Water Resources Discipline ITAC Activities

fyi

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Katherine Lins
Chief, Office of Water Information, WRD
U.S. Geological Survey
440 National Center
Reston, VA 20192
703-648-5014

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----- Forwarded by Katherine Lins/WRD/USGS/DOI on 12/02/2004 02:56 PM -----

Ken,

Just wanted to follow up on our telephone conversation earlier with this email outlining some of the talking points of the PDA workshop. A detailed report will be forthcoming. Tom Gunther and Tony Frank are to write the report and then pass it through several if not all the participants of the workshop.

Below are some of the major topics/recommendations I gathered (keep in mind these are preliminary) from the meeting. As evident from the topics below, we at times discussed issues that are beyond the scope indicated by a title of “PDA workshop”. I think this was inevitable as we strive to realize the tremendous potential of integrating PDAs into our data collection. Perhaps the para-phrased conversation below could best represent the context in which some of the topics are derived:

A presenter was asked, “How do you determine the data fields and flow of an electronic form?” the presenter answered, “By looking at your database and integrating that with your standard operating procedures.” to which the participant replied, “Ok, what if you don’t have those!”

All participants (BRD, WRD, GD, GIO) were interested in increasing support of mobile computing.

GIO feels that we will be pushed/nudged toward an Enterprise solution.

Other Disciplines would be interested in using the HIF.

BRD (as represented by the participants in the workshop) is in need of support towards creating office --to-- regional --to-- national data delivery.

The San Diego BRD office has created a PDA data collection system. They would like to see a similar system supported, enhanced, and implemented nationally.

There was interest in creating a multi-discipline data center/solution which included brief discussion of the National Map.

Network connectivity (lack there of is primarily security driven) between different Bureaus and USGS partners needs to be created/enhanced.

GIO was very interested in knowing what the mobile computing community wanted in terms of support.

GIO is interested in supporting a group similar to FCIG for all Disciplines.

If you want further clarification on any of these topics please let me know and we can set up a conference call. On a personal note, I think that the participants from WRD left the workshop with a greater appreciation for the organizational structure of Water and for the support derived from that structure.

--Burl