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Date: | Thu, 3 Aug 1995 08:20:01 -0600 |
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You mean that other people feel this way? I am not
just a control freak who like to micromanage people's
work?
>>> Art Harris <[log in to unmask]> 08/01/95
08:20am >>>
Karen Anderson wrote:
> I've had the most horrible luck you can imagine with
"interested and enthusiastic" >work study students
and data entry projects,
indicating that an original file was fouled up beyond
belief by work study students.
A way around this is to never let anyone except
trained staff near an original file. For new data entry,
duplicate the structure and have the new information
entered in the duplicate and, after proofing, a trained
staff member can append it to the original. Similarly
for corrections to the originial file: duplicate, proof, and
replace.
There are too many things that can go wrong with
someone not thoroughly conversant with an
application (visualize an attempt to replace data in a
field of a subset, but forgetting to segregate the subset
first--X number of fields with incorrect data and no
easy way to retrieve the original data).
Which brings up the other absolute requirement
in data management:
BACKUP FREQUENTLY!
Arthur H. Harris
Laboratory for Environmental Biology
Centennial Museum
Univ. Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968-0519
Phone (915) 747-6985
Fax (915) 747-5808 [log in to unmask]
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