Software

In 1992, we were fortunate to receive an NSF grant (NSF 9250420) to set up a computerized classroom/laboratory.  Its primary purpose was to support the teaching of an enhanced ecology course, Biology 318.  The lab also supports students in a variety of other classes, as well as student research.  Peripherals purchased in conjunction with this grant also made our biology department web pages possible.

These pages represent one of several avenues we are taking to disseminate what we have learned from this grant.  

The software below was developed in conjunction with the project.  We are making some of it available at this point to educators who would find it useful in their classrooms.  Anyone wishing to download this software should be aware of the following points:

1. All software is copyrighted by Dave McShaffrey
2. It may be used without charge for educational use only.  Any commercial users should contact Dave McShaffrey regarding donations to Marietta College for the right to use the software in a commercial setting.
3. My provost expects me to occasionally teach classes.  This software works with some acceptable bugs on our equipment.  It may not work on yours, and you may find the bugs unacceptable.  I don't have time to debug the software, but I would appreciate hearing about the bugs.  Use the software at your own risk.
4. Some of the software is not available to be downloaded because of possible copyright infringements.  For instance, Vev and Fish have images in them which were scanned from the textbook bought by my students.  I felt this was academic fair use, since each of the students using the program had already purchased a copy of the illustrations.  I don't know what text you are using, so I don't want to violate copyright by making someone else's images available to you.  Sorry.
5. All of the software should run on a machine running Microsoft windows version  3.x with a color monitor of at least 640x480 resolution.  For your convenience, I have placed some of the .DLL and .VBX files needed on our server.  Your machine may already have some of these files.  They should be placed in the \windows  directory of your computer.  Microsoft says it's OK to distribute these files.
6. Please, Please, send me email telling me if you downloaded any of the software, and, if so, what you thought of it.  That will help me justify my existence to the provost and to the NSF.

Instructions:  Click on the software you want to download.  This will allow you to download an executable (.EXE) file; place it in a directory on your computer, preferably on the C: drive (suggested directories are given).  Run the executable to unpack the files; then try to run the program.  If you get an error message saying you need a certain .DLL or .VBX file, return here  to download that file and copy it to your windows directory.

Aquatic Ecology	WinMac - Benthic macroinvertebrate data analysis (water quality assessment).
	Aquavol - Utility for estimating aquarium parameters.
Ecology	Ecocyb - Modeling of population growth (exponential, log, age classes), Daisyworld simulation, natural selection, Reynolds number, chaos, predator-prey, competition.
	DinoWin - graphics-based comprehensive dinosaur database.
Invertebrate Zoology	Zoobase - Phylogenetic database of all animal phyla.
	Entlab - labeling program for insect collections.
Vertebrate Zoology	Vev - evolution of tetrapods (hypertext).
	Fish - evolution of fish groups (hypertext).
	Vflash - drill on scientific names.
	Dinovol - program for estimating dinosaur weights based on models.
Environmental Biology	Specarm - calculation and graphic display of species-area curve data from data collected outdoors.
Senior Research (Ohio Odonata Survey)	Ohiosurv - GIS system for Odonata Collections in Ohio - over 14,000 records.
	Odonate - GIS system for Odonata Collections in Washington County, Ohio - over 300 records.
DLL's	vbrun300.dll (place in Windows/System directory)

Project Summary

Philosophical Ramblings

Software

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