The document discusses the Nodes Portal Toolkit (NPT), which is a website construction platform that allows GBIF nodes to build customizable national or regional biodiversity data portals. The NPT is built on the open-source Drupal platform and provides a foundation for nodes to engage their local communities. It describes the NPT as flexible and extensible through community contributions of new modules. The NPT also supports accessing and displaying data from the central GBIF data portal as well as local data.

1. Community Development of
Portals within the GBIF Network
A primer

2. Joint collaboration demonstrates
strength of GBIF network
• Nodes require national/regional portals to
engage their local communities
• Collaboration is cost-efficient
• Common platform supports re-use of
components

3. Four high-level requirements
• Use case 1: A simple, hosted web site
• Use case 2: A collaborative web development
platform
• Use case 3: Access to processed GBIF data
• Use case 4: Access to local, raw data

4. The NPT is
• A website construction platform
• Extensible to accommodate custom needs
– New features added by Nodes community
– Shared with other Nodes
• Flexible in regard to hosting
– May be installed and run at the Node
– May be hosted by another Node

5. NPT Platform

6. NPT Startup
web presence
Maps/Charts Taxonomy Customised data output
Functioning Components
Web Services <Web Services>
GBIF DATA PORTAL NODES PORTAL
Central Local
Index Cache
Data Processing Data Processing
Infrastructure Components
Global Data Publishers Local Data Publishers

7. A website construction platform
• NPT is a website building tool
• Provides a foundation for extending features and
capabilities
= NPT

8. NPT is built on an open source platform
• A “content management system” called Drupal
• Drupal is the basis of millions of websites
worldwide
• Actively maintained by over 12,000 developers

9. Drupal is widely used in biodiversity informatics

10. The basic NPT platform provides everything needed
to start a web site
Non-technical staff can
just start adding content!

11. The NPT provides hosting options so that Nodes
who can’t host a web site can still have one

12. NPT Startup
Described as NPT 1 at the 11th Global Nodes Meeting and in some documents

13. NPT can be extended by creating and
installing Modules

14. One module might display a calendar on
your site

15. We will kick-start the NPT process by
developing two modules that access data
from the GBIF portal
These modules are directed towards
Nodes with little web development
capacity

16. One module will display a species checklist
based on occurrence data in the GBIF portal

17. A second module will display a GBIF data map
for each taxon in the species list

18. NPT Startup Summary
This configuration is a starting point for further
development
• Provides a customizable website / portal
• Provides foundation for further modules to be
added
• Displays GBIF portal data as data maps for your
country or region

19. NPT Advanced
site building blocks
Maps/Charts Taxonomy Customised data output
Functioning Components
Web Services <Web Services>
GBIF DATA PORTAL NODES PORTAL
Central Local
Index Cache
Data Processing Data Processing
Infrastructure Components
Global Data Publishers Local Data Publishers

20. NPT Advanced
To drive the development of your own portal

21. Next: Kick-start the community-
development process
• GBIF funds support development of core NPT
component modules
• These modules are
– identified & prioritized by Nodes community
– developed by Nodes community

22. Nodes Investment in new functionality
• Nodes extend the platform with new modules
A module we all need
A module I need

23. Promote the community-driven
development of NPT
• GBIF promotes training and use of NPT

24. Different nodes may implement different sets of
modules to meet their specific needs

25. Maps/Charts Taxonomy Customised data output
Functioning Components
Web Services <Web Services>
GBIF DATA PORTAL NODES PORTAL
Central Local
Index Cache
Data Processing Data Processing
Infrastructure Components
Global Data Publishers Local Data Publishers
NPT Processed Data Service

26. Maps/Charts Taxonomy Customised data output
Functioning Components
Web Services <Web Services>
GBIF DATA PORTAL NODES PORTAL
Central Local
Index Cache
Data Processing Data Processing
Infrastructure Components
Global Data Publishers Local Data Publishers
NPT Raw Data Service

27. Maps/Charts Taxonomy Customised data output
Functioning Components
Web Services <Web Services>
GBIF DATA PORTAL NODES PORTAL
Central Local
Index Cache
Data Processing Data Processing
Infrastructure Components
Global Data Publishers Local Data Publishers

28. Nodes Portal Toolkit
More information at:
http://community.gbif.org/pg/groups/3507/nodes-portal-toolkit-npt/