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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