The VertNet project was established with four foundational objectives: (1) to facilitate open web access to specimen data from museums, educational institutions, and government repositories; (2) to enhance the value of these specimen collections by making them accessible to the public; (3) to provide services that would permit these collections to focus their resources on curation; and (4) to design a data-sharing network that could be adopted easily by other disciplines with similar needs.

VertNet is a collaboration between four U.S. universities (University of California at Berkeley, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Kansas, and Tulane University) that built upon the lessons and strengths of four predecessor projects (MaNIS, ORNIS, HerpNet, FishNet 2). As a result, VertNet is a thriving data-sharing community and network of data publishers that links hundreds of biodiversity collections and repositories across the United States and rest of the world. As of June 2016, this network includes 212 institutions representing 696 collections. The VertNet project has made more than 300 million records available to the public via the vertebrate-focused data portal (http://www.vertnet.org) and in support of other major biodiversity projects in the U.S. (https://www.idigbio.org) and abroad (http://www.gbif.org).

Access to data from these biodiversity collections is of critical importance to educators, researchers, scientists, and policy-makers in addressing pressing challenges and questions about global climate change and the associated loss of biodiversity. VertNet has addressed the international demand for quick, reliable access to high quality data that describes biodiversity so that any person or organization, from a seventh-grade teacher in Ohio to the Army Corps of Engineers, can and will have the information available to them to generate lessons plans, monitor changes in the environment, and make informed decisions about human development, energy policy, and national defense.

Intellectual Merit.  The intellectual merit of the VertNet project is threefold. First, VertNet has addressed the critical need for high quality data for biodiversity research, monitoring, and decision-making by providing an integrated, publicly accessible, and cost-effective online data portal for vertebrates. Second, VertNet has developed a new model for making all of these data accessible in a way that makes it easy for anybody to find biodiversity data quickly, and has been emulated by other large-scale biodiversity projects in the U.S. and around the world. This new model has become an essential tool in the efforts of both professionals and hobbyists to better understand the world in which we live. Third, VertNet has transformed how biodiversity science is conducted. Researchers and educators who endeavor to model species distributions, determine overall patterns of global biodiversity, and document biodiversity changes over time now have access to new integrative tools and biodiversity data that increase the quality and usefulness of information contributed by the VertNet community.

Broader Impacts. Perhaps the most enduring result of the VertNet project is its commitment to providing training to people who use biodiversity data. During the funding period, VertNet conducted more than 60 training workshops and webinars to teach members of the community the skills necessary to become successful researchers, educators, and students. Through these workshops, VertNet has extended the benefits of its funding far beyond the four collaborating institutions by training more than 1500 students, educators, museum professionals, researchers, and scientists globally, with considerable...

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