We are delighted that Brendan Foster, a Data Science Masters student from the University of Salford, will be working with the NBN Trust over the next few months. As part of his degree, he will be working on a project to develop methods of measuring the success of the NBN Atlas as a resource for UK wildlife records.
To achieve this, several metrics will be created to assess different aspects of the data. Things such as the amount of information provided, the precision of certain variables, and the overall usability of the data will be considered when determining the quality of records. With over 200 million records from many different providers, the biggest challenge of this project will be developing metrics that are applicable across the entire database while still being specific enough to deliver useful information.
By the end of the project, the goal is to have a clear method of monitoring data quality across space, time and taxonomic groups. The results of this should be easily interpretable and shareable with NBN members and data providers.
We will bring you the results of the project in due course and it will be reported on at the NBN Conference in November.
