As many of you may be aware, the NBN received funding in 2014 from the Cabinet Office via their Release of Data fund to mobilise datasets from across the NBN. This project was boosted further by additional funds and as we come to the end of the financial year the last of the contracts have been drawn up and the project is coming to a close.
Datasets from Bedfordshire and Luton Biological Recording Centre, Essex Wildlife Trust, Marine Biological Association, Hertfordshire Environmental Record Centre, Northamptonshire Biodiversity Record Centre, Norfolk Biodiversity Information Service and the North West Fungus Group will be appearing on the NBN Gateway and data.gov.uk throughout April and we look forward to bringing you a series of articles on each of these datasets over the forthcoming months. The first, the story of the Crab Atlas can be found here
To date, 36,315 species records have been uploaded to the NBN Gateway from six datasets and it is estimated that this could rise to at least 1,000,000 species records and habitat polygons by the end of the project, releasing valuable historic records from their dusty boxes and filing cabinets.
If you want to explore these data, the following datasets are now available through the NBN Gateway and are fully open and available to use.
Dataset Name NBN Gateway Link Number of Records Number of Species Bedfordshire Orthoptera (BNHS) – 1975-1990 https://data.nbn.org.uk/Datasets/GA001385 1,445 11 Finchingfield Brook historic river corridor surveys https://data.nbn.org.uk/Datasets/GA001386 703 89 River Pant historic river corridor surveys https://data.nbn.org.uk/Datasets/GA001389 4,752 271 Hertfordshire Grassland Survey https://data.nbn.org.uk/Datasets/GA001395 19,523 647 Bedfordshire Mollusca (Non-sensitive) (BNHS) – 1962-1994 https://data.nbn.org.uk/Datasets/GA001404 7,039 133 Bedfordshire Mollusca (Sensitive) (BNHS) – 1962-1994 https://data.nbn.org.uk/Datasets/GA001403 8 1 Pat Livermore's Fungus Records 1976 – 2000 https://data.nbn.org.uk/Datasets/GA001405 2,845 600
More datasets are being uploaded to the NBN Gateway each day so please do keep an eye on the recently uploaded datasets.
Following on from this project, the Secretariat of the NBN has started collecting information on the extent of the undigitised data holdings throughout the NBN. We have heard of a further 62 datasets holding at least a million records in the past month and we encourage you to complete the Google form if you know of datasets in undigitised formats. This information will be used to help us build a robust case for further long-term investment in this area, and also develop a Strategy for historic data mobilisation.
If you are struggling to estimate the amount of records within a given dataset, may we share with you a rather creative way of tackling this problem which was used by one LERC as part of the Data Capture Initiative project. Averaging the records on a sample of paper recording cards, they weighed both these cards and the full extent of the dataset. Using the weight of records they were able to more accurately estimate the size of the dataset.
We will have to wait until these data are all digitised to find out how accurate their estimate really was, but do share with us any other ways you have used to work out how much data you may be holding. So, if you have data that is hiding in those boxes sitting under your desk, or in that filing cabinet that is used to display your plant collection, don’t forget to submit these datasets to the NBN Inventory of Undigitised data. If you have any further questions about the Release of Data Project and the NBN Inventory of Undigitised data please do not hesitate to contact Rachel Stroud