Metadata
Metadata or that 'bibliographic data' which describes your data, are very important to sharing data sources between information partners.
The non-spatial data components of BERDS, such as people, projects, organisations and species use several metadata standards.
For bibliographic metadata, we use the ubiquitous Dublin Core standard to hold basic information common to all non-spatial resources (e.g., name, date, type, format, copyright, keywords, description, creator, publisher, contributor, etc)
For biological collections data (specimen records), BERDS employs Darwin Core version 2. This allows the seamless sharing of data records with other biodiversity information systems, museums, etc through the use of approx. 48 standard fields which describe a specimen's nomenclature, taxonomy, demographic and locality information as well as details on the collector, collection/collecting organisation and even National/IUCN threat status of the species.
BERDS spatial (or geographic) data, accessible either through the Map Explorer, our Spatial Data Warehouse or via most data profiles, use the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) which "provides a common set of terminology and definitions for the documentation of digital geospatial data" as used by the FGDC. Learn More
Additionally, all BERDS spatial map layers can be freely accessed via our WMS Service by other remotely-connected Web Mapping Servers. This is made possible through the use of Open GIS Consortium standards (WFS, WMS, GML amd Simple Features).
The BERDS database utilises a variety of 'standards' or controlled vocabularies for geographic placenames, terms, threats, issues, themes, etc as utilised by:
- Convention on Biological Diversity Controlled Vocabulary (w/ FAO & UNEP)
- IUCN Red List Authority Files for major threats to taxa, utilisation of species and species conservation needs
- UNESCO ecosystem designations
- IUCN/Ramsar habitat classifications
- ITIS/GBIF species taxonomies
- ISO standards for languages, countries, etc
The use of these various kinds of metadata and standards positions BERDS to share data transparently with other national,
regional and international biodiversity-related initiatives (e.g., IABIN, CBD-CHM, GBIF) as and where necessary.
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