VegBank Workshop - 2003 November 3-4 Chapel Hill, NC
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VegBank Workshop

November 3-4, 2003

Friday Center for Continuing Education

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

We are looking forward to your participation in the VegBank Workshop. We view this as a two-way interaction. We hope to educate you about the VegBank enterprise and about how you might use it in your work. We also hope to train you to use some of the supporting tools and functions. In return we hope to learn how to improve what we have built and are planning to build so as to assure that it will meet your long-term needs.

 

Organizers: Robert Peet <peet@unc.edu>, Don Faber-Langendoen <don_faber-langendoen@natureserve.org>, Michael Lee <mikelee@email.unc.edu>, Lee Anne Jacobs <lajacobs@email.unc.edu>, Joel Gramling <gramling@email.unc.edu>, Toni Rexrod <trexrode@tnc.org>. Logistical questions should be addressed to Toni, VegBank questions should be addressed to Michael, and data questions should be addressed to Don.

 

Each day the there will be a continental breakfast served 8:00-8:30, with the meeting starting promptly at 8:30. Laptop computers will be provided for use by participants to assure compatibility with software. You are invited to look over the VegBank.org prior to the meeting. We hope to email you additional materials prior to the workshop.

Agenda

 

  1. Introduction. 8:30-9:00 am -- Peet
    1. Why are we here?
    2. What we hope to accomplish?
    3. Expectations on both sides

  2. Overview of data flow in NVC. 9:00-10:00 -- Faber-Langendoen
    1. Coarse-scale overview: tools, data collection, type preparation, peer review, NVC upgrades.
    2. Fine-scale overview: data entry, data management, data upload, data download.
    3. Connectivity of database systems (VegBank, Biotics4).
    4. Applications -- NVC classification, other uses such as ecological models.
    5. Long term use and data migration plans (legacy data, etc).
    6. BREAK

  3. Overview of data model (the big picture). 10:15-11:15 -- Peet
    1. Plots, observations, interpretations of plots and taxa, taxonomy module, classification module.

  4. VegBank I. 11:15 - 2:00, including Lunch. --Lee
    1. Overview and walkthrough (11:15-12:00)
    2. LUNCH (12:00-1:00)
    3. Details: (1:00-2:00)
      1. Setting up Accounts.
      2. Query (for plots, plants, communities, meta-data).
      3. Export from VegBank.
  1. VegBranch I -- a simple dataset. -- Jacobs
    1. Overview and walkthrough (screen shots) of translation of data values from user variables to VegBank variables, data checking, meta-data, etc. 2:00-3:15.
    2. BREAK 3:15-3:30
    3. Exercises with simple tools to follow the data preparation steps and get the data ready for VegBank. 3:30-5:00
    4. Upload to VegBank (VegBank test platform). 5:00-5:15.

  2. VegBranch II -- a more complex dataset. -- Lee

(Examples of complex datasets; Query (for plots, plants, communities, meta-data); Export from VegBank.)

    1. Introduction. (8:30-9:30)
    2. Exercise. (9:30-10:45)

  1. Analysis and NVC proposal generation. 11:00-12:00 -- Faber-Langendoen
    1. Overview.
    2. Numerical analysis.
    3. NVC assessment.

  2. VegBank II -- Advanced Functions. 1:00-2:45 -- Lee

(Anotation of plots, of taxa, etc; bringing datasets together; metadata functions (adding new methods); adding parties, references, plants and others; introduction to help, feedback, and debugging options.)

    1. Introduction. (1:00-1:45)
    2. Advanced functions. (1:45-2:45)
    3. BREAK

  1. Feedback and summary discussions. 3:00-4:00 -- Panel