The BCH contains a
Central Portal with linkages to a distributed network of national, regional and international nodes/databases. The Central Portal is maintained by the Secretariat and provides the gateway to all sections of the BCH, including the search pages, the Management Centre where information is entered or updated, links to other websites, discussion forums where BCH users can talk to each other about issues of common interest, and a toolkit that is designed to help users understand how to use the BCH. It functions essentially as an interactive site map to assist in the navigation and use of the BCH.
The BCH functions like a central information marketplace, where the providers and users of biosafety information interact and exchange that information in a transparent manner. To fulfill its role, the BCH has been designed to make finding and providing information as clear and intuitive as possible, for example, by providing common formats and standardized terminology (controlled vocabularies). In addition, the BCH is available in all six UN languages.
All interested users can freely search and retrieve information from the BCH. On the other hand, information is submitted to the BCH through a secure facility known as the BCH
Management Centre. Access to the Management Centre is restricted to BCH national focal points and other authorized users who are issued with login accounts and passwords. The registered information is validated (i.e. verified for accuracy and authenticity) by the BCH-NFPs before it is made publicly available. This helps to ensure the highest level of security and reliability of information in the BCH.
The BCH is designed to be interoperable with other databases, in order to offer governments the option of registering information either with the central BCH database, or with another (interoperable) database of their choice. The location of the information will make no difference to the user, who will be able to retrieve all information through the Central Portal of the BCH.
