This milestone event was attended by people from a variety of backgrounds, and many had traveled from across Scotland to celebrate the creation of this innovative website.

The event commenced with an introduction from Elspeth Haston, Deputy Herbarium Curator at the RBGE, welcoming us to the venue on behalf of the Regius Keeper, Simon Milne, and Peter Hollingsworth, the Director of Science.

The Welcome Address was given by  Ed Mackey, (Head of Knowledge Management, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH)) on behalf of SNH who are a partner in the NBN Atlas Scotland project. Ed, standing in for Dr Susan Walker, Deputy Chair of SNH, paid tribute to the late John Sawyer, and his vision to develop the Atlas as the NBN platform.  He emphasised that the NBN Atlas Scotland has been made possible by the partnership formed by SNH, Scotland’s Environment Web (SEWeb), the Atlas of Living Australia and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Australia (CSIRO), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), the NBN Trust, RSPB and the Scottish Biodiversity Information Forum (SBIF), with funding from the SEWeb LIFE+ project and SNH.

Following the Welcome Address, six speakers representing the project partners and the NBN Atlas Scotland user group presented talks on different aspects of the Atlas.  The Keynote Address was given by Dr Jo Judge, Chief Executive Officer, NBN Trust, welcomed by Ed in her first week in post.  Jo’s enthusiasm and excitement about the Atlas was clearly demonstrated as she positioned the Atlas at the heart of the NBN’s Strategy and Action Plan 2016-2020, and emphasised the importance of the National Biodiversity Network partnership for data sharing.

Our next speaker, Roddy Fairley, NBN’s Trustee in Scotland, and Strategy Manager for SNH, took us on a journey describing the development of the Atlas in Scotland, from the first meetings with the developers of the Atlas of Living Australia, through the creation of the Scottish partnership and the funding opportunities that made it possible for the Scottish Atlas to be developed as the first in the UK, to today’s launch of a website that will continue to grow and develop.

Dave Martin, CSIRO, and the developer of the NBN Atlas Scotland, was next to speak, and demonstrated some of the functions of the Atlas.  Looking at the species pages he outlined the overview, image gallery, records listing and maps that result from a search by species. He also  expertly demonstrated the statistics that can be extracted from the records, such as breakdown of species by habitat, vice-county, data partner, dataset and by dates (decade, month and since 1990).  Dave then continued to show how it is possible to explore by area, map by different filters, map using grid squares rather than points, and map species lists in combination with spatial layers.

Following Dave, Ella Vogel, NBN Projects Development Officer, expanded on data sources and capabilities of the Atlas, focusing in particular on the spatial layers and ways of mapping the data.  Ella gave a step-by-step demonstration of how to map greenshank against blanket peat soils, followed by the mapping of great spotted woodpecker against ancient woodland.  The Atlas will make available data on protected areas, habitats, soils, climate, landscape and geology for analysis against species records.  Upload of the layers is ongoing and the audience was asked to let us know if there are any particular layers they would like to have available.

Our next speaker, Gill Dowse, Knowledge and Evidence Manager at the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), provided a user’s perspective on the new opportunities for data delivery and analysis offered by the Atlas.  For an organisation such as SWT the servicing of data requests to staff and volunteers can be very time consuming with several steps involved in servicing the request.  The potential for simplification of the data flow by using the Atlas was ably demonstrated, and an additional bonus with this approach is that all available NBN data will be utilised in the request, not just SWT data which is what would be provided otherwise.

In the final talk Jo Muse, Principal Policy Officer, SEPA, looked at the next steps for Scotland’s Environment Web (SEWeb).  The development of SEWeb has brought together environmental and statistical data from different sources for analysis and use in decision-making.  SEWeb has facilitated the development of a family of data sites including Scotland’s Soils and Scotland’s Aquaculture.  The creation of the NBN Atlas Scotland as part of that family has made possible the analysis of species records against environmental layers, and offers more opportunities for further development.

