Report prepared for the Experts Meeting Towards the Implementation of a Global Invasive Species
Information Network (GISIN), 6-8 April, 2004. Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Page 99
8/30/2004
Developing Databases and
Capacity Building
Group Leaders: Soetikno Sastroutomo
(CABI)¹, Silvia Ziller (Horus/TNC)²
Rapporteur: Philip Thomas (HEAR)³
Introduction
The Developing Databases and Capacity
Building breakout group was tasked with
identifying priorities related to capacity
building and outreach. Participants just
beginning to collect invasive species
information were encouraged to participate
in this breakout group. Suggested common
minimum standard database fields were
drafted and passed to the Content breakout
group for consideration.
Report
The Developing Databases and Capacity
Building breakout group began their
discussions by identifying 17 priorities that
should be addressed with respect to
GISIN’s role in capacity building within the
invasive alien species (IAS) community. The
group then narrowed the list down to three
issues. The text of some of the original
seventeen priority issues was incorporated
into the final three and a subcommittee
further refined the three issues/tasks to:
1)
Development of a simple interactive
IAS database with common
minimum standard fields, formats,
and terms.
2)
Development of an information start-
up package and model database for
new IAS database developers.
3)
Developing methods/actions for
addressing what is commonly known
as the digital divide – the gap that
exists between those with access to
1
CAB International
2
Horus Institute / The Nature Conservancy
3
Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk
digital technology and related
services and those with limited or no
access.
The discussions of this breakout group
initially paralleled those of the Developing
Database Content breakout group, as they
sought to identify which data fields to
recommend for inclusion in IAS databases.
They delivered the list of data fields they
had identified to the Developing Database
Content breakout group, and moved on to
discuss the second priority.
Silvia Ziller offered to translate her
organization’s database into English and
Spanish (it is currently served in
Portuguese) and supply it to those that
would like to use it to develop their own IAS
databases. The GISIN should develop and
provide a database development manual
containing instructions about what
information should be recorded in an IAS
database, and how it could be structured.
For example, the manual should include
instructions for storing data in small
incremental data fields or groups such as
economic impacts, environmental impacts,
and health impacts rather than in one
general impacts data field. Combining
information stored in separate fields is
relatively easy, while separating information
stored in a general field is much more
difficult. In a globally shared network, it
makes sense to provide the flexibility for
separating out specific pieces of information
like this.
Combining information stored in
separate fields is relatively easy,
while separating information stored
in a general field is much more
difficult.
The GISIN community needs to develop a
marketing strategy for advertising the GISIN
concept, and some initial value added
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