[NHCOLL-L:343] Re: Data security and availability.

[Robert K. Colwell]

Following up on related comments on restricting access to certain data, 
while allowing the public to learn the holdings of a collection, Arthur 
H. Harris wrote:

>Our feeling is similar on specific localities.  We have our
>searchable herpetology database up and running (but on a blind site
>for the moment until we can make it more user friendly), but with
>locality data only down to county.  Other collections will be going
>up in the near future and some (such as some of the cultural
>material) will be further restricted.

And Brad Hubley wrote:

>Just out of curiosity, what software are people using to make their 
>databases accessible over the internet?  Hopefully, within the next year 
>or two, we will have something to put up as well.

May I immodestly suggest that anyone in search of a way to do this 
painlessly is to use the Create Web Pages tool in Biota: The Biodiversity 
Database Manager (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/biota)--an immodest 
suggestion since I am Biota's author/developer. 

Once your collection data are entered in a Biota data file, the Web Page 
tool allows you to produce web pages (in a taxonomic hierarchy) for any 
selection you wish of Specimen records, with any selection of 72 database 
fields that you specify for each Specimen record. (In other words, if you 
wish to provide only Country and State/Province data, you may do so--or 
the locality data could include full lat long data if you wish. If 
certain Specimens are to be held confidential, they need not be included 
at all.) Biota v. 1.6, the current version, can also inlclude on web 
pages, automatically, a jpeg image for each species.

These are static pages, which you post on your website, so searching is 
done through the taxonomic hierarchy, not by live queries. But it takes 
only minutes to produce a new set of pages when you want to update the 
site.

You can see some examples of Biota-produced pages at these sites:

An incipient, specimen-based herbarium site:
http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/collections/herbarium/herbariumdatatext.html

A species-based entomological site:
http://www.colorado.edu/CUMUSEUM/research/entomology/specieslist/splist.htm
l

A small, specimen-based  ent site with automatically exported images:
http://spathodea.ots.ac.cr/datasets/generic_index.phtml?ds=alas

A field station site:
http://minerva.acc.Virginia.EDU/~mtlake/collections.html

Biota V. 2, now in prototype, will have its own, on-board webserver, 
allowing live queries and (with authorization) live database entry from 
any web browser.

Robert Colwell




_________
Robert K. Colwell, Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, U-43
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-3042, USA
Voice: 860-486-4395   Fax 860-486-6364
colwell at uconn.edu
Visit the Biota Website at http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/biota
& the EstimateS Website at http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/estimates.