Grantee:  Pacific Marine Analysis and Research Association (PacMARA)

Website: www.pacmara.org

Contact:Jeff Ardron (jardron at sign pacmara.org)

The Manual is now available!

- download it at www.pacmara.org or through the MARXAN homepage at the Univ. of Queensland

- visit the online MARXAN manual Wiki page

- download the Launch presentation given to the EBM Tools Network:

                   - PDF of the powerpoint presentation
                  - MP3 audio file of the presentation

 

Project Summary:

With the support of the MEBM Tool Innovation Fund, the Pacific Marine Analysis and research Organization (PacMARA) is working with the developers of MARXAN at the University of Queensland (UQ), to write an enhanced user's manual for the MARXAN decision support tool. It will also be translated into Spanish.

MARXAN is freeware used by over 1100 registered users from 600 organizations (government, academia and NGOs) in 95 countries as a decision support tool to consider options in terrestrial and marine reserve design, supporting the implementation of EBM principles. It is perhaps the most popular "site selection optimisation" software available, and is widely published.

Existing documentation is a mixture of mathematical theory mixed with technical input data requirements; as such it is a barrier to the use and acceptance of the tool, confusing beginning users and non-technical decision makers trying to understand the operation of and results achieved from the MARXAN tool.

Current documentation for MARXAN is indeed cited as a common problem by users. In a recent on-line survey conducted by PacMARA, 43 % of users cited "insufficient guidance for adjusting settings," and 37% noted problems preparing the input files (N=77; Sept-Dec 2006). (Note that these numbers are likely biased towards lower than the actual percentages because the survey was targeted to users who had successfully applied Marxan; those who had been unsuccessful would have been unlikely to answer such a survey.)

As new, more sophisticated sister products to MARXAN are developed, the need for a clear manual that will facilitate understanding of the core software becomes increasingly important. The principles and concepts written for this User Manual will be incorporated into the documentation of MARXAN's sister products.