Carol Volk will present an introduction to managing and understanding data. She will cover the following topics: 1. What is data? 2. Where is all the data? 3. What do we do with it? 4. Is it useful? As examples, she reviews two case studies: the Integrated Status and Effectiveness Monitoring Program (ISEMP) John Day water quality project, data dictionaries and the Pacific Northwest Salmon Habitat Restoration Project Tracking Database (http://webapps.nwfsc.noaa.gov/portal/page?_pageid=33,1&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL), and project coordination: restoration and project placement in Middle Fork John Day (MFJD) basin. 5. Should we do something with it? 6. Steps forward: making old and new data useful. Finally, she concludes with the following observations and recommendations: 1. The current methods of storing data are inefficient for regional analyses and conclusions. 2. Current datasets can be useful but take time. 3. Start small: organize once and analyze a thousand times.Volk Consulting
