What BADC users think of the BADC
To help the BADC prepare a documentation for
the BADC five year review in 2000, a questionnaire was sent to
registered BADC users to sollicitate their feedback about the
BADC.
A pleasing response rate of approximately 10% was accounted...
and below are some of many more citations from BADC users, demonstrating
their support for the BADC:
- "I found the service to be really useful - all my
questions were answered promptly and the help I received was
excellent." - a user from the University of Newcastle
- "I have nothing but nice things to say about BADC.
It's quick, efficient and effective." - a user from
the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology (CEH)
- "The service I have received
has been prompt and efficient enabling me to get the data required
swiftly without any difficulties. This has undoubtably enhanced
the UK contribution to a major EU project and our standing with
the European colleagues."
- a user from Building Research Establishment.
- "An excellent service, I deposit and use data in
databases maintained by BADC and have never had any problems."
- a user from the Univeristy of East Anglia
- "I would like to thank you not only for the promptness
of allowing me access to the system, the promptness of replies
to any questions I have but also for the ease with which the
system can be used. I have found the data extremely easy to access,
especially now the data is all available online. The fact that
the data is free to PhD students is vital, with our low budgets."
- a user from Oxford Brookes University
- "It is a fantastic service all in all, providing
rapid access to data sets that would otherwise take a long time
to obtain through the Met Office or other means." -
a user from the university College London
- "BADC is the best data center as I known. Though
some other data center seems more colourful, BADC always provides
useful data, rather than colours." - a user from the
Univeristy of Peking, China
- "The BADC have made a major contribution to the success
of the NERC Thematic Programme 'ACSOE' (Atmospheric Chemistry
Studies in the Oceanic Environment). They were central to the
innovative use of an on-line forecast backward air mass trajectory
service that was imlemented during the field and shipboard campaigns.
This was an invaluable aid to the necessary and complex day-by-day
planning process, requiring advance positioning of ship and aircraft
platforms relative to a ground station. The second major contribution
has been the setting up of a 'value-added' database. This will
be a public-access resource, and is viewed by the project management
as one of the major deliverables of the programme. BADC have
provided innovative and easy-to-use data tools such as on-line
data visualisation tools, and error checking of submitted data
files. The facilities developed here will doubtless be adopted
by other database providers." - a user from the University
of East Anglia
- "Service was very efficient in setting up an access
account to the surface data. Queries were dealt with quickly,
courteously and efficiently". - a user from the Macaulay
Institute.
- "Access to data was swift and forthright.Choice of
data sets is very impressive.Staff very helpful when problems
arose." - a user from the Univeristy of Dundee.
- "Certainly we are most grateful that this BADC exists,
that the various datasets are accessible from one source, and
appreciate the fast support we have received whenever needed...
if it ever ceased to exist, 2 years later it would be reinvented,
I'd guess" - a user from the University of Edinburgh
- "I have only been using the back trajectory service,
which is excellent and easy to use" - a user from the
British Antarctic Survey
- "The data source is incredibly useful, and in international
terms, I think is a facility which is amongst the best in the
world. This facility needs to be maintained and its data extended"
- a user from the University of Manchester.
- "The BADC provide an excellent efficient service.
The datasets held can be accessed easily and the team are always
willing to hear requests for new datasets. I am particularly
grateful for the new trajectory web server which is excellent."
- a user from the University of Bristol.
- "Very impressed with the fast response time in starting
up the account and getting the met data I required.Wish the rest
of the bodies I am trying to get data from were as easy to deal
with. The graphing function on the UKMO data is very useful."
- a user from the Univeristy of Wales, Bangor.
- "I am very pleased with the service BADC provides.
We are always informed by all updates and new dataset"
- a user from the Universite de la Reunion
- "Excellent user support. I required some data ASAP
and the BADC support kept me fully informed throughout the process
of when the data would be available." - a user from
the University College London
- "Although not a frequent user, I have always found
the service at BADC to be extremely professional - it is both
helpful and prompt. I think emailing the community when new datasets/tools
become available is vital for a data centre. I wish they all
did that as well as BADC." - a user from the British
Antarctic Survey.
- "The BADC provide a centralised data service which
is very useful to the UK academic community. They have enabled
the wide use of ECMWF and UKMO data which was hitherto very difficult
to obtain. They have also played a key role in many observational
chemical campaigns where analyses and forecasts were used to
direct aircraft to the best observing points." - a user
from the University of Reading
- "It has been very satisying to watch the growth in
expertise and the quality of the service provided by BADC over
the last 5 years." - a user from the University of Reading.
- "The BADC maintains a very well organized web site,
which makes it easy to find atmospheric data sets quickly. Users
can search the web site or browse a very nicely laid-out catalog.
Information about the format of the data and the availiability
is presented in a user friendly format with on-line, cd-rom,
tape, or video icons. A key makes it clear when data are restricted.
But BADC web site provides more than just links to data sets.
For example, if a user is interested in a specific data set,
valuable information can be obtained from the "Dataset
web page", which is featured as a link in each data set
heading. The "catalog record" entry allows the user
to obtain the geographical information of, and the time period
covered by the selected data set. In times where the internet
is expanding rapidly and information retrieval gets more difficult
each day, the BADC makes it easy for an user to find and obtain
an atmospheric data set without going through extensive internet
searches. Restricted data sets are available only after the user
signs an agreement, but the service is prompt and access is given
within a day or two. I strongly recommend to provide BADC with
the funding to continue and expand its operation." -
a user from the State University of New York, USA.
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