[Babase] Data entry switchover concerns

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Wed, 27 Oct 2004 13:51:57 +0300


My impression is that converting almost any data file format to tab 
delimited text is very straightforward. This is certainly true of the 
Amboseli data. Daphne and Steph please send confirmation that you can 
do these conversions when the time comes. I am also happy with the 
tab-delimited text files as archival files.

How close are we to actually switching over to the new system? Are 
you waiting on me for anything? I know I have been offline.

Susan

>Hi,
>
>After everybody got off the phone Daphnie and I talked
>a bit and the subject of switching over to the new
>system came up in conjunction with data already
>entered into the computer but not yet put into
>Babase on Foxpro.  There might be concerns.
>
>Babase 2.0 will only take tab delimited plain text
>(exported from Excel or whatever) as input.  Apparently
>there's data that's been entered in Foxpro but not
>yet put into Babase and Daphnie says there might not
>be time to get it into Foxpro before we run the
>final conversion and go live with 2.0.
>
>There is also apparently data coming from Amboseli
>in electronic format.
>
>Coordination is needed.  I leave this to you folks.
>
>We do have plans for converting the foxpro datasets
>to tab delimited text for archival purposes.  This
>may be sufficient to get them into a format suitable
>for entry into Babase 2.0, although you'd have to
>figure out how you wanted to edit any datasets
>that contain errors. You could use a text editor or
>re-import them into Excel I suppose.  I wouldn't
>expect to see Babase 2.0 changing any of the
>dataset input formats, in terms of what columns there
>are and what goes in which column, so I suppose
>this would work.  Let me know if I need to think
>more about this.
>
>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                  -- Robert A. Heinlein
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Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, 
Durham NC 27708
919-660-7272 (phone), 919-660-7293 (FAX)