Durham Biodiversity Data Service

Durham Biodiversity
Data Service

DATA VERIFICATION

DBDS ensures that all data passed to data users has been verified by appropriate local experts.

Historic datasets have been validated by DBDS staff and all new data shared with DBDS is now subject to our verification procedures. Details of local experts who verify data on our behalf is available in the data flow section.

The table below shows the scoring system used as part of the verification process, which allows species data to be given a confidence score by verifiers. Some data, for example public survey results will be given a score for the whole dataset rather than for each record.

Home page

Our aims and objectives

NBN principles

Data sharing policy

Data sharing agreements

Our data sources

Geographical coverage

Data verification

Data security

Requesting data

Assigning confidence levels to wildlife data		Species Type
Assigning confidence levels to wildlife data		Widespread species, easily identifiable¹	Restricted species, easily identifiable ²	Widespread but harder to identify species³	Critical species. Restricted species where misidentification possible⁵, or species requiring high level of skill for identification⁴
Code	Confidence Level
3	Highly confident	Known recorder	Record within current range, known recorder	Known recorder	Evidence only
2	Fairly confident	Unknown recorder/ public survey	Record outside current range, known recorder	0	Record within range, known recorder
1	Likely	0	Record inside current range, unknown recorder	Unknown recorder/ public survey	Record outside current range, known recorder
0	Unlikely /unconfident (kept on record for cluster analysis)	0	Record outside current range, unknown recorder	0	Record inside current range, unknown recorder
Assign code 3 where there is acceptable evidence for a record regardless of recorder, e.g adequate photograph, identifiable corpse etc. Otherwise use the guidelines above.
1. e.g hedgehog, badger.
2. e.g. red squirrel.
3. e.g field mouse, palmate newt.
4. e.g polecat, pine marten.
5. e.g many plants & invertebrates.