VertNet-publishers-join

A commitment to maintain repositories of high-quality specimen data.
A commitment to make the accompanying data available for the benefit of all.
A commitment to georeference specimens following the MaNIS/HerpNET/ORNIS Guidelines.
A web server that can be configured with the necessary software for making collections data available online.
An IP address (or appropriate domain name) that is publically accessible to serve as the access point URL.
Registration with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) so that users, search engines and portals can locate your data access point.

Hardware recommendations.

To get the process started, please contact the VertNet Programmer, Laura Russell.

Data is currently served by data publishers to the various VertNet portals using the Distributed Information Generic Retrieval (DiGIR) protocol. We are in the process extending the architecture for VertNet which will provide one comprehensive portal for the collections in our networks. In the future, this will change how the data is served to the network. As we go forward, we will work with our data publishers to make those changes.
DiGIR is web-based software protocol that reads a data source (MS Access, mySQL, MS SQL Server, etc.) and allows mapping of the data source fieldnames to the Darwin Core compatible field names. In some situations, we use an MS Access database in place of the original data source to automate the process of providing a snapshot of the data and to make the data more Darwin Core ready.

Darwin Core (DwC) is a standard designed to facilitate the exchange of information about the geographic occurrence of species and the existence of specimens in collections. The field names established in the standard provide a common list for data publishers to share their data despite field naming practices that may be unique to each institution.
A web server software (Apache or IIS), PHP and the DiGIR softwares must be installed and configured on a computer (server preferred, but desktops can work) in order to serve the data up to the internet. Note: The collection software machine and the web server machine do not have to be one and the same although they can be.