Please note that 2 of the participants did not reply to questions 1-17.

Areas that received positive feedback

Overall course - Overall the participants were satisfied with the course (3 very good, 3 good), the amount of new information provided was well received (3 very good, 2 good), and the interest generated by the course was high (4 high, 2 very high).

Course organization - People were very positive on the course organization (5 very good, 1 good), as well as the equipment available to participants (3 very good, 3 good). The participants were also positive with regard to the suitability of the teaching methods (1 very good, 4 good)

Areas potentially requiring some improvement:

Comments on ways to improve the course - A general feeling was that more hands-on work was required. Please refer to numbers 18-21 on the attached evaluation form analysis for general comments and specific suggestions on ways to improve the course.

ECPGR/NGB

Training Workshop on On-line Central Databases
Alnarp, Sweden
18-21 February 1998

Results of training evaluation form

(2 participants did not fill in questions 1-17, for that reason you will only find 6 answers per question)

1. Quality and quantity of information received prior to training course
2 Very good
3 Good
1 Average
-- Below average
-- Poor

2. Course organization - travel, arrival, accommodation, financial arrangements, etc.
5 Very good, well organized
1 Good
-- Average
-- Below average
-- Poor

3. Range of topics covered relative to course objectives
3 Very good, comprehensive
3 Satisfactory
-- Marginal Average
-- Too narrow
-- Too broad

4. Balance between different topics
-- Very good, well balanced
4 Good
2 Satisfactory
-- Marginal
-- Poor

5. Balance between theory/lectures and practical work
1 Very good, well balanced
2 Good
2 Satisfactory
1 Marginal
-- Poor

6. Amount of new information provided
3 Very good, lot of new information
2 Good
1 Satisfactory
-- Marginal
-- Poor, little new information

7. Time allocated to each part of the course
-- Very good
5 Good
1 Satisfactory
-- Marginal
-- Poor, some parts too little/too much

8. Overall length of course
2 Very good, right length
3 Satisfactory
-- Marginal
-- Too long
1 Too short

9. Suitability of teaching methods used for the subject (e.g. lectures, demonstrations, practical exercises, field work, discussions, etc.)
1 Very good, method suitable
4 Good
1 Satisfactory
-- Marginal
-- Poor

10. Quantity and quality of equipment available to trainees
3 Very good
3 Good
-- Average
-- Insufficient
-- Poor quality

11. Quality of presentations by instructors
3 Very good, well prepared
1 Good
2 Average
-- Below average
-- Poorly prepared

12. Number of trainees
5 Satisfactory
-- Too many
1 Too few

13. Advisor/trainee ratio
4 Very good
1 Satisfactory
-- Marginal
1 Too few instructors
-- Too many instructors

14. Advisor/trainee interactions
3 Very good
3 Good
-- Satisfactory
-- Poor, too little interaction
-- Poor, too much interaction

15. Relevance of course content to your work
2 Very good, highly relevant
3 Good
1 Satisfactory
-- Marginal
-- Poor, irrelevant

16. Degree of interest generated by the course
2 Very high
4 High
-- Satisfactory
-- Marginal
-- Low

17. Overall evaluation of the course
3 Very good
3 Good
-- Average
-- Below Average
-- Poor

18. List activities that needed more time:

• Practical work on how to load an application of a DB on Internet via IDH or ASP, automatically

• More presentations about new technology and new equipment suitable for database managers, curators and others
• Demonstrations and practical exercises
• Practical work:
• hTML pages
• Use of Microsoft package for Internet on-line databases (presentation by Herman Nijland)
• General (but precise) presentation of Internet network

• WAIS presenter
• Too many theoretical lectures
• Pauses
• Discussions
• Presentations of well-known databases
• Use of "WAIS"

• More practical exercises, trial done by DB managers on how to transfer their Dbase to Internet
• More hands-on activities (actual work on the computer)
• More printed material, such as advisor’s lecture notes
• Use of ActiveX
• DB with Access ® Internet
• More computers for people participating in the course
• More suggestions about creating a new database (pressure on database manager to create more uniform database structures)
• Demonstrations and practical exercises
• First of all, list of all systems existing with precise pros and cons (we are not specialists!), vocabulary, how the systems run and what are the consequences
• Ask, before the training course, what are the needs of each participant
• Use the members of the advisory group for helping individual or common needs, the participants' specific problems or needs (half-a-day, for example, during the course)

• The DB managers need to end up with a better idea of how they can easily put their database (and its applications of requests) on the Internet, knowing that most of them are not computer specialists
• This course could be very useful for ECP managers, who are going to create the ECBI; the choice of participants was limited to those who are ready to present their data. Some of them were afraid to send the application, because they were not sure, if the level of their data was OK for participation in a workshop. Such was the case for the Arrhenatherum and Trisetum database manager
• It would be useful to ask the participants before the Workshop for more information about their knowledge of HTML, technical possibilities in their institute, state of the DB, what they expect of the Workshop. So, the advisory group can prepare more "focus " on the workshop
• The course helped me a lot to get an idea about many new possibilities which are included in national or other databases. If the course was longer many of the database managers would have the possibility to gain more experience from other managers