publishers

 

1 publishers 2 IPT FAQ 3 decision chart 4 join

VertNet data publishers

Any institution (museum, university, etc.) that has a mammalogical, herpetological, ornithological or ichthyological collection may become a VertNet data publisher by agreeing to share information about what is in their collection database(s) through the VertNet portal.

Many of institutions have more than just one type of collection and may participate in multiple portals, including the classic VertNet portals.

As a service to these institutions, the VertNet Programmer is available to assist them in serving their data online and to also make their data available on a more global scale by registering their access points with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

Transition your data sets NOW

Over the next several months, members of the VertNet team will work with existing data publishers to transition their data sets over to the new VertNet. We’ll also work to establish new data publishers in the network. We know that your time is precious, so we will work closely with you to make certain that you have to do this only once.

The new VertNet will take advantage of the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT), an open-source web application developed by GBIF with noteworthy assistance from the informatics community, including VertNet. The new VertNet architecture will reduce the time and money that you and your staff currently spend on servers that provide data through the existing vertebrate networks. In most cases, you won’t even need a server. All you will have to do is export a text file from your current collections management software. We’ll help you to get everything set up as quickly as possible.

Don’t worry, we’ll continue to help support existing DiGIR providers until we are confident that the new VertNet network is providing equivalent or improved services over those provided by the current networks. So, data will still be available through the existing MaNIS, FishNet, HerpNET, and ORNIS networks. Since FishNet already supports IPT, those of you in that network will see an immediate benefit from the transition because your data will synchronize with the FishNet servers more often.

We’ve created an IPT FAQ if you’d like to learn more about the software and our transition process. If you’re ready to transition your existing data sets to the new network, just let us know if you want VertNet to host your IPT, or if you’d like to host your own IPT (not sure, see the FAQ). You can always join the network as a new data publisher at any time.

Once you’ve made a selection, or contacted us directly, we’ll begin the process of working together to get your data ready for the new VertNet platform and the future of biodiversity data sharing.