SPARKS is easy to install on your hard disk. Just follow the directions on the first disk. SPARKS consumes about 2 megabytes of hard disk space. Please make sure that you have enough free disk space before the installation. To check on disk space and integrity type: CHKDSK. Then insert the first distribution disk in your A: drive and type A:Sinstall. If you need to use another drive for reasons of size and/or format, substitute B:, or whatever suitable drive letter you have, in that sentence (i.e. R:SINSTALL).
There are several parameters you may specify in the Sinstall procedure, as the first screen will point out. The complete installation command is Sinstall f h s where the f is the floppy disk drive, the h is the hard disk drive, and the s is the sub-directory in which you wish to place SPARKS. {Do not enter the: on these parameters). If you do not specify the optional parameters, SPARKS will by default install from floppy drive A: onto your hard disk C: into a subdirectory it will create called SPARKS.
In order to run SPARKS you may need to modify your DOS configuration file (CONFIG.SYS). The SPARKS installation routine, when complete, will tell you what your current CONFIG.SYS file looks like and what you may need to change. The CONFIG.SYS file must have at least FILES=25 and BUFFERS=25 in it. If it does not have at least these settings, you will have to change it using a file editor. One way is a crude line editor that comes with DOS, called EDLIN. See your DOS manual for help if needed. In case you have more than one copy on your machine, the CONFIG.SYS file that counts is on your root directory, not on SPARKS or any other sub-directory. The information in it is read first thing (and only) when the computer boots up. If you do make a change to your CONFIG.SYS you will have to re-boot the computer for it to take effect.
The second file read when you boot up your computer is your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It must be on your root directory also. Within this file I would suggest that you include the PATRI command. This will tell your computer where to find various other commands and programs. The critical ones to SPARKS are some of your other DOS commands such as BACKUP, RESTORE, and PRINT. Many people store all of their DOS commands in their own sub-directory, often calling it QDOS. Whatever it is called, be sure to list it in your PATH. See your DOS manual for further information on AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.
A very important DOS command that you should execute periodically is CHKDSK. This is the "check disk" command. With it you may inspect the integrity of your hard disks File Allocation Table (FAT). It evaluates each files sectors and gives a summary of used space and free space. And most importantly, it tells you about bad space in the FAT. By entering the command as CHKDSK /F, you may have the bad FAT pointers fixed so that you will not lose part of your files if they were to be written to those sectors.
installation 1
Installation 2
Type: SPARKS
The SPARKS main menu will appear giving credits, version number, and the release date. ISIS phone numbers are provided. The current studbook in use, if any, is displayed at the top. If no studbook is in use you’ll first have to create one. The six options available from the main menu are:
1 - Data Entry 2 - Reports 3 - System Utilities 4 - Change Studbooks 5 - Help 6 - Exit
Since you are likely to have no studbook data in SPARKS format at this point, let’s start with creating a studbook.
There are at least four possible sources of studbook data for use in SPARKS:
| I. | A SPARKS-format studbook dataset from someone else. To read in all of the appropriate files, type "SPARKS" and then use the System Utilities to Restore from the disk(s) you have. |
| II. | A studbook dataset convertible to SPARKS format. From the DOS prompt (usually O:), type LOADEDIT. (See manual section on LOADEDIT). After converting institution names, run the edit check. Then enter SPARKS. |
| III. | A studbook dataset from ISIS (they are provided in SPARKS format). Read in the SPARKS format studbook as in I. above. |
| IV. | A studbook dataset you create by entering the data through your keyboard. |
One of the first things that you are likely to need to do in SPARKS is to create a new (empty) studbook. If you already have a studbook file in either Omaha or Houston format see the section dealing with conversion to learn how to read these files in, using the stand-alone LoadEdit utility.
The main menu of SPARKS lists an option to change studbooks. This includes changing to a new, empty studbook (i.e.-creating a new, empty studbook). SPARKS allows you to have any number of different
Getting Started 3
studbooks on your computer at once. Each is stored in a separate sub-directory under the 'SPARKS sub-directory. If you do have several studbooks, you will be presented with a list of their names. At the bottom of the list is the option to create a new studbook. Select a named studbook to close the current one and open another one. Select create to start a new one.
