Field Data Management using MS Access

Target Audience:

Biologists, technicians, researchers, and natural resource managers involved in data collection and dissemination of biological data results.

Summary and Objectives:

Data management is an integral part of natural resource management. Qualitative, quantitative, and hierarchical data are often collected as part of monitoring or research projects, either to be archived for future reference or analyzed for specific needs. The skills needed to appropriately catalog, organize, and subsequently access the data for future analysis in a timely manner are essential and will improve participants' ability to analyze data. This course will cover the principles of data organization, including types of hierarchical data typically collected by natural resource professionals, development of relational databases, data management and manipulation, and formatting data for use in other statistical analysis software packages.

Concepts and techniques covered in class will include:

1. The organization of hierarchical data
2. The development of MS Access databases
3. Relationships among tables in an MS Access database
4. Data entry and creation of forms
5. Building queries
6. Developing reports
7. Exporting data for use in other statistical applications.

Participants will use their data to develop an MS Access database.

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Use their knowledge of data hierarchy and database development to facilitate analysis of data and ease of sharing data among natural resource partners.
• Develop an MS Access database for a project.
• Within a nMS Access database, develop tables and relationships among tables, enter and import data, create forms, build queries, develop reports, and export data to other statistical applications.
• Use pivot tables for summarizing data.

Competencies Addressed: 

Database Management Systems - Intermediate, Data Management - Intermediate, Data Management Analytics - Basic, Data Interpretation - Intermediate