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How to Become a GBIF Data Provider

One of GBIF's main purposes is enabling a global distributed network of interoperable databases that contain primary biodiversity data. By this we mean data associated with specimens in biological collections, as well as documented observations of plants and animals in nature. Such data nearly always have certain common attributes, such as scientific name, location, and date of collection. Therefore, they can easily be recast into a common data exchange format, and shared with the world using internet protocols that recognize and handle these data exchange formats.

Here, we refer to a combination of exchange format and protocol as a provider package. GBIF recommends the adoption of either Darwin Core 1.4 (also known as Darwin Core 2) with the DiGIR protocol package, or the ABCD and the BioCASe protocol package. However, several versions are supported (see the following table).

If you are the custodian of one or more species occurrence databases, and want to make it/them available through GBIF, follow the steps listed here and described more thoroughly in the linked pages that are indicated.

1. Acquire a normal PC and place it safely outside your institution's firewall. more...

2. Choose and download a data provider package. more...

3. Install the package. Define your contact details in the metadata. more...

4. Link your database(s) to the provider. more...

5. Register the new provider. more...
   An important step here is agreeing to the GBIF data sharing agreement.

It's done! In a few days your data will have been indexed and you can use GBIF's data portal to see how your data integrates with all the other data available through GBIF. In the meantime, you can test the resource(s) served by the DiGIR provider you just installed using the test search portal application.

In the best case, all the above steps can be completed in one hour, but most likely you will want to prepare your database a bit for this, which can take a little time. Do not hesitate to contact the GBIF Helpdesk if you have any questions.