Database update John Handley Progress continues on the development of an online tool to interrogate the botanical records held in the Shropshire Ecological Data Network via the National Biodiversity Network Atlas. Concerns were raised by several members of the committee regarding the stability and performance of the NBN’s Atlas. This has been acknowledged by the NBN who employed a specialist to try and resolve these performance issues which appears to have been very successful. James Drever, of Careful Digital - the company we are using to create the online tool, recently commented that there was still some intermittent downtime but generally it was faster and more reliable, he is finding the periods of downtime are brief now, much better than before. Committee members are now in the first stages of testing the online tool to ensure that the design meets the detailed specification that was created by Joe Collins. The project was broken down into sections to help ensure that we remained within budget and were able to effectively provide an innovative database; we are hoping to be able to provide some exciting news shortly after the initial test has been completed in October.
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