[Babase] Re: Predation Coding Scheme
Susan Alberts
alberts at duke.edu
Mon Mar 10 23:41:36 EDT 2008
Thanks for your comprehensive replies. See below.
>> Questions:
>> -To be clear, we are proposing (ultimately) 3 different tables in
>> babase, correct?
> Correct, one for each of the types of data.
OK
>> -What are the columns of each table? just rec code and species
>> code? I seem to recall there is more information in the existing
>> table?
> The other columns are things like date, time, grp, species count,
> and location information.
Do you think this list (date, time grp, species count, location) is
comprehensive? Is there any thing else needed? Also, the location
information will be variable in how it is entered, as i recall. Grid
locations in some cases, verbal descriptions in others, GPS in some.
perhaps it would be good to consult with Catherine (who is on Babase
but probably not reading all these thoroughly) about how to proceed,
as she dealt with this problem in entering the swerb data.
>> -The rec code of unknown in all three tables doesn't make sense to
>> me. is there an example you can think of where the rec code would
>> be unknown? Or were you including it because it is already in the
>> existing scheme?
> It is a part of the existing scheme, and I didn't cut it out
> because I thought it was probably there for a reason, but then
> again a situation doesn't occur to me in which the rec_code would
> be unknown either.I think this can be removed from the rec_codes.
OK I agree.
>> -Is there any possibility of extracting data from the current file
>> (at least the one that Gabriel did at princeton, covering about 10
>> years) into this scheme, or are we talking about entering from
>> scratch?
> It looks like extraction will not be possible because so much
> information was lost by coding that data with the old scheme. I
> looked at roughly 50 entries of that data, and wrote down what I
> could extract, and then compared it to the originals and there was
> a marked departure from what the originals said and what I was able
> to extract. I think it would need to be completely redone.
OK
>> -It seems at least some of it will need to be from scratch. I
>> would like to discuss how to manage this. The last (evidently
>> disastrous) time we did it at Duke, we first transcribed it by
>> hand so that the notes were converted into the digitizable form
>> first, and then entered it. This is time consuming but seems
>> important. let me know your thoughts. Jeanne too.
> I did look at the notes from when the predation sheets were
> converted. When I started to enter this data, I did so by just
> entering straight from the sheets, and I found it to go quite
> quickly. I don't think it is any more useful to first write them
> all down, and I feel like that is one more place to introduce human
> error. I think the time that would be spent doing that would also
> be non-trivial, and in comparison to how quickly it goes just
> reading from originals, I think that is an easy way to do it.
I'm glad to hear this. Let's give it a try.
Susan
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