BVR provides a common set of tools for all users who wish to become contributing members of the Distributed Biodiversity Knowledge Network. These basic tools allow each member of the network to perform the following operations:

• Access & authenticate to the network
• Perform structured data capture 
• Perform basic search & retrieval of data
• View data
• Store data

Add-on Applications:

In addition to the basic tool-set and access to the Biodiversity Knowledge Network that is freely available, BVR has built a number of applications designed to add-value to the user experience. 

  Naturalist Application-set

This application-set allows individuals to fully participate in the biodiversity network, while providing value back to the user. It contains a data entry facility that stores the data in the desired structure. The tool has search facilities that allow the user to search for and retrieve data from the network and the structures of individual computers. The Naturalist Application-set incorporates security measures such as content level signatures and document level authorization. It also establishes data quality indicators and provides a framework allowing third-party tools to plug into the application.

  Researcher Application-set

This tool includes all the facilities of the Naturalist Application-set as well as additional facilities desired by researchers, such as: project organization and collaboration; enhanced searching; data transformation; data integration, analysis and research.

This product is intended for researchers who require more facilities than data entry and simple searching.

  Institutional Knowledge Centre

While the Naturalist Application-set and the Researcher Application-set are end-user applications, the Institutional Knowledge Centre is a facility that allows organization to present a public face on the network.

The Knowledge Centre acts as an organization's web portal on the network. It organizes individual research projects, adds value to them by arranging data into meaningful patterns and helps maintain the quality and integrity of the data. Extended features include software distribution node for value added resellers, data aggregation point, certificate authority, distributed persistent store manager and cycle sharing capabilities.

The Knowledge Centre also uses an organization's existing infrastructure, allowing its IT departments to maintain corporate security.