Once the new sub-directory and necessary empty files are built you are asked to fill in the scientific name and common name of the studbook taxon, and may record if you wish the family, order and class. If the class is MAMMALIA then animals are born, otherwise they may be hatched. Also requested is some information on the source and completeness of the data. This is for footnotes which are printed at the bottom of some reports. They identify who compiled the data and how current and comprehensive it is -also very useful if files are being transferred to others, or for keeping your own files straight. A short general purpose comment field is available for other purposes as well.
There are actually two ways to change to another studbook. One is the way mentioned above, by selecting from the list; the other is at startup. SPARKS remembers the name of the last studbook that you worked with and opens it by default at startup. If, however, you know you want to work with another you may name it on the SPARKS command line. For example, if you have a studbook file named PANDA that you want to use, enter: SPARKS PANDA.
Consider the taxonomic scope of a planned studbook before you begin. Should you create a single studbook for all subspecies or a separate studbook for each subspecies? In other words, is your studbook built on the sub-species, species, or even genus level? SPARKS will let you build them anyway you want, but you should think through your needs and the consequences of your choice. Splitting up a dataset assembled as one taxon, or combining multiple datasets created as individual studbooks, are not trivial tasks in SPARKS or any other software we are aware of.
One option is to create a single studbook at the species level and set a UDF to identify the sub-species of individual specimens included in your dataset. What’s a UDF? It’s a User Defined Field. See the section in this manual on the flexibility of UDF’s. This gives you additional options, but means more complexity in data entry and reports/analysis. Every specimen in any single studbook dataset will need a unique studbook number. You must also be sure to enter the sub-species in each specimen’s UDF field. Every retrieval will need a UDF selection criteria set if you wish to analyze each sub-species separately.
You may want to use SPARKS to work with data provided directly from ISIS - for a species of interest to you. One reason is to analyse a captive population which does not have a formal studbook (97% of captive taxa don’t); perhaps you are interested in evaluating the genetic consequences of possible acquisitions for your collection, or interested in starting a formal studbook. Another reason for using an ISIS studbook dataset would be to update a studbook you are maintaining.
ISIS provides SPARKS-compatible data files for any of the over 3,000 species and subspecies of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians registered with ISIS. The quality and comprehensiveness of the dataset available from ISIS varies enormously with the taxon. The data goes back in time and space precisely to the
extent that institutions have contributed it to ISIS (55 institutions initiated ISIS in 1974; 335 were enrolled in late 1989). In recent years many more institutions are participating in ISIS so present-day coverage is better than that of years past. On the other hand, increasing adoption of ISIS’ ARKS in-house software has meant that ISIS has recently received considerable pre-ISIS data, the automatic result of users entering available historical data into their ARKS systems.
ISIS covers about 500 taxa per ISIS staff member, so ISIS studbook datasets are not routinely scrutinized by hand. Individual specimen histories are occasionally fragmented into one or more pieces because ISIS fails to trace the specimen from one reporting facility to the next reporting facility. Such datasets will benefit considerably from human scrutiny and detective work, and will ordinarily be too fragmented to permit thorough analysis of pedigrees without additional effort in cleaning up the data. Perhaps surprisingly, demographic calculations should be reliable without extra effort, as SPARKS is intended to produce unbiased demographic values even with fragmentary specimen histories.
Most species do not have studbook numbers asigned to them, so most ISlS datasets are provided in SPARKS format with temporary numbers (T--) assigned to specimens in birth date order. Any specimens with studbook numbers reported by participants keep these numbers. Strange and sometimes confusing "studbook numbers" sometimes appear because someone sent regional studbook numbers in to ISIS.
If you are starting a new studbook, the available ISIS dataset is often a considerable head start.
If you are maintaining a studbook, experience with several major international studbooks has shown that selectively adding in additional data available from ISIS can improve accuracy and comprehensiveness. It also may save time and/or fill in data for institutions which fail to respond to questionnaires. Since participant institutions make their own taxonomic assignments, you may find specimens on ISIS listed in the taxon of interest which might not qualify for a formal studbook.
To use ISIS to update your studbook, we strongly suggest that you treat the ISIS dataset as a separate studbook with a different name. One approach would be to open the ISIS studbook in SPARKS and produce separate "studbook" reports for births, deaths, and transfers - perhaps restricted to the last year or two. This will give you neat lists of recent events on ISIS to check against your own data. Periodically it will be worth checking over earlier data on ISIS -as ISIS is accumulating some extra historical data each year.
Getting Started 5
Getting Started 6
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