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About Monitoring Resources

Our goal is to provide a place where monitoring practitioners can easily document information about their projects and programs once and share many times, and where funders and managers can review existing and proposed monitoring projects and better understand gaps and overlaps at a regional scale. This suite of tools is championed by the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP). Funding has been provided by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Who is this for?

See our FAQ for a bit more about our intended audience.

MonitoringResources.org is a suite of complementary tools designed guide and assist monitoring practitioners and researchers collecting and analyzing data with their monitoring programs, from the early design stage through implementation and generation of descriptive statistics. This site also serves resource managers, funding entities, and policy makers by giving them a comprehensive view of monitoring programs and projects that are occurring or have occurred in a given spatial extent. In addition, natural resource managers and funding entities can use the tool to track information about Methods, Metrics, and Protocols in the Study Plan Summary, allowing them to recommend certain procedures to implement in their program.

To do what?

These resources are intended to promote better documentation and enable more efficiency in collaboration and data sharing between programs. MonitoringResources.org helps investigators plan and implement practical, efficient, high quality habitat monitoring projects by offering tools that provide guidance and support design and documentation of various aspects of a monitoring project. By providing these tools online, we facilitate the transfer of information and support collaboration between projects and programs.

This site is also intended to help you document study plans, sample designs, protocols or methods used in your research, monitoring, and evaluation (RM&E), as well as participate in community discussions about protocols and methods. MonitoringResources.org will be a shared space for documenting what is in use and reviewing the best available techniques for answering common management questions. Currently, within MonitoringResources.org you can add or create new documentation (Methods, Protocols, Sample Designs, Study Plans), find out who else is using a method or protocol, identify where and when sampling events are occurring, review our Glossary and list of Metric/Indicator Categories and Subcategories, discuss your experience using a technique, or simply bookmark pages that interest you.

How?

See our FAQs page and Training Videos to learn more about how to use MonitoringResources.org.

To exchange data in and out of MonitoringResources.org, PNAMP supported the documentation of the data exchange standards and web services.

Monitoring Metadata Exchange (MMX) is an exchange standard designed with partners and used by MonitoringResources.org. The MMX data exchange standard is intended for site level associated with research, monitoring, and evaluation efforts. By establishing a standard for this metadata in an online exchange, the data will become more valuable as funders and researchers can more easily identify where monitoring occurs.

If your project is interested in using the MMX standard, MonitoringResources.org web services or any other part of the MonitoringResources.org suite of tools and not sure where to start, please reach out to staff at gs-monitoringresources@usgs.gov.

Why?

MonitoringResources.org brings together a number of online resources to create a network of information and tools to support many facets of monitoring. Monitoring practitioners can enter, share, and distribute information about their projects easily. Funders and managers can review information about existing and proposed monitoring projects and programs quicker to better understand gaps and overlaps in monitoring at a regional scale, and make more timely decisions based on best available information. Review processes take less time and are less costly. Coordination and collaboration between groups ismore efficient.

This tool also adds value to monitoring and evaluation investments by making key information about protocols, such as their statistical rigor or potential compatibility with related projects, available to the broader community. With adequate documentation and with the benefit of knowing what others are doing, we, as a community of researchers and managers, can make the best use of limited resources and ensure we’re offering the most accurate portrayal of the health of our streams, watersheds, and their inhabitants.

Our Sponsors

MonitoringResources.org is made possible by the generous support of the Bonneville Power Administration, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Bureau of Land Management.

Bonneville Power Administration logo           Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation logo           U.S. Geological Survey logo           Bureau of Reclamation logo           Bureau of Land Management logo          

End User License Agreement

All visitors to MonitoringResources.org may read content without creating a user account. To add content and participate in collaboration features, users must create an account. Account holders must provide their name and email address, which will be viewable by anyone visiting the site.

Privacy Act Statement

Authority

Relevant acts include the Organic Act, 43 U.S.C. 31 et seq., 1879; Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, 1934; Fish and Wildlife Act, 1956; Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 1918; Migratory Bird Conservation Act, 1900; Federal Land Policy and Management Act, 1976; Fish and Wildlife Improvement Act, 1978; Endangered Species Act, 1973; Marine Mammal Protection Act, 1972; Great Lakes Fishery Act, 1956; Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act, 1990; Water Resources Development Act, 1990; and other authorizations conveyed to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Principal Purpose

MonitoringResources.org provides a structured system to document, store, manage and share methods, protocols, sample designs, study plans and sample locations related to natural resource monitoring and research.

Routine Uses

Used to document and share the who, what, where, when and how of natural resources monitoring and research. Users who wish to provide content, edit content and use the collaboration features of the site must create an account. Account holders must provide their name and email address, which will be viewable by anyone visiting the site. MonitoringResources.org staff may use email addresses to periodically communicate development updates, bug fixes and content to participants and to assist with completion of content, if needed. The Community feature of MonitoringResources.org supports User Profiles, which allows all site visitors to view name, email and each users’ content. Name and email of participants entering information is published via application programing interfaces (API) and shared with Sitka Technology Group (vendor contracted for site development).

For all site visitors, the following information is collected:

  • The name of the domain from which you entered our website (for example, "google.com")
  • IP Address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are connected to the web)
  • The type of browser and operating system used to access our website
  • The date and time you access our website
  • The pages within our website that you visit
  • If you linked to our website from another website, the address of the website
  • This website uses session cookies. They provide enhanced navigation through the website.

We use this information to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of our website and to help make our website more useful to visitors. We do not track or record information about individuals and their visits. This information is not shared with anyone beyond the support staff for this website, except when required by Law Enforcement investigation. This information is not sold for commercial marketing purposes.

Disclosure is Voluntary

If the individual does not furnish the information requested, there will be no adverse consequences. However, if you do not provide your first and last name and email address you will not be able to enter content into MonitoringResouces.org.

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement

The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C 3501 et.seq.) requires us to inform you that the information is being collected to supplement natural resource monitoring metadata, to promote publicly accessible documentation of monitoring projects, and support coordination and integration of monitoring efforts. Use of the MonitoringResources.org tools is voluntary. Use of this website is estimated to be about 1 hour per response. A Federal agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Comments regarding this collection of information should be directed to: Bureau Clearance officer, U.S. Geological Survey, . OMB Control Number 1090-0011 Expires 10/31/2021.