Objectives should be restated in terms of desired outcomes rather than tasks.

All of the objectives require planning and coordination services to at least some extent, but the project proposal addressed tailored questions only for data management. Tailored questions for planning and coordination need to be addressed.

The sponsors need to define the success criteria used to determine whether each of the five project objectives will have been met at specified milestones. The proposal should include a project evaluation plan beyond providing annual reports and holding workshops and explain what metrics will be used to assess effectiveness and impact of the work accomplished.

As stated in the proposal, deliverables for this project are driven by data requests, and tribal requests get priority, but the sponsors need to provide a more detailed explanation of how tribal and other requests are prioritized.

The sponsors need to provide a clear description of exactly what data will be housed in the Tribal Data Network. It appears that there might be some duplication with other projects, for example DART. Will this project store and disseminate data from all tribes, that is, both CRITFC and non-CRITFC tribes, in the Columbia Basin?

What are plans for checking accuracy of data? Will there be peer review of methods for analysis of data?

The majority of proposed project costs (> $1 million per year) are related to staff salaries. According to the executive summary current funding covers only 1.5 FTEs, and cooperation with other projects leverages an additional 4-5 FTEs of CRITFC staff. How will the proposed shift in staff FTEs to this project affect work on other projects? The sponsors need to provide a clearer explanation of the percentages of project and individual staff time that will be devoted to each of the proposed work elements, and, if applicable, to other projects.

1. Purpose: Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives

Project significance to regional programs and technical background were adequately addressed. Objectives are stated as tasks, for example “Providing data management services to the tribes” rather than as desired outcomes. The sponsors need to define the success criteria used to determine whether the project’s objectives have been met. The proposal uses many undefined acronyms and technical jargon, and would be improved by providing a list with definitions of acronyms and technical terminology.

2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management (ISRP Review of Results)

The sponsors list a number of project accomplishments, but this section of the proposal would be improved by describing each result in terms of value-added, specifically with respect to the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program and the region, results of user/member assessment of effectiveness and impact of the work accomplished, and how results of this assessment have modified previous and proposed activities over time to increase value of this work.

 The sponsors provide some useful examples of how project results are used for adaptive management.

ISRP Retrospective Evaluation of Results

This is a relatively new project, initiated in FY 2009, to continue support for personnel and infrastructure to allow the CRITFC tribes to collect, house, and distribute data from the projects funded by the Accords, that is, fish and habitat monitoring data for the reservations, ceded lands, and key co-management areas.

The Tribal Data Network’s (TDN) primary goal is to ensure the availability and sharing of accurate and timely monitoring data among CRITFC member tribes and with other agencies to meet the reporting needs of the Accords and BiOp while also building capacity within tribes to support informed policy management decisions and tribal co-management needs.

Overall, the project appears to be on track to meet its objectives.

3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (hatchery, RME, tagging)

Tribal Data Network (200850700) and StreamNet (198810804) will work synergistically to integrate data management and sharing across the Basin consistent with the Columbia River Basin Collaborative Data Sharing Strategy. What are plans for checking accuracy of data? Will there be peer review of methods for analysis of data? What are the plans for updating data, for example the CHaMP project? Will this project store and disseminate data from all tribes, that is, both CRITFC and non-CRITFC tribes, in the Columbia Basin? 

As described in the TDN 2011 workshop report, there seem to be several limiting factors related to data management, not adequately discussed in the proposal, for example, data sharing with NOAA and software/server compatibility. Although this project involves 25% coordination, tailored question for coordination were not addressed.

4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods

Is it not possible to get SARs with confidence intervals directly from DART for any set of PIT tagged fish?  The sponsors stated that DART may provide some SARs.  The sponsors need to check whether estimates are the same.

It is not clear exactly what data will be housed in this Tribal Data Network; for example, is habitat data for intensively monitored watersheds from the Columbia Habitat and Monitoring Project (CHaMP) project to be included? Is this the only place where CHaMP data are stored? Later, it is stated that CHaMP data will be downloaded.

The sponsors need to describe the percentage of project time that will be devoted to work elements, explain what metrics will be used to assess effectiveness and impact of the work accomplished, describe key personnel duties on the project, including the hours they will commit to the project, and provide a more detailed description of QA/QC procedures.

Modified by Dal Marsters on 4/17/2012 2:58:41 PM.