• Introduction
• Indexing Priorities
• National data portals within the GBIF network.
• Other organisational data portals within the GBIF network.
• Relevant partners and well-known resources.
• Requirements

Introduction

The GBIF data portal serves as a focal point for indexing the published content of the GBIF network. One component of the portal output are taxon pages which provide summary information for higher taxa or for species. Currently, the contents of this page consist of

• Taxonomic Information - Typically this informs us if the information is contained in the Catalogue of Lifew
• Occurrence data - A map is displayed with occurrence data
• A few pages indicate there are images available through Arkive

The focus of this page is to propose extending the scope of indexed content on the taxon summary pages to include references to content that may be found on

• Web sites and services hosted by other data portals within GBIF members
• Web sites and services referencing relevant biodiversity content on data portals hosted by non-members

The GNI was established to provide the means to quickly publish and access these sorts of linkages. GBIF has help to direct it's development and services and it remains available to use.

The GNI provides a simple mechanism to add this network-wide linking capacity in the near-term with little infrastructure changes and minor enhancements to the data portal codebase.

Indexing Priorities

National data portals within the GBIF network.

This should be the highest priority. For every taxon, particularly terminal taxa like species, if there is information on member pages we should indicate this and make a clear link to that specific page or service.

NLBIF has rich species pages for a wide range of species. See this example: http://www.nlbif.nl/species_details.php?name=Sterna+albifrons

Other organisational data portals within the GBIF network.

Nearly as high a priority. It's critical that the global data portal enable discovery of biodiversity resource represented among the members. For example - the EWT provides a nice species summary page on a range of species. Buphagus africanus https://www.ewt.org.za/species_oxpeckers.aspx

Relevant partners and well-known resources.

A number of well-known non-GBIF-member organisations and initiatives provide access to important information about species that should be discoverable through the GBIF global data portal. This includes:

• BarCode of Life Database
• NCBI taxonomy Indexes (Genes, Proteins, etc.)
• Invasive Species networks
• Flickr images (to display thumbnails) - (less a priority)
• Wikipedia species descriptions (possible)

Requirements

• Developing an outreach programme to the Nodes to mobilise indexes
• A simple pilot should assemble indexes from a small number of Participant portals (Ex. NLBIF, PBIN, and EWT).
• Documentation derived from this will provide the basic instructions needed to publish and maintain the indexes.
• Evaluating and implementing required portal changes to accommodate link display within the portal species summaries.
• Extending the GNI API interfaces for simplifying and "skinning" the registration process.
• Extend the API to support the GBIF requirements for registration if any are needed.
• Build a simple registration web app that uses the API to make a GBIF-looking registration system for the indexes, possibly from the Participation section of the GBIF Communication Portal.
• The registration process should have a GBIF focus, possible be multi-lingual and should provide links to a post-registration page that provides examples on how the index can be used immediately.
• Using the NameLink system to enable Participants to direct their community to link publications and data displays dynamically to their species information.