Heartland Network Data Management in the Heartland Network Background –Centralized staff –Protocols developed and implemented primarily in-house –12 of 15 network parks are fairly small and represent places and events of historic and cultural significance –Integrated with prototype

Heartland Network What Have We Learned? Data management is hard work!

Heartland Network Revisiting Priorities –Data mining –NPSpecies and other service-wide databases –Data management planning –ATR/COR on protocol development projects –GIS/GPS support to monitoring projects In –Data management needs assessment with project leads –Managing data work flow and security –Database development and maintenance –Writing data management SOPs

Heartland Network Establishing Clear Roles and Responsibilities Our approach –DM is shared responsibility among Project Manager and Data Manager –Project Manager is expected to have working knowledge of relational databases and ability to independently conduct basic data queries and exports Implications –Platform and design complexity are constrained –Increases risk of data loss –Creates some redundancy in database skills –Increases PI interaction and ultimately results in a better customized product

Heartland Network Managing Work Flow Idealized protocol development time line Pilot sampling Internal review Methodology Finalize SOPs Preliminary analyses Objectives Peer review Final protocol T – 1 yr T –2 yr Final version DB Beta version of DB Write DM SOP Database development times should be short, for each version, about 120 days. Keep PIs' involved and the initial database design simple. Add to the complexity later.

Heartland Network Minimizing Complexity By Considering Return on Investment The Subprime Syndrome Database Complexity Efficiency/Usability Ratio to Development/Maintenance Effort High Low High Low

Heartland Network Get The Data In! Find a balance between data security, ergonomics, efficiency, and data management capacity

Heartland Network Get The Data Out! Find a balance between automated data analyses and simple data export routines

Heartland Network Inspirational Message Albeit Poorly Crafted Data management is hard work! Yes You Can!