Unstructured data

Unstructured recording, also called opportunistic recording, refers to collecting species observations without set protocols. The majority of recording in the UK is unstructured meaning that recorders are free to choose when, where, what and how they record. Unstructured recording due to its very flexible nature has a low bar to entry in that it does not necessarily need specialist equipment or knowledge to start and therefore anyone can get involved. A large extent of the data on GBIF is what we would term as unstructured data in that has been obtained from unstructured recording.

Despite the name unstructured data may often contain subsets of data that are more structured in nature being collected systematically by inviduals or groups using set protocol(s).

Unstructured data often contains issues or biases that may be important to understand when attempting to use the data. For example there are often spetial bias with people tending to recording in places that are easy to visit, near to home and or that are particularly diverse or interesting (e.g. nature reserves). As the recording is relatively opportunistics and typically occurrences only it is also often difficult to determine the absence of species as the lack of records of a species does not mean it wasn’t there.