain in such a way that you waive all rights over that data (https://creativecommons.org/about/cc0).

As you can understand this isn't exactly a desirable thing for most data providers who would prefer a more restrictive license i.e. CC-BY (attributed use) or CC-BY-NC (attributed non-commercial use).

I hope that explains that a bit, but please feel free to ask if something is unclear still.

Matt Debont
Application Developer
Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Monkstone House, City Road, Peterborough PE1 1JY, UK

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

Hi Matt

Do you know if there's a similar NBN statement covering the INSPIRE European Directive for Species Distribution that we could have a look at?

Iain

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

Hi Iain, I honestly don't know, if you want to get an official response you might want to contact the NBN trust directly via email as I don't know if they check this part of the forum regularly and you would get quicker/more authoritative response then from me.

Matt

Matt Debont
Application Developer
Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Monkstone House, City Road, Peterborough PE1 1JY, UK

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

Thanks Matt,

I found a NBN page here

http://nbn.org.uk/News/Latest-news/NBN- … -spec.aspx

which sort of covers it, I think

Ta

Iain

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

Urm, the web page seems to have disappeared - does this mean the information is no longer relevant or has changed substantially?

Anyhoo, the following is the original text from the page

================================================================
NBN Gateway to deliver INSPIRE compliance for species data
28/05/2013
The INSPIRE obligation
The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) Directive aims to make it easier to access and combine environmental spatial datasets held by public authorities, to support environmental policy and practice at a national and international level. This Directive became UK law under the INSPIRE Regulations 2009, setting standards for public authorities on metadata creation and the provision of publicly accessible data services.

To ensure the UK delivers the requirements of the INSPIRE Regulations, Defra set up the UK Location Programme. UKLP provides strategic leadership of INSPIRE, sets standards and guidance on data transformation, network services and metadata, submits INSPIRE monitoring reports and manages a helpdesk function.

INSPIRE requires the publication with a view and download service of spatial data relating to 34 environmental themes set out in three annexes. Annexes I and II are already being implemented, and work is now underway to publish datasets covered by Annex III – which includes species and habitat distribution data – before the deadline of December 2013.

The INSPIRE Regulations apply to ‘public authorities’ as defined in the Environmental Information Regulations (paragraph 2), which includes organisations or individuals who hold data on behalf of a public authority. If you are in doubt about whether the INSPIRE Regulations apply to data you hold, visit the UKLP website, and if you require further assistance contact the UKLP Helpdesk.

The INSPIRE Regulations only apply to existing spatial datasets held by public bodies – they do not require the collection of new data or the digitisation of spatial data held in other formats.
The NBN Gateway is the preferred route for delivering INSPIRE compliance on species data in the UK
The UK Location Programme recommends the publication of species data via the NBN Gateway as a sustainable and cost-effective way of complying with the INSPIRE Regulations on Annex III species data. They are working with the NBN Trust and Joint Nature Conservation Committee to deliver a single suite of species distribution datasets for INSPIRE via the NBN Gateway.

The UK Location Programme cannot mandate use of the NBN Gateway, but will not provide support for public bodies using other publishing mechanisms.

Using the NBN Gateway will reduce the INSPIRE burdens on public sector organisations who hold species data. Many of these organisations already publish species data to the NBN Gateway either directly or via local environmental records centres.

By sharing your data with the NBN Gateway in the usual way, accompanied by our standard metadata form, you can achieve INSPIRE compliance for species data without needing to do any extra work. We will publish INSPIRE-compliant species distribution datasets, metadata and network services datasets to data.gov.uk on behalf of data providers.
What are INSPIRE-compliant species datasets?
The species distribution datasets published to data.gov.uk from the NBN Gateway will consist of individual species records from all dates agglomerated to create 10km square distribution datasets. INSPIRE makes no explicit reference to the resolution at which the data should be published. Publishing species datasets at 10km resolution enables all publicly available data to be included, and ensures that the national distribution of sensitive species can be published without compromising the exact locations of records.

This scale of data meets the reporting requirements of other Directives such as the Habitats and Species Directive (Article 17) and the Birds Directive (Article 12), as well as emerging Directives that are likely to require sharing of species distributions, such as the Non-Native Species Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

These datasets will comply with the basic data specifications for INSPIRE species distribution data, with the potential to include additional attribute data in future if a consistent standard can be can be agreed across European partners.
These agglomerated datasets, which are essentially the NBN Gateway grid maps, will be available to view and download from data.gov.uk. The attributes and metadata for these datasets will include a signpost to the source of the original observation data on which they are based, for those wishing to interpret and use the data.
Habitat and site data
Spatial data on sites and habitats are also covered by the INSPIRE Regulations; protected sites are in Annex I and habitats and biotopes in Annex III. The NBN Gateway does not currently deliver INSPIRE compliance for habitat and site data, although this is something that could be considered for future development.
Further information
We have updated the links page on the NBN website with links to further information about INSPIRE and the UK Location Programme.

Local Authorities wishing to share data via the Gateway are advised to contact their local environmental records centre, whose details can be found on the ALERC website.

===============================================================

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

Hi the page is still showing for me at the moment, is the page still AWOL for you?

Matt

Matt Debont
Application Developer
Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Monkstone House, City Road, Peterborough PE1 1JY, UK

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Re: Short Update on the current status of NBN Development

Hi Matt

Yup, it appears to have returned again - clicking on the link is now working

Ta

Iain