Useful things for sharing data

This page provides useful links to tools and resources created to help you share your data with the Network

Prepare your data using the NBN Data Validator tool
Learn how to use the Gateway to administer and view your data with the NBN Gateway Users Guide
See how you can get NBN data from the Gateway into your own website by applying NBN Web Services
Also see Mapping tools, on-line recording tools, Recording software, Dictionaries, other tools and resources
And don't forget the data guidebook for best practice in data management for the NBN and to download the Data Providers Pack

The NBN Gateway is the NBN’s main tool, developed by the NBN Trust and its partners, for communicating and sharing biodiversity data using the internet.

THE GATEWAY USERS’ GUIDEBOOK

For a first visit it may not be clear what the Gateway website is capable of and what tools are available. To help new users get going with the site we have produced a guide on how to use the Gateway. In this section you will be able to find out:

A beginners guide to the Gateway
How to register, log-in and change account details
How to register for better access
How to use the geo-searching tools
How to produce a site report
How to use the search engine
How to produce a grid map for a species
How to explore species data using the Interactive Map
And a guide to Gateway functionality, the datasets on the Gateway, dataset metadata and access and use controls

Some of this you may already be familiar with parts of the Gateway so we have provided you with a tool to collect all the articles that are of use to you and to package them up in your own tailor made document. You can save this document to your desktop for reference at any time without the need to visit the site again. All you need to do is click on “add pages to pdf portfolio” for each page you wish to keep. It is that simple.

WEB SERVICES

The NBN Gateway web services have been built to allow biological data from the NBN Gateway to be used in websites and applications

Check out the Technical Guidebook for an introductory guide to web services
Click here for a full list of web services currently available

SOFTWARE and DOWNLOADS

NBN Data exchange format checker tool

Download the NBN exchange format validator Data Exchange validation tool (zipped executable file).

To check that your records are in the correct format for submitting to the NBN Gateway use this NBN Exchange Format validation tool and not the new Beta Data Validation Tool below. The current version of the Data Validation Tool does not allow records to be checked against the NBN Exchange Format

Data Validator tool

Data Validator download (Beta, executable file 65MB)

Download the NBN exchange format validator Data Validator users' guide (PDF document) BSBI tenkm rules.zip Data Validator 10km Tests.zip

Download the NBN exchange format validator Data validation toolkit testing results Oct 09 v2_JMP.xlsx

About the data Validator

As part of the Defra Fund for Local Biodiversity Recording, Natural England and JNCC have been working on the development of a Data Validation Toolkit to assist with the validation and verification of species records.

The toolkit supports importing from a number of sources, including text files, Excel spreadsheets, Recorder and MapMate databases. It runs validation checks such as ensuring correct formatting of dates, grid references etc. and verification checks, such as whether a species is within its known distribution, the difficultly of identification, period and period within year. We are currently working with a number of national recording schemes to develop test rules for specific taxonomic groups. The toolkit also enables users to define their own rules, e.g. for local species distributions.

An initial version of the toolkit has been developed by exeGesIS Ltd, and has undergone an initial round of testing. We are planning to let a contract to work through a prioritised list of issues that were picked up during testing. We would welcome any further feedback on this version. We are particularly interested in identifying bugs in the software and suggestions for improvements to usability i.e. how can it better fit in with how you manage data.

You can download the software here: (Note it needs administrator rights and Microsoft .NET version 3.5 SP1 installed) http://esdm.co.uk/DVTUpdate/ValidationToolkitInstaller025.exe (65MB)

At this stage only a limited set of rule-base tests are available. Distribution tests for Odonata, amphibians and reptiles and vascular plants are available to download below - these should be copied into the TestData sub-folder (C:\Program Files\DataValidationTool\TestData). There are sample tests included for the other test types and the documentation below provides more details to help you write your own tests.

Please note that the software is currently (@November 2009) in beta release which means that it is not absolutely robust, though it is a good time to contribute ideas on how it can be improved.

Feedback

Please address any feedback to data@nbn.org.uk (and not to exeGesIS).

There’s no deadline on feedback but the sooner you let us know about problems the more likely we’ll be able to incorporate it into the upcoming round of changes. We’re looking to release the initial version in April 2010.

Supporting documents