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59 lines
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HTML
59 lines
3.1 KiB
HTML
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<title>CUCC Expo Handbook - Data Management</title>
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<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expedition Handbook - Data Management</h2>
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<h1>Why cavers need effective data management</h1>
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<p>
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Cave exploration is more data-intensive than any other sport. The only way to "win" at this
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sport is to bring back large quantities of interesting survey, and possibly photos or scientific
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data. Aside from the data collection requirements of the game itself, setting up a game (an
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expedition) of cave exploration often involves collection of personal information ranging from
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dates available to medical information to the desire to purchase an expedition t-shirt.
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<p>
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If an expedition will only happen once, low-tech methods are usually adequate to record
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information. Any events that need to be recorded can go in a logbook. Survey notes must be
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turned into finished cave sketches, without undue concern for the future expansion of those sketches.
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<p>
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However, many caving expeditions are recurring, and managing their data is a more challenging
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task. For example, let us discuss annual expeditions. Every year, for each cave explored, a list
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of unfinished leads (which will be called "Question Marks" or "QMs" here) must be maintained to
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record what has and has not been investigated. Each QM must have a unique id, and information
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stored about it must be easily accessible to future explorers of the same area. Similarly, on
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the surface, a "prospecting map" showing which entrances have been investigated needs to be
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produced and updated at least after every expedition, if not more frequently.
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<p>
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These are only the minimum requirements for systematic cave exploration on an annual expedition.
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There is no limit to the set of data that would be "nice" to have collected and organized
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centrally. An expedition might collect descriptions of every cave and every passage within every
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cave. Digital photos of cave entrances could be useful for re-finding those entrances. Scans of
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notes and sketches provide good backup references in case a question arises about a finished
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survey product, and recording who did which survey work when can greatly assist the workflow,
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for example enabling the production of a list of unfinished work for each expedition member. The
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expedition might keep an inventory of their equipment or a catalog of their library. Entering
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the realm of the frivolous, an expedition might store mugshots and biographies of its members,
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or even useful recipes for locally available food. The more of this information the expedition
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wishes to keep, the more valuable an effective and user-friendly system of data management.
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</div>
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<p><em>From "<a href="/expofiles/documents/troggle/troggle_paper.pdf" download>
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Troggle: a novel system for cave exploration information management</a>", by Aaron Curtis, CUCC.</em>
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