Request to Join a Symbiota Portal
⭐ Are you looking to join an existing Symbiota portal as a data provider?
Complete this form to help the Symbiota Support Hub create a new profile for your collection (example). When you finish, email help@symbiota.org to notify us of your request. You can update information entered into this form directly in your new Collections Profile once it has been created.

❓Are you interested in using Symbiota, but are unsure which portal to join?
Please email help@symbiota.org for guidance. You are still welcome to complete this form to get the process started.

Symbiota Portal Directory: https://symbiota.org/symbiota-portals/ 
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Collection Title
Example: "Arizona State University Mammalogy Collection"
Which Symbiota portal should this collection be added to? Select "other" if you are unsure and would like guidance.
Briefly describe the collection's scope (taxonomic, geographic, temporal) and preparations (fluid preserved, etc). (2000 character max)
Collection Acronym(s)
Collections registered in a Symbiota portal are required to have an institution code (e.g. "NY", "ARIZ", "YU") and, optionally, a collection code, that pairs with the institution code, e.g. "DBG-KHD" (Denver Botanic Garden's Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium) or "ASU-Plants" (ASU's Vascular Plant Herbarium).

Herbaria should refer to Index Herbariorum for guidance. All other collection types may refer to GRSciColl.
Institution Code
Examples: "ASU", "AMNH", "YPM". This field is required, and your response should match the code your institution has registered with GRSciColl or Index Herbariorum, if applicable.
Collection Code
Examples: "IP", "VP", "IZ", "Fungi", "Algae", or leave blank
Collection Latitude & Longitude
This field is optional, but for those who wish to provide this information, you can use Google to find your collection's coordinates in decimal degrees:
  1. On your computer, open Google Maps. 
  2. Right-click the place or area on the map. This will open a pop-up window. You can find your latitude and longitude in decimal format at the top.
  3. To copy the coordinates automatically, left click on the latitude and longitude.
  4. Paste the results below.
Collection Profile Contact
If you are facilitating the addition of a collection to a portal to on behalf of someone else, provide the contact information of whomever will ultimately be the responsible party for the dataset (e.g. the curator and/or collections manager).

❗ Providing multiple contacts is highly encouraged to ensure the continued stewardship of your collections data. The primary contact provided below will be added to the new collections profile as an administrator, after which point they may add additional contacts to the profile's metadata.

❗ The information you provide for the contact below will be publicly visible on your collection profile. Email is required, but phone contact is optional.

Contacts listed on collections profiles will be subscribed to Symbiota communications to ensure you receive important updates about your portal from the Symbiota Support Hub.
Primary Contact: Name
Primary Contact: Role
Primary Contact: Email
Primary Contact: Phone
This information is optional and will be publicly listed on the collections profile.
Primary Contact: ORCID
Optional but highly recommended!
Primary Contact: Institutional Address
If you intend to use Symbiota to manage loans, please include the address you would use for loan shipping and receiving purposes. 

If you do not provide an address and one is available for your corresponding institution code from GRSciColl, this address may be used by default.
Secondary Contact: Name
Listing two contacts on your profile is highly recommended, as is including a generic departmental contact when available (e.g. herbarium@yourmuseum.org).
Secondary Contact: Role
Secondary Contact: Email
Secondary Contact: ORCID
Optional but highly recommended!
If another portal user should be granted administrative permission to this collections profile, provide their username here.
External Links
Collections Homepage URL
Other External URL
Licensing & Rights
Use the fields below to indicate who legally owns *and* who can use, modify, and reproduce data to be shared through the new collections profile.

Reviewing these Creative Commons licenses may be helpful in making your selection:
1) https://creativecommons.org/licenses
2) http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Data

Please seek advice from your portal manager if you are unsure which license and rights to select.
License
Clear selection
Rights Holder
E.g. "Regents of the University of California", "Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Foundation", "public domain", or leave blank
Access Rights
E.g. URL to an institutional access rights policy or leave blank
Dataset Management Type
Please indicate whether you intend to "live manage" your collections data within the portal, or share a "snapshot" of your collections dataset that is live managed elsewhere.

⚡ "LIVE MANAGE" =
you intend to actively catalog new occurrences and conduct collections management activities, like edit records, within the portal's user interface (aka the "Occurrence Editor")

🔄 "SNAPSHOT" =
you intend to upload a static dataset from another database to be periodically updated in the portal, but you will not be directly editing your specimen records directly in the portal

Both data management types will enable you to publish your collections dataset to GBIF and iDigBio portals, if desired. Learn more about that process here.

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What if I have multiple collections or data types?
⚠️ You can only live manage a given collection in *one* portal, but you can share snapshots to multiple portals.

⚠️ If you have multiple collections (e.g., vascular plants, fungi, and bryophytes), it is recommended to manage these separately in their respective data portals. This is because the taxonomic thesauri of the portals are well-curated to their focal taxonomic group, and you are more likely to be able to take advantage of digitization efficiencies (e.g., duplicate matching) in that portal.  

More information on managing data in multiple portals here.
In this portal, I intend to...
Clear selection
Do you want to enable public user edits?
This option only applies to collections that intend to live manage data in a Symbiota portal. Learn more about this feature in Symbiota Docs.
Clear selection
Request Permission
By submitting this form, I attest that I have the appropriate authority to request a new profile for this collection, and/or I have permission to act in this capacity on behalf of the collection. *
Your Name *
Your Email *
Next Steps
1) Create a user account
If you do not already maintain a user account in the portal that you've requested to join, please do so at this time. A user account will be required to give you access to your collection's new profile in the portal. In most Symbiota portals, look for a "New Account" link on the home page to get started with this process.

If you are unsure whether you already have an account, please email help@symbiota.org. We can look up this information for you on request.

2) Contact the Symbiota Support Hub
If you have not already reached out, please email help@symbiota.org to let us know you've completed this metadata intake form. When you do so, please send us your preferred logo to be used as the icon for your collection (PNG/JPG format preferred, and no larger than 350x350 pixels).

3) Register your collection with Index Herbariorum or GRSciColl
If your collection is affiliated with an academic institution or government organization, but it is not yet registered with Index Herbariorum or GRSciColl, we encourage you to do so after submitting this form. While this step is optional and independent of your registration with Symbiota, adding your collection to these registries will help increase the visibility of your data to researchers.

Herbaria should register with Index Herbariorum (a copy of your new record will automatically be sent to GRSciColl), and all other types of collections should register with GRSciColl:
  • Register with Index Herbariorum (for herbaria only): FAQ
  • Register with GRSciColl (for all other collection types): instructions
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