[acn-l] ICONS
Kai Erik Witte (kai at mailer1.mpib-tuebingen.mpg.de)
Tue, 19 Aug 1997 13:47:06 +0100
>From: Preston Hardison[SMTP:pdh at u.washington.edu]
>Sent: 18 August 1997 16:51
>To: biodiv-conv at igc.apc.org
>Subject: ICONS Conservation Software at IUCN
>
>Apologies in Advance for Cross-Posting
>
> ICONS
> International Conservation Networking System
>
>
> The ICONS Project Team would like to announce the availability of
> ICONS for Windows (beta), software produced by a team of
> conservation and information professionals supported by the
> Information Management Group of IUCN - The World Conservation
> Union, the International Development Research Center (IDRC) and
> the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).
>
> The software is available from: http://www.iucn.org/icons
>
> ICONS is an easy-to-learn software program designed in support of
> community-based conservation, biodiversity information management
> and networking.
>
> ICONS provides modules for managing conservation-related
> information for the following categories:
>
> Organizations
> Persons
> Peoples
> Sources (bibliographies; metadatabases; etc.)
> Laws
> Projects and Events
> Internet Sites and Services
> Geographic Areas
> Species
> Data Custodians
> Metadata
> Multimedia Encyclopedia
>
> In addition, ICONS provides you with a number of lookup tables
> that contain terms used in the other modules which you can use
> to create authority files, including tables for:
>
> Acronyms
> Countries
> GeoKeys (Geographic keywords)
> Habitats
> Taxonomic Ranks
>
>
> ICONS is effective for managing bibliographies, email and
> personal notes; organization and expertise data; detailed project
> histories; legal information, species life history data and their
> uses; and for the other categories listed above.
>
> ICONS makes extensive use of transactions, which allows you to
> create new categories of information and attach them to records
> in your database: data values, cross-classifications, notes and
> binary objects such as word processed files, graphics, map files,
> and sound files. You can perform full-text searches, and the
> system come with tools that will help you to index, filter and
> sort your records.
>
> Within the flexible structure for adding your own classifications
> and data, ICONS provides a fixed underlying data structure that
> allows users adopting the software to easily share files, either
> through diskettes, zip disks and other storage media, or by using
> the Internet. Data entered into ICONS may also be exported in a
> number of common formats so that they may be shared with other
> programs, and the tables containing the data are left accessible
> for easy attachment or export.
>
> ICONS can be used:
>
> 1. to assemble and store electronically the materials related to
> meetings, with the full-text of the materials, scanned images,
> and a participant's list; which can be distributed at a meeting
> to provide the basis for further networking;
>
> 2. to manage membership lists; track office activities; organize
> information on projects; and other daily tasks in conservation
> organizations;
>
> 3. by conservation organizations to maintain conservation
> networks with contact and expertise information, a document
> clearinghouse, project information, and detailed legal and
> biological information on particular issues and regions;
>
> 4. by students or professionals to manage research and education-
> related information and distributed in the classroom;
>
> 5. to provide a database system that can be used to store
> information that can be used in geographic information analysis
> (GIS)
>
> The system is being developed for use in a number of indigenous
> knowledge, sustainable development and biodiversity initiatives
> with IUCN - The World Conservation Union and others. We are
> making the software freely available over the Internet in order
> to invite others to evaluate ICONS and help us improve it, and to
> provide a tool that can be used in other's conservation and
> sustainable development efforts.
>
> ICONS comes with a small sample database to provide some
> authority information and help guide you to some useful formats
> for entering data. We have also prepared a database of over
> 100,000 records on bibliographic references, organizations,
> Internet sites, acronyms, encyclopedic terms and species on the
> issues of biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, community-based
> conservation, conservation biology and sustainable development.
> We will make the database available for low-cost distribution on
> CD-ROM and as a searchable database on the Internet. Our ultimate
> intention is to foster the development of federations of
> organizations which maintain locally controlled, high quality
> information sources in special interest networks.
>
> A run-time version of Access 2.0 is installed, so that you can
> use ICONS on any personal computer running Windows 3.1 or higher
> operating system. If you have a full copy of Access and other
> tools, you can mount ICONS on a local area network (LAN) or on an
> Internet server. We have also designed ICONS to allow users with
> the full version of Access to modify ICONS for their own uses,
> such as constructing a user interface in a local language. ICONS
> is fully compatible with GIS software capable of accessing the
> ICONS data tables, and we are currently developing direct
> interfaces to GIS. This version will also run under Windows 95,
> and a following version written for Windows 95 and incorporating
> advanced Internet features is being developed.
>
> The software is accompanied by a manual with basic instructions
> on installation and use. This is a Beta release, and we do not
> yet have on-line help, but we are developing an integrated help
> system for the full release version. We are a small group and
> currently cannot offer full support for users, but we will be
> establishing an ICONS Mailing List for software support by the
> end of August, 1997. We will announce the opening of the list on
> environmental mailing lists, and further information will be
> available from the ICONS section on the IUCN site.
>
> The installation package is 5.1 Mb, and will require at least 11
> Mb of hard disk space to install, and requires a 386 or higher PC
> running Windows 3.1 or greater operating system.
>
> ICONS is copyrighted for free educational and non-profit use. If
> you elect to download the Beta release of this software and
> accept the End User's License Agreement, we would like to ask you
> to fill out and return the reader's survey form that accompanies
> the manual, either electronically or through surface mail. We
> also welcome inquiries for developing full-scale projects using
> the ICONS software or for supporting ICONS mirror sites.
>
> Kevin Grose, Project Manager, Head, Information Management Group,
> IUCN
> Julian Inglis, Project Coordinator
> Bill Harp, System Co-Designer
> Preston Hardison, System Co-Designer
>
> CONTACT INFORMATION:
> Preston Hardison at: pdh at igc.apc.org
> ICONS web site: http://iucn.org/icons
> or join the ICONS_L e-mail discussion group.
>
> The ICONS Team wishes to acknowledge the generous support of
>
> IDRC, Ottawa, Canada,
> NORAD
> Pennyless Productions, (Red) Inc.