Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences Metadata Portal
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
RBINS Metadata Portal
Citation
Abstract
The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) metadata portal is an online resource that facilitates the sharing of environmental datasets in an interoperable manner. The scope of the portal is diverse, encompassing various types of data, including oceanographic data (such as RV Belgica en-route data, Tripod data, and FerryBox), geological layers, Marine Spatial Planning, Marine North Sea Forecasting, and biodiversity observations (through GBIF).
The primary objective of this catalog is to provide descriptions for all RBINS datasets and make them globally accessible and visible, going beyond our legal obligation to do so. The catalog adheres to international standards like INSPIRE and ISO19115. It offers links for downloading datasets and, when applicable, provides web services for online visualization on a map.
To enhance the visibility of the Institute's datasets, the catalog also integrates several internal resources, including http://ipt.naturalsciences.be, which disseminates our biodiversity data to GBIF. Furthermore, it automatically shares all datasets with national and international catalogs (such as INSPIRE, the Belgian and European Open Data portals, and the Belgian NGI). Additionally, a unique DOI is assigned to each dataset's metadata, facilitating easy referencing in publications.