We are excited to announce the release of the NBN Atlas Access Controls. This will enable data partners to share and manage access to their highest resolution data within the NBN Atlas.
The NBN Atlas provides everyone access to all open biodiversity data in one place. However, as it is an open data platform, many data partners have only been able to share generalised records of species, either at 1km or less, to ensure they can maintain their data and manage permissions. Whilst this lower resolution data is useful in context, there are many instances where knowing the precise location of a species is critical.
Our stakeholders have requested a service that enables them to share the highest resolution data to those with the relevant permission within the NBN Atlas, whilst also allowing them to set the public view at a lower resolution. This service has the added benefits of enhancing the public’s understanding about when there is more precise location information available and who to contact to gain access.
On request, data providers can give individual NBN Atlas users access to the supplied (original) location information (locality, latitude-longitude coordinates and grid reference) of records of specific species, areas or provide access to entire datasets.
The supplied location (locality, latitude-longitude coordinates and grid reference) is only available in the data downloads (currently in the simple format only); the location information on the occurrence record page will remain as the generalised values, regardless of the level of access.
Full guidance and help is available for both data partners to share and manage access to high resolution data and for the public to find and request access on the NBN Atlas Help pages.
Feedback
This is the first iteration of Access Controls as a service, so we would appreciate your feedback and suggestions on further feature development and improvements. Please contact us with any comments and feedback.
We hope this single change will prompt many more organisations – including Local Environmental Records Centres, eNGOs and other organisations – to mobilise more of their high quality data to the NBN Atlas.