Amanda, This summer I did stream side vegetation surveys with CEMML near Anchorage using percent cover estimations at multiple sites, multiple plots per site, with up to 100 species. We used tablets to collect data, and it saved us much time and worked very well. It sounds like a similar study to the one you hope to do.
We used iPad Air 2's, with lifeproof brand cases, and they were very effective, relatively light, and completely waterproof (even silt proof!). We used the free google sheets app, and set up the data before going in the field and then made the files available offline to head out to the field. I don't know about cheaper options that would be as effective, but all together I think the case/iPad combo was $600-700 per. Hope this helps! Joel Betts On Feb 4, 2016, at 6:21 PM, Amanda Goldberg <gold1...@vandals.uidaho.edu> wrote: > I know there have been a few previous messages about using Tablets in > the field but I was hoping to ask a few specifics. We are planning to > use these tablets primarily for collecting vegetation data (and maybe > adding more uses further down the line as we work out the kinks). This > summer we would like to enter all our daubemire percent cover data into > the tablets while we are in the field to minimize the amount of data > entry we need to do when we return every evening. Our sites contain > quite a few plants so we need a pull down tab or some other option to > identify up to 100 plant species. My questions are: > > 1) Is there an app that you would recommend we use to design a data > sheet on the tablet that would be easy to use for vegetation percent > cover data collections? One that will allow us to enter percent cover > estimates for many different plant species at multiple locations (we > have 30, 1 meter squared quadrats per site or 16 per plot within each > site). We would prefer an open access (free) app but we are willing to > pay if it means a better format for our data collection. We would love > to be able to export the data to a computer each day and save or convert > it to an excel format. > > 2) Any particular tablets that you recommend we use (or avoid)? We are > budget limited so we are looking for tablets that are certainly under > $400 each and preferably less than that. > > 3) Any particular covers/cases that you would recommend for the tablets. > We don't expect the tablets to get super wet or dirty but we work > outside so they are not completely safe from the elements. > > Any comments or suggestions on these 3 questions would be greatly > appreciated. Feel free to email be directly at: > gold1...@vandals.uidaho.edu > > Thank you, > Amanda
