Overview

OpenDataBio is an open-source, web-based platform that helps researchers and organizations collect, relate, curate, publish and serve biodiversity data. It supports the connected data types used in ecological and taxonomic research and provides documented, versioned data for discovery, download and programmatic reuse.

What you can do

Discover, filter, and map data

Search connected biodiversity records in lists, Data Explorer, and Map Explorer; then export them through the interface, API, or R. Results always respect the current user’s permissions. See Discover and map data.

Register connected biodiversity data

Manage spatial Locations, published and unpublished Taxons, observed Individuals, deposited Vouchers, Media, custom Traits, and Measurements. Shared People, References, Locations, Taxons, and Traits reduce duplication across projects and require coordinated curation.

Organize access and collaboration

Datasets control record access and group administrators, collaborators, and viewers. Projects group Datasets and users. Managed Biocollections additionally control editing of deposited Vouchers and Individuals and process deposits and material loans.

Publish citable versions

Create fixed Dataset versions with UUID, authorship, license, citation, metadata, and persistent archives. A version is a snapshot; the managed Dataset may continue changing. See Datasets and publication.

Work with taxonomy and identifications

Validate Taxons against external nomenclatural sources, preserve Individual identification history, and review proposed changes. Experimental phylogeny imports are currently intended only as candidates for incorporation into the taxonomic backbone, subject to administrative review.

Automate imports and exports

The REST API and OpenDataBio-R support reproducible workflows. Long operations run as UserJobs with progress, logs, and per-row results. Follow the staged Data import workflow.

For installation administrators

Administrators install and upgrade the application, configure workers and services, promote users, maintain shared libraries, manage backups including published archives, and review global operations. Installation steps belong in Getting started; existing installations should follow the upgrade notes.