Kruger National Park

Scientific Services

Metadata Driven Data Dearch and Access

The Kruger National Park data registry is a cooperative project of the KNP the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), the UC Natural Reserve System, and the LTER Network Office.

The Data Registry is based on software developed by the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB), and houses metadata that are compliant with Ecological Metadata Language (EML). The system has a search facility whereby users can search for metadata and data using keywords. Direct access to downloading the specific datasets will be determined by both the users access and permissions that will be determined by the data manager as well as the usage rights of the specific datasets. There will be a number of datasets that will have no restrictions and that anyone will be able to download. The GIS shape files will also have their metadata stored in this system and hopefully be able to be downloaded from this program as well. The datasets themselves can with the help of Morpho be uploaded into the database. The text search has been completed and can be accessed at http://dataknp.sanparks.org. We ask that reaserchers that have completed their projects in Kruger follow the guidelines provided on the project page and supply us with their data to include into this catalogue

Spatial search facility

This facility is being developed using the free downloadable Geoserver programme. This will enable a researcher that is interested in doing research in a particular area in the KNP to do a spatial query and obtain all the datasets that are available for that area. Once the spatial query has been performed and the relevant datasets are obtained the metadata will come from the above system. We hope to build in some practical aspects to this facility which will help the researchers orientate themselves with the area before they even visit the KNP. The spatial search facility on the web page http://dataknp.sanparks.org is not yet fully functional and we hope that it will be completed by February 2007. If you would like any additional information or have problems accessing the data catalogue please contact Judith Kruger at email address judithk@sanparks.org

Preservation and access to reference material

We currently have a web based system whereby users that have access to our intranet can access the Inmagic database of electronic references pertaining to the KNP that are housed in our own archives. With the more recent publication they available in an electronic format to download while most of the older material is available as hard copies in the archives. This system allows one to do keyword searches on the fields . We are currently converting this system to be available on the Internet as well.

Data access and sharing policy

We have developed a data access and sharing agreement that we require users to complete before we supply them with the requested datasets. Once this system is fully automated this will be online and for the datasets that have restrictions placed on them like the Copyright data we will only release this data when we have this agreement. This agreement covers the following:

Liability

Digital and non-digital data and metadata belonging to the Kruger National Park Scientific Services are provided on an "as-is" basis with no guarantee as to data quality. Neither the staff nor South African National Parks (SANParks) may be held liable for any loss of any sort resulting from use of data and/metadata provided by Scientific Services.

Data Access and Ownership

The Scientific Services data are intended for use as implied by the data category. All data collected and captured by SANParks registered researchers and staff belong jointly to the researcher and to SANParks.

Data Categories

Data provided by Scientific Services fall into one or more of the categories below:

1. Copyright data;
2. Lead-time protected data; (LTP)
3. Sensitive data;
4. Protected data;
5. Open data;

Data derived from other data (whether by the user or as provided by the data manager) is categorized according to the most restrictive combination of their source data categories. For example, if copyright data is combined with open data to produce another dataset, then that derived dataset is categorized as copyright data.

Conditions of Use

1. Copyright data may only be used for non-profit research.
2. LTP datamay be distributed only with written consent of the registered researcher, even though SANParks is a co-owner of the data. SANParks is also prohibited from using the data without permission from the registered researcher until the LTP period has expired (whereafter the data are to be reclassified into a different Data Category.) During the LTP period, the registered researcher is encouraged to allow access to a summarized version of the data or can allow collaborations on the entire dataset.
3. Sensitive data will be distributed at the discretion of the database administrator, subject to local and international laws.
4. Protected data may be distributed with permission from the data owner only.

Only researchers that have registered projects will gain access to the above 4 classes of data. These researchers are to destroy all copies of the data when they are finished using it except for archive and backup purposes. Furthermore, they shall not distribute the data themselves and shall ensure that they take reasonable precautions against the theft of the data. The public data is open for anyone to use.