The GBIF infrastructure ensures that you data is globally and freely available worldwide. The network is based on a distributed system, in which data providers are key players. GBIF national nodes promote the participation of institutions in the network, providing also the facility to host data that an institution is willing to share but has not the infrastructure to do so.

 

There are two options for the institutions willing to become data providers:

i) the institution hosts is own data providing service

Institutions having a stable informatics and network infrastructure can install the software Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) and register themselves as GBIF data providers. This implies accordance with the Data Sharing Agreement. and use one of the data providing service tools: Integrated Publishing Toolkit, make data available as DarwinCore Archive format, use external tools like TAPIR, BioCASE.

ii) provide data using the National Node facility

The Portuguese Node will maintain a provider service based on IPT (http://ipt.gbif.pt). This resource can be used by any institution to provide their data. All the identification and management of the data resources is done individualy by the responsible of the resource in the institution, using the IPT as a web tool.