New Darwin Core spreadsheet templates simplify data preparation and publishing

A new set of pre-configured Microsoft Excel templates for uploading data to an Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) installation are now available. The files can help guide data holders while capturing and formatting simple species checklists, occurrence data and sampling event data.

A new set of pre-configured Microsoft Excel templates for uploading data to an Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) installation are now available. The files can help guide data holders while capturing and formatting simple species checklists, occurrence data and sampling event data.

The inclusion of Darwin Core (DwC) terms as column headers ensures that data from the templates maps to an IPT instance accurately. Each template provides inline help and instructions, and versions containing example data from real data-sets provide an additional model.

The new templates provide a simple solution for capturing, formatting and uploading three types of GBIF data classes:

These tools replace earlier versions of the Darwin Core Spreadsheet Templates as well as the Spreadsheet Processor.

Special thanks are due to the GBIF node managers who offered feedback on early versions of the template. The GBIF Secretariat aims to prepare similar materials that guide and simplify the preparation of high-quality metadata describing datasets published through the GBIF network.