Records of Invasive Non Native Species held on the Cofnod database

Quality Control

All records have been screened to ensure that they have valid dates, species names and grid references. Depending on the source of the record, and whether or not it fails any of the rule sets included within the NBN Record Cleaner, it may have been subject to systematic verification by the relevant local expert. All records are labelled accordingly within an additional Attribute field: Verification Level. Individual records have a default verification level of ‘Unassessed’ until they have been looked at by a Verifier, after which they may be re-labelled as ‘Unconfirmed’ or ‘Considered Correct by Expert’. Some records known to be from a trusted source are labelled as ‘Considered Correct by Cofnod’. Records identified by Verifiers as ‘Known/Probably Incorrect’ have been excluded. Further details are given within relevant Cofnod policies. Data should be checked against original sources before use in contentious circumstances.

Method steps

1. Records are mostly ad hoc or gathered as part of local INNS projects. They originate from a wide variety of different recorders and data suppliers, and have been submitted in various different electronic or paper formats or entered directly onto the Cofnod Online Recording System. Details of various quality checks used are provided below under Confidence in the Data.

While most records are from North Wales there are some from elsewhere in Wales, for which we in effect hold the master copy.