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Since the launch of the new GBIF Data Portal in July 2007, the Secretariat informatics team has been continuing work to improve the Portal's handling of biodiversity data.
This work has included changes to ensure that users have reliable and responsive access to GBIF data, both in the short term and in the future as GBIF moves towards handling billions of species occurrence records.
Several important new features will appear in the coming months:
- Three mirror sites will soon come on line in Germany, Korea and the United States. This should improve the performance of the site for many users. To make this possible, the old prototype GBIF Data Portal has been taken off line. Please send an email to portal@gbif.org if you discover that you are now missing any functions which are important to you.
- The GBIF Secretariat has been investing in more powerful database servers and experimenting with better use of the MySQL database to assist with the complex task of indexing hundreds of millions of records. These changes are essential for supporting the projected growth of the network.
- Work is nearing completion on an improved mapping interface for the occurrence data served through the portal, including display of individual localities at smaller scales, ability to offer alternative base layers, and support for the standard web service interfaces defined by the Open GIS Consortium.
- Additional effort is being invested in improving the interpretation and integration of data from different sources. This includes a review of how the portal links data shared by different data providers using different higher classifications, and development of new GIS-based tools to improve the cleansing of geospatial elements within records.
- Work is also nearly complete to connect OpenModeller software to the GBIF Data Portal so that users can generate niche models based on the occurrence data for any species.
- A new interface will soon be launched allowing data providers to register their datasets and to supply additional metadata to improve the way that the portal and users select and use their data.
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