Workshop: Discovery: Photo-Identification Data Management Software System Date: Sunday, 27 Nov. 2011 Location: Tampa Bay Convention Center, Tampa, Florida (Room #20) Registration Fee: $50 US Register <http://www.marinemammalscience.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl e&id=591&Itemid=336&workshop=23> A software system, named DISCOVERY, was developed to provide a comprehensive approach to processing, storage, management, and variety of analyzes of photo-identification data and other associated information. As there are many non-standard data types of information being collected across a variety of projects, discovery was designed to be extremely customizable and dynamic in its ability to store all information for a any photo-identification project. Photo-Identification processing tools allows users to filter and manipulate their "incoming" data efficiently and provides within-group matching tools to identify the best representative image to be matched to the catalog of previously identified individuals. Matching to the catalog can be filtered by user-defined categories, sub-categories, and descriptors to narrow the list of potential matches in the defined catalog of individuals. Forms to store standard as well as user-defined sighting parameters are provided along with survey effort and GPS waypoint and track storage capabilities. GIS components allow visualization of individual, group sighting, and survey information. Discovery also provides import/export of ESRI shapefiles of geographic information to/from other GIS software tools. Analytical tools were developed to provide summary information, such as discovery curves, sighting/re-sighting histories, group size frequencies, behavioral frequencies, etc. Existing data can be easily imported into Discovery due to a dynamic import tool and data stored in Discovery's Access database can be exported into Excel, Access, SocProg, Mark, and GIS software for further processing and analyses of photo-identification information. We believe that Discovery provides a dynamic tool that facilitates easy integration of all collected photo-identification and sighting data; a tool that efficiently stores, visualizes, processes, and maintains these data and allows export to and from other tools. The system can be particularly useful for maintaining a centralized database for research projects that maintain multiple-species data on a large geographic scale with multiple research teams working with different databases and species. The flexible capabilities of Discovery allows the system to be adaptable to suit project-specific requirements and user-specific needs. This workshop will provide an introduction to DISCOVERY and will point out the system's primary components and the dynamic nature of the software, from the initial download of survey images to storing associated information, processing data, to the visualization and analyses of the data. All workshop participants will be provided with the software prior to the workshop and a hands-on component of the workshop will provide a means to illustrate the adaptability of the software for each participant's project. If you would like to participate in the workshop, please Register <http://www.marinemammalscience.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl e&id=591&Itemid=336&workshop=23> here (or email Discovery.smm.2011@gmail.com). With kind regards and be well, Glenn Gailey Institute of Marine Life Sciences Marine Mammal Research Program Texas A&M University, Galveston and Leszek Karczmarski The Swire Institute of Marine Science School of Biological Sciences The University of Hong Kong