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The Global Invasive Species Team | |
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Frequently Asked Questions about WIMS 3
Although we do not have the resources to directly answer all of your questions about WIMS 3, if you have specific concerns,
comments, or questions, you may go to the WIMS 3 Message Board at
http://rachel.des.ucdavis.edu/wims/ to voice those questions and to
learn from others' experiences. If your question or comment is a common inquiry, we may answer and post it here!
General Questions about WIMS 3
General Questions about WIMS 3 Why are you making WIMS 3 available to everyone? We initially developed WIMS 3 for TNC field staff, but decided that since many of our partners had the same or similar needs, it made sense to make WIMS 3 available for everyone. Our goals are to provide a user-friendly weed database application for natural resource managers so that they will have the ability to make better-informed on-the-ground management decisions, and to provide a method to share and compile weed data between multiple users. Can I use WIMS 3 for my Cooperative Weed Management Area (CWMA)? Yes, WIMS 3 can easily share and compile weed data from multiple users! Make sure that all users are using the same version of WIMS 3, then simply use the Excel Export and Excel Import functions to send and upload your data to a designated data manager. Can I use WIMS 3 to organize statewide weed data? Yes, WIMS 3 can be used to organize statewide weed data. However, you may have certain data fields, metadata standards, etc. that are not represented in WIMS 3. Also, you may have current statewide data in a projection and datum that is not WGS84 (or NAD83) UTM or decimal degrees. If you wish to use WIMS 3 to organize statewide data, we will let you have WIMS 3 for free, but please contact us to arrange for transfer details, MOU, etc. Can I use WIMS 3 if I work for a federal agency? TNC does not intend to compete with any database system that any state or federal agency is using or developing. If you work for a federal agency, check if your agency is developing a mandated database or geodatabase (for instance, NPS, BLM, and USFWS are all developing systems). However, if you are a resource manager and need to keep track of your weed data for your own purposes, you are welcome to use WIMS 3 or even borrow from its features, etc. We encourage everyone to have some way to keep track of their weeds and weed management activities, and hope that in the future, there will be enough coordinated efforts to ensure that weed information can be easily communicated and transferred across multiple users, states, regions, etc. Can I use WIMS 3 for aquatic invasive species or other invasive taxa? It depends. WIMS 3 can be used for invasive aquatic species and/or for mapping and collecting data on any animal, fungal, or microbial species. You simply need to add the species name to the Species List (in the Support Tables section). However, WIMS 3 is not designed to track mobile species! Further, WIMS 3 only lists control treatments that are commonly used to manage terrestrial invasive plants. However, you can use WIMS 3 as a template to design your own database for this purpose. Can I use WIMS 3 for my research project? Well, it depends on your project. If your research project is simply mapping the locations and extent of the weeds, then yes, WIMS 3 can be used for that. If your project entails keeping track of several types of control treatments on some select weeds or patches of weeds, WIMS 3 can be used. However, if you are involved in a detailed study involving many sites, many weeds or weed patches, many treatments and many replicates, WIMS 3 may not be the best tool for you to use. Can I contract TNC to do my weed mapping and to develop a weed management plan? Perhaps. TNC's Invasive Species Team does not have the resources to do this. However, depending on where you are located, what type of landscape you are in, and if TNC is already a partner with you locally, you can ask your local TNC office to learn if this is a possibility. Can existing weed maps and associated data be imported into WIMS 3? Unfortunately at this time, we do not yet have a good way to directly import existing data in an Excel spreadsheet into WIMS 3, unless it is already in a WIMS 3 format (such as when you do an Excel Export). In this case, you can either cut-and-paste your data into a WIMS 3-compatible Excel spreadsheet, or you must manually re-enter your weed data. However, if you have weed data that are GIS-compatible (already entered as shapefiles), you can upload those data directly into WIMS 3! To do this, you must manually link your data attribute tables associated with your shapefiles to the appropriate WIMS 3 fields (using the GIS Import function). What is NAWMA, and why is there a NAWMA Export button? NAWMA is the North American Weed Management Association (www.nawma.org). In 2003 NAWMA posted a set of minimum mapping standards that they recommend that be used when collecting weed data. We added a function in WIMS 3 that would automatically create an Excel spreadsheet of your weed data expressed in NAWMA standards. Technical Questions about WIMS 3 Why did you program WIMS 3 in Access and not in a geodatabase? We began developing WIMS 3 (from an old BLM Access database) in 1999, before geodatabases were widely available. Since then, we have been impressed by the many uses and utilities of the new geodatabase applications, but have decided (for at least the near future) to keep WIMS 3 as a Microsoft Access database. This is primarily because we wanted to keep WIMS 3 as a widely available application that most field-based staff could easily use and obtain (since most folks