The NBN Atlas has a series of data quality tests that are run on every record when the records are processed. The tests include those built in to the ALA functionality and additional bespoke tests for the NBN Atlas.
Any failed tests are listed at the bottom of the occurrence record page. To compare the supplied (raw) and processed values of a record click on the ‘Original vs Processed’ values button in the top right-hand corner of the occurrence record page.
It is possible to filter records that have failed individual tests using the ‘Records issues’ filter. You can find out how, here.
Disabled or unavailable data quality tests
Enabled data quality tests (April 2020)
| Test | Area | Description |
| Homonym issues with supplied name | Classification | Ensure name is not a taxonomic homonym. |
| Name not recognised | Classification | Test to ensure Atlas name matching can recognise the record using its classification data. |
| Name not supplied | Classification | Test to ensure either scientific name or vernacular name is supplied. |
| Coordinate precision not valid | Event | See note below for this. |
| First of the century | Event | Test to see if collection date is first day of first month of first year of century. |
| First of the month | Event | Test to see if collection date is first day of month. |
| First of the year | Event | Test to see if collection date is first day of first month of year. |
| Incomplete collection date | Event | Test to indicate when event or collection dates are full dates, i.e. include day, month and year |
| Invalid collection date | Event | Test to indicate when event or collection dates provided invalid. This test includes when end dates are earlier than start dates. |
| Unable to convert UTM coordinates | Location | Test to see if we can calculate lat long from northing easting coordinates provided. |
| Coordinate precision and uncertainty transposed | Location | The values in coordinatePrecision and coordinateUncertaintyInMeters are swapped. |
| Coordinate uncertainty not specified | Location | Test to see if location coordinate uncertainty in metres is provided. |
| Coordinate uncertainty not valid | Location | Test to ensure that if location coordinate uncertainty is provided then it is in a format supported by the Atlas. |
| Coordinates converted from UTM | Location | Assertion to indicate when latitude/longitude coordinates are calculated from northing easting coordinates. |
| Coordinates don’t match supplied country | Location | Test if coordinates match country. |
| Coordinates don’t match supplied state | Location | Test to see that if state/province is provided it matches the state/province calculated from coordinates during processing. |
| Country inferred from coordinates | Location | Test to ensure if a country location is not provided then it can be inferred by other means through processing. |
| Decimal coordinates not supplied | Location | Test to ensure that latitude and longitude values are supplied. |
| Latitude Longitude calculated from grid reference | Location | Test that if latitude and longitude are not provided they can be calculated from a grid reference. |
| Location not supplied | Location | Test to ensure that if location footprintWKT, locality or locationID is not supplied then latitude and longitude could still be determined by processing. |
| Missing geodetic datum | Location | Test to see if location geodeticDatum is provided. |
| Precision / range mismatch | Location | Test to ensure that if location coordinate precision is provided it is between 0 and 1. |
| Unrecognized geodetic datum | Location | Test to see if a geodetic datum is provided that it is recognised by the Atlas. |
| Uncertainty in precision | Location | If coordinate precision has been provided but not coordinate uncertainty in meters then assume coordinate uncertainty in meters is the value in coordinate precision and mark this test as failing. |
| Grid reference calculated from latitude/longitude coordinates | Location | Assertion when a grid reference has been calculated from a latitude / longitude pair. |
| Zero latitude | Location | Test to see if latitude is zero. |
| Basis of record not supplied | Miscellaneous | Test to ensure occurrence.basisOfRecord is provided. |
| Data are generalised | Miscellaneous | Test to ensure occurrence data generalisation field is not blank. |
| Image URL invalid | Miscellaneous | |
| Missing catalogue number | Miscellaneous | Test to ensure occurrence catalogue number is provided. |
| Missing identification verification status | Miscellaneous | Test to indicate when an identificationVerificationStatus is not supplied with the record |
| Missing name of person who identified the specimen/observation | Miscellaneous | Test to ensure identifiedBy is provided. |
| Occurrence status assumed to be present | Miscellaneous | Test to see if occurrence status is provided. |
| Unrecognised identification verification status | Miscellaneous | Test to ensure that if identification verification status it is one of: Accepted, Accepted – considered correct, Accepted – correct, Unconfirmed, Unconfirmed – plausible, Unconfirmed – not reviewed |
| Unrecognised occurrence status | Miscellaneous | If occurrence status is provided then test to ensure it is one of a matched list of terms “doubtful”, “present”, “common”, “absent”, “irregular”, “rare” (and their variants). |