The event concluded with a short panel discussion involving all the speakers.  The audience asked the panel to consider the role of the Atlas in Natural Capital discussions.  They also suggested additional uses for the data including the identification of under-recorded grid squares, and also the monitoring of change over time.  We were encouraged to extend our connections to data partners such as land managers, and the acronym “TCNCS” was coined (to mean Taxonomically Complex Non-Charismatic Species, such as spiders, harvestmen and pseudo-scorpions); it was suggested that more of these groups are included.  We were also gently reminded of the importance and value of developing links from the Atlas website to museum and herbarium collections.

The day provided a suitable launch for the NBN Atlas Scotland and it is hoped that the audience went away inspired to explore the interface themselves and to continue to send their comments and feedback.  We would like to thank RBGE for providing the facilities and venue, and in particular Elspeth Haston for her time and support with organising the day.  Thanks also to all the speakers and to the audience for contributing to the discussion.  And finally, thanks to Karlene Hill and baby Rowan Sawyer for coming to the event. Their continued support for the Atlas is heartening.

Links

NBN Atlas Scotland: www.als.scot

Scotland’s Environment Web: http://www.environment.scotland.gov.uk/

Please send any user feedback and comments to: info@als.scot

The post Launch of the NBN Atlas Scotland: it’s all about partnership! appeared first on National Biodiversity Network.

Following the development of the NBN Atlas Scotland, Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales have recognised the potential improvements to the way our collective biodiversity data are viewed and used through the Atlas platform. They have therefore, secured funding for the development of a NBN Atlas Wales. This exciting news follows on from the successful pilot project in Scotland,  and will help revolutionise the way that species data and interactions are viewed, interpreted, analysed and used in Wales.

The NBN Atlas Wales will be built using the Atlas of Living Australia’s open source biodiversity data infrastructure and is intended to deliver on the fourth Strategic aim of the NBN Strategy to: Provide the best biological information management infrastructure and ensure stability, security and usability for an increasingly mature data management infrastructure.

The NBN Atlas Wales will offer the ability to create a Welsh view, bringing together species and habitat data and offering functionality including the ability to view and upload photographs, search for biological data by predefined areas, by postcode or by polygon search tools, find organisations working in a particular area (geographic or taxonomic) and create alerts for species records.  Additionally, the NBN Atlas Wales will provide bilingual functionality, offering users the option to switch between Welsh and English language pages – functionality which has not previously been available via the NBN Gateway.  

This project is part of a work programme to build Atlas infrastructure for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and use the same scalable platform to create an NBN Atlas covering the whole UK. Each of these five atlases would have the same functionality and same basic design and be supported by a single database but offers users a more focussed, local view of the national data holdings.

How can I get involved?

A stakeholder workshop will be held w/c 25th April to bring together key and interested parties to learn more about what is required from this Welsh Atlas.

The aim of the workshop will be to discuss the NBN Atlas Wales and what this might look like including the design and functionality required.  Although the Welsh Atlas will build on the functionality already in place in Scotland, this is an opportunity to discuss the specific needs of users within Wales.

Details about this workshop will be communicated over the next fortnight, however if you are interested in attending please contact support@nbn.org.uk and we can add you to the mailing list.

You can also follow developments on the Atlas of Living Wales through the Twitter feed @AoLWales.

Want to know more…?

Why are we building new infrastructure?

In 2015 the NBN Secretariat published a Technical and User Review of the NBN Gateway that came out of consultation and workshops with several hundred people. The general conclusion was that although NBN Data Partners have been hugely successful in sharing biological data (more than 120 million records), the infrastructure is not now fit for future purpose. Significant investment would be needed to meet the growing needs of both Data Partners and users or an alternative strategy should be adopted.

The Atlas of Living Australia completed by CSIRO in 2010, provides a suite of online tools for capturing, accessing and analysing biological and related environmental data. Designed to fulfill a broad spectrum of user-needs in flexible ways, the open source framework has enabled it to be replicated in other countries.

