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Welcome to the GIEWS Workstation Wiki

Articles are entered and updated by the Workstation team. We welcome users' contributions to this site. Users can submit suggestions, feedback and issues concerning software, installation, data, useability etc. in the Workstation Forum http://ldvapp07.fao.org:8031/phpBB3/. You will need to register by indicating a user name and password to enter your comments.


Contents

About Version 3

The GIEWS Workstation is a web-based information system application that gives access to food security related data at global, regional and national levels. The aim of the GIEWS Workstation is to harmonize food security and early warning data within/across countries and to strengthen analytical capacity of key national institutions to support food security policy formulation and emergency interventions.

The application handles different types of information such as remote sensing data, GIS layers, databases and texts. The GIEWS Workstation is structured as a network in which individual instances of the application (different installations in the world) represent the nodes of this network. The network facilitates information sharing between nodes through a communication tool built on Peer-To-Peer technology.

The application is entirely based on an open-source technology to avoid license constraints and to allow free distribution.

Version 3 of the Workstation presents a totally new outlook and system architecture with respect to the 2.x versions. While the new Workstation includes many new concepts and functions, the main improvements are in terms of performance and flexibility.


Highlights of version 3

  • New data management approach: information (e.g. data, text, but also maps, charts and reports) made available through the Workstation is managed by a catalogue. The catalogue maintains the list of the Workstation resources which include datasets, vector and raster layers, text, maps, charts, tables, reports and projects.
  • New Project concept: the concept of “Project” has changed. It is now considered an association of selected resources (e.g. maps, tables, charts, reports, text, etc.) under a defined name (e.g. “Ethiopia” that identifies the Ethiopia Project). Unlike previous versions of the Workstation, a resource (e.g. a map) may or may not be associated to a Project. Therefore there is no dependency of a resource from a Project and an individual resource may exist without a project or may be associated to more than one project.
  • Project Manager: a tool for loading and managing Projects. Resources can be added, removed and opened to Projects using the Project Manager. Resources such as maps and tables can be linked to Projects.
  • Multi-Windows Environment: It is now possible to display several resources such as maps and tables in separate windows at one time. This allows users to simultaneously view different data and indicators associated to a same geographic area and/or project.
  • Reports: all resources can now be used to create reports using templates directly available in the Workstation. Current reporting facilities provide limited formatting capacities that will be extended in the coming releases. Text can also be added to the report using the Text Editor.
  • Dataset uploader for datasets with Workstation-compliant formats, including a Metadata editor to automatically produce the metadata files to be uploaded together with the dataset files.

What's New in Version 3.1

New Metadata Editor: The metadata editor is now available in the application from the Tool element of the Main Menu. This replaces the off-line metadata editor of Version 3.0. The metadat editor allows creating user-defined dataset types.

Improved Security: Improved security management tools have been introduced and made accessible through the Administration element of the main Menu.

Several new dataset types have been added: The dataset specification ar available in Appendix 1.

Raster Uploader: Version 3.1 include a tool to upload user raster layers. GeoTIFF and TIFF with the TFW files are supported. The tool is accessible through the Data Management element of the Main Menu.

Improved Shapefile Uploader: The uploader has been improved and made more user friendly.

Improved Tables: Datasets can now be viewed and edited through the Table object. A user interface allows to filter data before loading it to a table.

Improved Charts: New charts have been added and more formatting options have been included.

Communication Module: It allows to share data via the Peer-To-Peer protocol. It is currently active for datasets. The Workstation team will extend it to work for texts and layers.

Dynamic Commodity Management Tool (DCMT): The DCMT allows users to load, search and harmonize data referring to different commodity classifications.

Improved Maps: Several new features has been included in this new version. Among them, the capacity to interactively retrieve layer attributes and an improved version of the editor of the Style Layer Descriptor (SLD). This allows users to define symbology (colors, patterns, symbols) for vector and raster layers.

Crop Calendars: Crop calendars for most countries of the world are available from the Tools Menu.

Backup/Restore: Functions for backing up and restoring the full database (datasets only) have been activated.

Downloads and Installation

Giews Workstation 3.1 basic release is now available for download! See the installation guides below for Windows and Linux for download links and instructions.

Installation guides

Downloads

(N.B. It is strongly recommended that you download and import at least the GAUL layers for best functioning of the map, see also Downloading and importing the GAUL layer set and sample layers ).

Workstation Help

Getting started

User management

Data upload

Datasets to be uploaded in the GIEWS Workstation should be prepared according to the following guidelines:

Early Warning data upload

Guide to upload the early warning data (Countries in crisis and Countries facing unfavourable prospects) into the GIEWS Workstation, for the creation of the necessary GIEWS Website HTML table outputs and map images.

Please:

Contacts

For information on the Food Security Information for Action Programme visit our website at www.foodsec.org/workstation. You can submit any issues concerning the use of the software to the GIEWS Workstation team and/or community by registering with our Forum. To request a demo and/or an evaluation for installation, and for any other question concerning the Workstation you can also send an e-mail to the GIEWS Workstation team

Standards

In order to ensure the effective harmonization and sharing of data in the GIEWS workstation, a number of recognized coding systems have been adopted, including the GAUL (Global Administrative Unit Layers) from FAO for national and subnational administrative boundaries and the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS2007) managed and updated by the World Customs Organization. In particular, the Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL) from FAO for national and subnational administrative boundaries is the standard feature system used by the workstation for all geo-referenced data.

Users may also enter datasets based on their own coding system. However, institutions wishing to import data using the GAUL administrative boundaries, can contact FAO to download the latest release of the GAUL. It is also possible to create conversion tables between national systems and the GAUL to enable data compatibility.

The latest version of the GAUL Set - release for the year 2009 - is now available on Geonetwork at the site

http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.search

Please type "GAUL" to download the dataset if you already have a Geonetwork account. To request an account, please contact Fabio Grita fabio.grita@fao.org or Michela Marinelli michela.marinelli@fao.org. Before using the dataset, users should read the file “Readme.pdf” stored in the “documentation.zip”.

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