In November 2003, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) contracted with Spatial Dynamics and commonthread, incorporated to conduct a business needs analysis for the John Day Basin Research, Monitoring and Evaluation (RME) Pilot Project. The overall objectives of the business analysis is to develop a common system that will allow efficient and effective collection, management, and distribution of information relating to RME needs, while ensuring that the system will be compatible with fish and wildlife data requirements throughout the Columbia River basin.

This specific project focused on a subset of the overall data management objectives that included:

• Selection of the common protocols and techniques that are to be developed and used for data collection, development, storage, and distribution.


• Selection of methods to insures that data can be shared across agencies as needed for timely analysis.


• Definition of standards for properly documenting metadata for published data and information. The standards will include data pedigree and metadata and clearly distinguish primary data and derived information.

The project team worked with Reclamation Staff by meeting with data developers and data users to identify major data features and issues. Using planned and on-going work in two different basins the project team developed a general business case that included business drivers, context definition, business flow specifications and functional requirements.

The project team also developed a comprehensive data dictionary based upon protocols used by several existing programs in the Columbia Basin. The data dictionary included a master protocol list and detailed information about each protocol and method attribute.

Spatial Dynamics and commonthread have continued to work with Reclamation of Phase 2 refining the database design and definitions for a comprehensive and flexible data dictionary tool. Using software that was also used by the National Parks Services’ Fire Ecology Assessment Tool we developed an interactive field protocol and data collection method builder and browser tool simply called the Protocol Builder/Manager (P-BM). This tool allows users review field data protocols and methods by a flexible organizational structure and to add new field methods defining each attribute that will be recorded and stored for a specific method. The system supports the grouping of different methods into a specific protocol that is applied in the field. Protocols and methods may be organized by programs and projects. Shown below is the P-BM Method Browser window. Field methods are listed in the tree view on the left. On the right the major organizations of Subject, Indicator Group, and Subject Area can be used to filter the various methods. The filtering results are shown in the lower right, Methods, window. In this example the filtering is set to show all occurrences in each category and all the methods are shown.