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 NDEP Project Tracking FAQJuly 1, 2005What's the purpose of the System? The NDEP project tracking system was designed for, and intended to be used by, producers and users of high-quality elevation data. The system tracks Proposed, Planned, In-Work, and Completed projects and associated details. Who is allowed to use the system? The system will be useful to anyone interested in where and when future elevation data acquisition might happen. Anyone who produces such data or can be a point-of-contact for the activity is encouraged to post their information to the site. Who designed the system? The system was designed by the NDEP Project Coordination Subcommittee to meet needs specified by the NDEP member agencies. What functionality does the system offer? The tracking system also allows users to search for projects in the system. Users can zoom in on a map to restrict the search area, search by project status, search for specific agencies involved and several other criteria. The results are presented on the map and in a list. For results in the list, the user can click “Find” to highlight the project on the screen and identify any other projects that overlap the chosen result. Users can also click on the  icon that appears next to each project to view the project details in FGDC metadata format.
The project tracking system provides a Quick Reference Guide and detailed User's Guide with more information. What are the definitions of Proposed, Planned, In-Work, and Completed? ”Proposed” projects are those that are under consideration but still somewhat uncertain. A proposed project may need additional partners or may need additional budget resources before the project is considered “planned.” The “proposed” category will be useful to define areas of possible inter-agency collaboration and cooperation. "Planned" projects are those that are expected to occur, but do not yet have effort expended on them. These projects are likely to occur and have sufficient budget resources at least tentatively identified. "In-work" projects have assets (funds, man-hours, etc) assigned/expended to begin or continue production. "Completed" projects are "finished" and available for use. Entries for “completed” projects will remain in the tracking system for about a year, after which they will be available on Geospatial One-Stop (see below). How can we input data to the tracking system? The tracking system provides the ability to load project information and to search the project information that has been entered in the system. There are two methods to load data. The user can answer questions about the project by filling out forms online using the “Enter Metadata” option. Or, the user can directly upload an XML metadata file that conforms to the NDEP metadata profile using the “Upload Metadata” option. The Quick Reference Guide and detailed User's Guide provide more information about this, including how to conform to the profile. Will this site be available from the Geospatial One-Stop (http://www.geodata.gov/gos) so that I do not have to enter data twice? Data from the NDEP tracking system is already being harvested by Geospatial One-Stop (GOS), so data only needs to be entered once to be used multiple times. Geodata.gov is the GOS site that offers metadata for various data types. What is the difference between this site and The geodata.gov Marketplace? The NDEP tracking system is tailored to the community of elevation data users and providers. It provides functionality not found at geodata.gov such as:
The NDEP committee developed a new version of the Project Tracking System to make it easier to load and search for data. The goals of the system are unchanged. The new version is intended to make the overall system easier to use and maintain. |
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