Data Access Levels

The following are the Avian Knowledge Network's data access levels. These are applicable to each and every record in the network individually, so that different records may have different access levels. Data published under one of the five levels below are stored in the AKN's primary data warehouses. The warehouses serve as the primary archives of all AKN data. No applications connect directly to the warehouses, but data from a warehouse are ported to separate data views created specifically to optimize the performance of an application that connects to it. Data owners can specify how their data can be used in the data views, with the option that their data are not exposed to the public at all.

Level 1 - Some information is made available to others than project members about the data. Specifically, only metadata about the datasets are made available to any application or service.

Level 2 - Same as Level 1 with the following addition: data can be used in certain publicly available, predefined visualizations (i.e. maps and graphs), but direct access to the data is restricted.

Level 3 - Data are used in publicly available, predefined visualizations (i.e. maps and graphs). Additionally, the complete BMDE data set is available upon request, subject to approval from the original data provider.

Level 4 - Data can be used in publicly available, predefined visualizations (i.e. maps and graphs) and also may be available upon request. Additionally, some components of the data are made available to existing bioinformatic efforts (GBIF and ORNIS). These bioinformatic efforts only provide the data "marked-up" to Darwin Core, used to describe primary occurrence (location, date and species for example).

Level 5 - Data are used in publicly available, predefined visualizations (i.e. maps and graphs) and are available to existing bioinformatic efforts. Additionally, the complete BMDE data set is available for download directly via download tools.

Some nodes have extended these levels to include additional levels to help users manage the entire data lifecycle. Their extended levels include:

• Raw - Data were input but no further review or processing has taken place. Data are available for project use only and not to the AKN.
• Clean - Data were input and reviewed by member(s) of the project team. Data are available for project use only and not to the AKN.
• Approved - Data were reviewed by project management, but no indication has been made of AKN data sharing levels. Data are available for project use only and not to the AKN.
• Restricted - Same as APPROVED and not distributed and shared to other AKN partners automatically. All access to data must come through requests to the contributing institution project management.