will have MS Access on their computers). Further, we like certain features of Access that are more difficult to produce in a geodatabase application, such as report summaries, instant access to treatment histories and monitoring data, being able to share data without using a GIS-based application, etc. If I know how to do Access programming, can I alter WIMS 3 to suit my needs? Yes, you can alter WIMS 3 to suit your own needs. However, be aware that we occasionally release new versions of WIMS 3, which may update a certain feature or fix a bug in the programming. Therefore, if you alter the WIMS programming, you may not have access to these updates. If you have requests or recommendations of new programming, please let us know on the WIMS 3 Message Board at http://rachel.des.ucdavis.edu/wims/. I already have a GPS unit (such as a Magellan or Garmin). Can I use it to run WIMS 3? Most GPS units are compatible with Pocket PC units, as long as you can obtain a cable that can connect them. Blue Hills Innovations Inc (http://www.bluehillsinnovations.com) is one company that makes a variety of connector cables for GPS units and Pocket PCs. Check out their website to see available connection options. Unfortunately, not all GPS units are compatible with Pocket PCs. Do I need to have the ArcPad software in order to run WIMS 3 on my handheld unit? If you want to use WIMS 3 on a handheld unit you need to have either ArcPad 6.03, ArcPad 7.01, or ArcPad 7.1 software installed. ArcPad allows you to view imagery while in the field on your handheld screen, and to collect data that will be automatically uploaded into WIMS 3. What format, datum and projection do my images need to be, in order to display imagery on my handheld unit? Since WIMS 3 uses the ArcPad software application, image files must be in one of the acceptable formats for use with ArcPad. ArcPad 7.1 allows files in a variety of formats, including JPEG, MrSID, GIF, TIFF or BMP. We generally prefer to use background imagery that is either JPEG or MrSID, simply because the smaller the file size, the faster it takes for that image to load and rewrite on the handheld unit. WIMS 3 uses imagery in the WGS84 datum and in the UTM or decimal degree projection. NAD83 is essentially the same as WGS84 in much of the U.S., so you can also use images in this datum, provided you are aware of the discrepancy for your area. Why did you decide to support only WGS84 and UTM projections in the WIMS 3 GIS Export and Import functions? WGS84 datum and UTM projections are common and standard, and the ESRI tools for converting to other projections are far superior to anything we could program in WIMS 3. It was simply unrealistic to attempt to support a virtually unlimited variety of projections within WIMS 3. When I am loading the three WIMS 3 shapefiles into ArcPad, why do the shapefiles appear on both the Pocket PC Main Memory, as well as on the SD card? We think that the WIMS 3 shapefiles are actually just in one location (on the SD Card; or on the "Disk" on a Trimble unit). But since the default path in ArcPad has been set to the SD Card, the files appear under "Main Memory." (Note that the path right above the list of files is "\SD Card" (or maybe "My Documents\SD Card"). We recommend to just load your image and these associated shapefiles from the SD card. Why are there two ArcPad icons on my handheld screen (usually under Programs). We are not sure why, but extra ArcPad icons sometimes just appear, and they seem to be shortcuts that the user can place on the Start Menu (\Windows\Start Menu). You can leave them where they are, but if they bother you, you can just delete the extra shortcuts using Windows Explorer on the desktop. Specific WIMS 3-Use Related Questions If I am only mapping one (or a few) weeds, why do I need to create both an Occurrence (point) and an Assessment (polygon) record? As of early 2005, there is no method for capturing both point and polygon data (and associated weed data) in one shapefile layer. This is a limitation of any ESRI GIS application, and there is nothing that we can do with the programming to change this. This means that you must create an Occurrence record first to record the species and lat/long "point" location. Then, if you want to keep track of how big that weed infestation is, so that you know how much area is infested and how much you will need to treat, you must create a "polygon" in the Assessment record. If you are only mapping points, you will not be able to calculate the amount of area infested. However, if you just want to map points to treat those weeds (and do not want to bother with the other information), you do not need to complete an Assessment record. I just finished creating my Assessment polygon in ArcPad (by walking around that patch). Can I edit or make changes to that polygon? Once you have finished creating your Assessment polygon, the Assessment record form will pop-up on your screen. If you want to make any changes to the associated data (on the Assessment record form), you can easily do this as detailed in the User's Manual. However, if you want to make any changes to that polygon itself (or to any of those vertices), you either need to first complete that polygon to reveal the Assessment data form, delete that record and re-create it (by walking around your weed patch again), or keep it as is for now and make any changes to those polygon vertices in ArcMap. If you delete or alter individual vertices in ArcPad, you will not be able to import that data into the WIMS 3 desktop (you will receive an "error" message during the GIS Import process). 
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Updated February 2008 ©The Nature Conservancy, 2005 |
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