Recording Software Demonstration Day
How do you manage and share your records? MapMate or DMap, Excel or Recorder, BirdTrack or iSpot? Decisions, decisions!
Recorders from across Yorkshire gathered at the White Hart Hotel in Harrogate on the 13th February 2011 to explore the range of software and online data entry portals available to the biological recording community. The recording software demonstration day was organised by the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union and the Yorkshire & Humber Environmental Data Network to help local recorders store and manage their records effectively and make their data available to support the conservation of the region’s wildlife and habitats.
The event consisted of structured group training sessions on Excel and MapMate, as well as informal drop-in sessions with local recorders demonstrating the software that they use and providing opportunities for hands-on experience of data entry and management.
Staff from Yorkshire’s Local Environmental Records Centres demonstrated Recorder 6 as well as recording and mapping software developed in-house. Nick Moran travelled up from the British Trust for Ornithology’s offices in Norfolk to demonstrate BirdTrack, a partnership project which enables bird recorders to store, manage and share their records online.
Other highlights included a voice-activated bird recording system, palm-top devices to bring recording technology into the field, DMap for producing distribution maps and coincidence maps, Marine Recorder which will be used to handle data from the YNU’s new Marine and Coastal Section, and iSpot, the award-winning website for recording and identifying species.
Recorders were also shown how to use the NBN Gateway to produce site reports, species distribution maps and to view and comment on individual records.
The event was well attended by 38 delegates, including the region’s newly appointed Biological Records Officer, a post sponsored under a partnership agreement between the YNU and YHEDN.
All agreed that the day had been enjoyable and they were keen to put into practice what they had learned. One YNU member even transferred 17,000 records into MapMate there and then! Many delegates brought their own laptops, and those who were interested were given licensed copies of MapMate or Excel tables with inbuilt species checklists to make typing errors a thing of the past!
The key to the day’s success was that delegates were able to gain hands-on experience using real data, and sufficient time and attention were provided to troubleshoot individual problems.
The YNU and YHEDN would like to thank all the demonstrators who gave their time on Sunday to make the day a success: Graham Banwell, Hannah Droop, Alistair Headley, Dan Jones, Paula Lightfoot, Bob Marsh, Nick Moran, Adrian Norris, Jill Warwick, Mark Wills, John Wint, and thanks especially to John Newbould, General Secretary of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, for coordinating the day.
Financial support for this event was provided by the NBN Trust as part of a Defra-funded project to help Local Environmental Records Centres to deliver training and support to data providers.