Based on the GBIF Hosted Portal program, the launch of the new Canadensys portal is the start of a new era for our network.
Canadensys, the Canadian Museum of Nature, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have come together to offer a unified site for sharing occurrence data in Canada.

After several years of being part of the Living Atlases community, and using the powerful framework built by the Atlas of Living Australia, we decided to jump on the train of the GBIF Hosted Portals.
What does this mean for users and the managing team?

What has changed?

Data exploration has been completely modified and is now directly based on data available on GBIF. This means a nearly immediate availability in the Explorer of the data published via our IPT.
This also means that we now showcase all data published by Canadian organisations available on GBIF. In addition to having access to occurrence data, you can also search and extract information about collections, institutions and datasets.

The data exploration feature includes the possibility to use filters, you can directly visualise occurrence data by clicking on the dots on the map or the entries in the table, and you can download a subset of data (GBIF account needed for this action).

We use the latest GBIF indexing and search systems in the Explorer.

For all our publishers, you will notice an upgrade of the IPT. We have migrated to the latest version available. This new version works in the same way as the previous one, but better!

We took the opportunity of this move to completely revise the content of the website, updating or adding information when needed.
In short, we cleaned the house and decorated it before moving in!
We hope you will feel at home and we warmly welcome any feedback.

What stays the same?

Vascan, the beloved Checklist of Vascular Plants of Canada, is still available and is updated regularly. Keep an eye open for the news items announcing new releases.
Its companion, the Checklist builder, is also available to give you insight about what you can find in a particular province.

The conversion tools (coordinates and dates) have not been modified and are doing their simple but useful jobs.

We still publish data for two online taxonomic journals, Specimen and Collection.

Why a GBIF Hosted Portal?

The short answer to this question is: ‘because it is easy and convenient’.
The long answer starts the same way, but we will add:

• It reduces the technological workload, allowing us to focus on our main tasks: publishing occurrence data, supporting publishers and organisations, and acting as a link between the Canadian community and GBIF.
• The direct alignment with data on GBIF improves data reliability and quality.
• GBIF is an active community with highly skilled personnel working at the Secretariat, ready to answer any technical question and to work with us to implement new features useful for users.
• The growing community of organizations using the GBIF hosted portal is inspiring and full of ideas.