Morning lectures were followed by topic related laboratory exercises. The aim of which was to familiarize participants with the available and relevant software, and demonstrate the different procedures for software selection. The exercises were arranged around creating and managing databases and making them available via the Internet.
6.1 The Tool for the Data Entry and Basic Analyses: Microsoft Excel
Most of the data collected in the field will be entered into the computer in a spreadsheet file. Excel is one, if not the most, common spreadsheet programme. Primary processing and simple statistical analyses can be carried out on the entered data. Most workshop participants were found to have already used this software. So only a short introduction was given after which outlier (unusually extreme value) detection was carried out on the software. Participants first created distribution graphs of the data. They then used the Grubbs’ test to determine if suspected data were true outliers. Since the Grubbs’ test assumes a normal distribution, the participants first checked this assumption using normal probability plots, and if needed, they transformed the data before running the Grubbs’ test.
6.2 A Useful Database Managing Software: Microsoft Access
A large set of data usually results from a research or a monitoring project. After analysing them to get an answer to the special question at hand and after the publication of the results, the basic data still represent a high value. They can be used for example, for comparative studies, long-term studies, they can serve as reference data for other researches, or as input parameter to ecological models. To make the data accessible to other scientists or the wider public it is inevitable to arrange them into an easy-to-handle, logically constructed and well managed database.
There are several database management programmes in the market, but one of the most widely used tools is Microsoft Access, so the participants of the data management course became acquainted with this tool in a seminar. Although this software was developed mainly for handling business datasets, it can be used for handling ecological datasets as well.
Over several hours participants gained some experience with this software. They learnt how to create and modify tables for storing data, forms for entering data into the computer and queries, with the help of which the sought information can be gained from the database. After a short basic training the organizers of the course presented the data sheets of two projects, a bird and a vegetation monitoring project, and the participants had to choose one and create a database for storing the collected data, and make queries to get some information from the database. This practice enabled the participants to face the difficulties, to find the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and seek solutions. The exercise showed that even in the case of the same set of data every participant created a different database, found different problems and different solutions even for the same problem. This demonstrated that before arranging the data into a database the aim of the database, the possible users, and the questions which the database has to be able to answer must first be considered.
6.3 The Role of the Internet in the Data Networks
The fundamental aim of the workshop was to establish the base for a Central Europe LTER research network information system. The main purpose of such a system would be to increase the ease of information exchange. The wide use and availability of Internet in nearly all research institutes favours it use in the implementation of such a network. To construct research results into databases which can then be accessed via the web needs at least some basic knowledge of Internet tools. Web oriented knowledge was therefore given great importance in the workshop.
6.4 The Language of the World Wide Web: HTML
The www (world wide web) uses the HTML (HyperText Markup Language) to create the web pages. This is a descriptive computer language for the web browser programmes (MS Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, etc.) which determines how the pages should appear on the display to the visitors. It is quite simple to use at a basic level, the knowledge of a few commands (here called “tags”) is enough to create a useful web page. We can embed not only objects (pictures, sounds), but also links to other related pages or programmes, which are able, for example, to search in our database. HTML is the base for the design of the network interface of our databases. It is advisable to consider that although the HTML offers many tempting opportunities to make the pages more attractive, but these tools will increase the size and can make the availability of the page difficult. It is therefore worth striving to create simple and well-arranged pages.
To edit HTML pages there are several types of easy-to-use software on the market. The participants of the workshop became acquainted with the Netscape composer. The participants created their own simple web page in the HTML seminar, which were collected by the trainers, to make them available soon via the Internet. At the end of the course a decision was made to create an international web page, where the information heard in the workshop and several connected information would be collected for those who would be interested in the programme.
6.5 Web Servers
To make web pages public via the Internet a computer with a web server programme is needed. Several types of software are available and most of the new operating systems often have them built in. In the workshop the participants used the Microsoft Internet Information Server and the MS Personal Web Server. This has a good connection with the other Microsoft software. Of course, servers working under other operating systems (e.g. Unix/Linux Apache Web Server) are perfectly suitable. To install these usually the help of the system operator of the research institute is needed, but after installation everybody can work with them.
6.6 Web Service Tools
Since the HTML determines only the outlook of the web pages, to communicate with the databases other associated programmes are essential. These programmes assure the link between the database tools and the users, execute user requests, and create a mainly HTML based page of the results and returns it back to the user. For these aims CGI and JAVA programmes are used most often. The JAVA is a computer language specially written for HTML, which usually runs on the computer of the user. CGI scripts do the job on the server, and several programming languages are able to write them. The use of both programmes requires some experience, but a huge amount of scripts can be downloaded from the Internet for a number of purposes freely or quite cheaply. These must be only slightly modified for our special use.
