Great Lakes Research Inventory

["Richard L Whitman" <richard_whitman@usgs.gov>]

All -
As discussed with some of you during the Muskegon meetings, the Great Lakes
Research Inventory could provide a home for ongoing beach research projects
in the Basin. As requested, I asked my colleague, Mark Burrows, to provide
details and here is his response -

Hi Doug - I'm glad that the group you met with is interested in using the
Research Inventory and thought you could pass along a few comments to the
group.



The Research Inventory would be an ideal tool for collecting project
information on research related to beach closings.

The inventory is web based, easy to use and includes a list of beneficial
use impairment assessments that includes "Beach Closings" as a category.  A
word search for any words in the Title or Abstract can also be done, so a
simple key word search on "Beach" would probably reveal most of the
projects.  Any user could enter projects from anywhere they have access to
the internet, find and sort all research projects dealing with beach
closings with very little effort.  Existing project abstracts can be cut
and
pasted into the form to speed up project data entry.  The research
inventory
may be found with the link at the bottom of the IJC's web page at
www.ijc.org, or you could pass this link along:
http://www.ijc.org/rel/boards/cglr/  that will take users directly to the
research inventory start page.

Pointing at "Projects" will provide a list of options to enter projects,
search projects, etc.
Those wishing to enter projects will need to create a password for
themselves so they can edit and revise their project information later if
they want to.  Their username is their e-mail address.  Clicking on "Help"
will provide some instructions for each entry page.
New entries are "flagged" by the program so I can review them and help
maintain some database integrity.  This helps us avoid duplicate entries on
the same project, allows me to delete test entries, errors and categorize
projects as to how they relate to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement
before I remove the "flag".
When entering a new project, the list of beneficial use impairments that
includes "Beach Closings" appears if the users indicates that the project
includes monitoring, otherwise that data entry page will not appear,
however
that shouldn't be a problem since I would expect that studies of beaches
would include some monitoring of conditions over time.
If they want to see all the possible fields that projects can be sorted by,
all they need to do is look at the advanced search page.  (Click on
"advanced search" under the search button on the search screen)
The Research Inventory asks for dates for the project, so a user could
select multiple items to search by in a specific time period, for example,
"Beach Closings" and "Lake Michigan", between January 2001 and December
2003.
Please note that there are very few required fields in the Research
Inventory, just the basic information on start date, title, a brief
description/abstract and some contact information is enough to make an
entry.  However the more fields that are completed, the easier it is to
find
the project by one of the categories listed, for example state/province,
lake, and beach closings should be expected for each entry so the entries
can be easily sorted.
One big plus is that the Research Inventory is free and maintained by the
Council so groups can avoid some of the hassle of maintaining a database of
their own.
The possibilities are endless; however the Research Inventory is voluntary
and is only as good as the data it contains.  As the numbers of projects
increase it becomes a more valuable resource that can help target research,
exchange information and promote greater collaboration between scientists
from different organizations.
I would be happy to answer any questions or to meet with the group and give
a demonstration.  - Thanks - Mark



Mark J. Burrows

Secretary, Council of Great Lakes Research Managers

International Joint Commission

Great Lakes Regional Office

100 Ouellette Avenue
Windsor, ON N9A 6T3

or: P.O. Box 32869
Detroit, MI 48232

(519) 257-6709, or (313) 226-2170 x 6709

burrowsm@windsor.ijc.org

















* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
beachnet is hosted by the Great Lakes Information Network:
http://www.great-lakes.net
To unsubscribe from this list: send mail to majordomo@great-lakes.net
with the command 'unsubscribe beachnet' in the body of your message. No
quotes or subject line are required.
About : http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/beachnet/beachnet.info
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *