Organisation of the Recorder project
The Recorder project is led by
JNCC,
funded and directed by the
Steering Group and informed by the
User
Group and wider recording community. Recorder itself is built
by
Dorset Software and the project
is also supported technically by Dorset Software as well as JNCC,
Approved Recorder Experts and other technical
experts in the field of biological recording.
JNCC
The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is the statutory
adviser to Government on UK and international nature conservation.
Its work contributes to maintaining and enriching biological
diversity, conserving geological features and sustaining natural
systems.
JNCC delivers the UK and international responsibilities of the
Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside (CNCC), the
Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), Natural England, and Scottish
Natural Heritage (SNH). The functions that arise from these
responsibilities are principally to:
- advise Government on the development and implementation
of policies for, or affecting, nature conservation in the UK and
internationally;
- provide advice and disseminate knowledge on nature conservation
issues affecting the UK and internationally;
- establish common standards throughout the UK for nature
conservation, including monitoring, research, and the analysis of
results;
- commission or support research which it deems relevant to these
functions.
The Committee comprises 14 members: a Chair and five independent
members appointed by the Secretary of State; the Chairman of CNCC;
the Chairmen or deputy Chairmen of CCW, Natural England and SNH;
and one other member from each of these
bodies.
JNCC, originally established under the Environmental Protection
Act 1990, was reconstituted by the Natural
Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act 2006. Support is
provided to the JNCC by a company limited by guarantee (JNCC Support Co) that the Committee established
in 2005.
The Recorder project began in the then Nature Conservancy
Council in the late 1980s and is one of the many on-going projects
that the JNCC Support Company manages.
Dorset Software
Dorset Software, founded in 1987 by Jonathan Gerson, provide
bespoke software development for both the private and public
sectors. Based in Poole, Dorset Software has been
responsible for the overall build of the Recorder product. Dorset
Software first began working with JNCC on the Recorder project in
1998 with the re-development of the original DOS-based Recorder 3.
The Systems Analysis for the rebuild of the Recorder software
(November 1996 - March 1997), undertaken by Charles Copp, was used
to define a modular data model from which the table structure of
the new application could be defined. The data model has
proved to be very powerful and is now adopted as the UK NBN Data
Model. The first phase of development resulted in the release of
Recorder 2000 and subsequently, Recorder 2002 as an Access/Delphi
application. Dorset Software have continued to work with JNCC and
the Recorder Steering Group on the Recorder project through to the
current version Recorder 6 which is a SQL Server/Delphi
application.
As Recorder’s presence in the biodiversity community has grown
both in the UK and other parts of Europe, Dorset has been
commissioned to create numerous add-ins for the core Recorder
product. These add-ins include a Seal recording application for
CEDaR in Ireland; multi-lingual and international co-ordinate
support for Zentrum für Biodokumentation in Germany; integration
with GIS systems for Thames Water; an interactive graphical
web-based interface, NatureNotebook, for Sheffield Galleries and
Museums Trust, UK; The Collections Module and The Thesaurus Module
for Luxembourg Natural History Museum.