The Atlas infrastructure was chosen as the best option for the UK because of the scalability of the platform, the diversity of data types that it can accommodate, the global use of the atlas platform and the data visualisation and analysis tools. It will deliver all the functionality being requested by NBN members during last year’s review as well as matching the functionality provided by the NBN Gateway.

Who has Welsh data?

There are currently 83 NBN Data Partners that have shared data for Wales via the NBN Gateway. In addition there are many more organisations and people with data that could be shared via the atlas platform. The NBN Secretariat will now start work with all these NBN Data Partners to establish new license agreements for these data so that they can be transferred to the NBN Atlas Wales.

How will I supply data to the NBN Atlas Wales?

Data supply will be via the current NBN Gateway data upload system. The data exchange format will remain the same and all data should be sent to data@nbn.org.uk

In the future, Data Partners will be able to ‘push’ data directly to the Atlas at the time of their choosing (daily, monthly, yearly).

How are sensitive species managed on the NBN Atlas platform?

All sensitive species data held within the atlas are automatically displayed at a resolution appropriate to the sensitivity of the species in accordance with the Natural Resources Wales Welsh sensitive species list. There is no need for data providers to pre-blur their sensitive species data.

What resolution can data be stored and displayed at?

Data held in the Atlas can either be displayed as point or grid resolution data. The available resolutions include:

• Point data
• 100m
• 1km
• 2km
• 5km
• 10km

What data licenses are used for the NBN Atlas?

Each dataset will be assigned a creative commons licence, chosen by the contributing data partner. This licence will outline under what circumstances the data can be used. The type of data licence assigned can be found in the dataset metadata and within any data download. When responding to requests for enhanced access to sensitive species the Data Partner will also be able to select one of these licenses.

The available data licences are CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, and OGL.

• CC0: ‘No rights reserved’ licence. All data is in the public domain
• CC-BY: This license allows others to use data, even commercially, as long as the original data creator is credited.
• CC-BY-NC:This license allows others to use data only for non-commercial purposes. The original data creator must be credited.
• OGL: Open government licence.

What does ‘commercial’ use mean under a CC-BY-NC license

You may not use the material for commercial purposes, where these are primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation.

Are records submitted directly to the Atlas assigned a data license?

Records submitted directly to the NBN Atlas Wales using the online recording form will be assigned a CC-BY license making these data fully available for onward reuse.

Will web services change?

Yes, web services will change from the current NBN Gateway REST services.

The web services for the Atlas of Living Wales will be modeled off the API for the Atlas of Living Australia, with different URLs.  Please also note that the services for the NBN Atlas Wales will be a subset of these services given the NBN Atlas Wales does not use all the components of the Atlas of Living Australia.

Once the development for the NBN Atlas Wales is finished, a complete list of the web services will be made available.  

The NBN Secretariat recognises that for some NBN Data Partners this will involve considerable effort to rewrite their specific web services. The Secretariat will support NBN Data Partners with this change to ensure they can make full use of the available web services.

What will happen to the NBN Gateway?

The intention is that the Atlases will eventually replace the need for the NBN Gateway, as these sites deliver considerably more functionality than the NBN Gateway and offer increased flexibility in the way data partners can share their biodiversity data.

Once each country in the UK has their own Atlas up and running, and a UK overview has been established, we will ensure that we have permission to transfer all of the data from the NBN Gateway, at which stage we can look to phase out the NBN Gateway.

In the meantime we regard the NBN Gateway as the critical national data aggregation tool for the UK. We will communicate regularly and well in advance of any plans to remove the NBN Gateway from general use. All data partners will be informed and all queries and concerns will be taken into account before we discontinue the NBN Gateway’s service.

We hope that you are as excited as we are about this great progression for biological data infrastructure, and we are thrilled to have Wales as the latest country to join the Network on its journey.

The post NBN Atlas Wales update appeared first on National Biodiversity Network.