Date: May 18, 1998
To: Chief, Bird Banding Laboratory
From: Chief, PWRC Monitoring Program
Subject: Decisions of the BBL Re-engineering Implementation Team
Below are the decisions of the BBL Re-engineering Implementation Team
regarding recommendations I made to the Team in a February 20, 1998 memorandum.
That memorandum was a product of (a) my own review of recommendations from
several task forces up to that point and (b) extensive comments by you on
earlier draft recommendations. Final task force reports fully considered here
are those that dealt with data release policy, location data, and ancillary
data. Partial work by the electronic data management task force was also dealt
with, but not the preliminary work of the permit policy or recapture/resighting
task forces.
Please disseminate these decisions to BBL staff and the task forces as soon
as possible and be sure to re-state the Implementation Team's appreciation of
the task forces' hard work. It is also crucial that these decisions,
appropriately edited, are conveyed promptly to the North American Bird Banding
Council and, via MTAB and the BBL home page, to the banding community for their
information and reaction. Because the work of the recapture/resighting task
force is nearly complete, I suggest you hold off on communication outside of the
BBL until that is done and the Implementation Team has dealt with their
recommendations. Then all except the permit policy task force recommendations
and some possible future recommendations of the data management task force can
be disseminated simultaneously.
I hope that you are pleased overall with these decisions and I look forward
to working with you to implement them as the technology permits over the coming
months.
Data Release Policy
This Task Force addressed a variety of issues related to legal and ethical
aspects of releasing data provided to the BBL by banders. Issues and
recommendations were presented in a background document and reconstituted in the
form of a draft policy for release and use of banding and encounter data. The
tenor of the document was to maximize public access to banding data, through the
Internet as feasible, by promoting a "full disclosure" policy within
limitations imposed by the Privacy Act. Guidelines for voluntary exercise of
professional courtesy in the use of others' data are incorporated. Decisions of
the Implementation Team are as follows. For legal reasons, some of these
decisions.
Decisions
The BBL will:
- Insofar as possible, try to achieve harmony between U.S. and
Canadian policies on data release.
- Ensure data availability over the Internet as soon as possible after
coding, or provide other means of electronic (preferred) and hard copy access
until Internet access becomes available.
- Assist users as needed in obtaining raw bird-banding data.
- Assure that permit numbers will be part of the banding and encounter
records accessible electronically.
- Make available on the Internet a separate file of permit numbers and
permittee names and addresses (including e-mail), but only for those
banders agreeable to being so listed. Make banders aware of the benefits of
allowing their names and addresses to be included on the list and make certain
they are aware of all FOIA regulations relevant to information about banders in
the United States.
- Take appropriate action to streamline reporting of encounters to the
bander, e.g., by making the document, "Report to Bander," electronic
and its formulation automatic (banders should be encouraged to become part of
the e-mail generation). Report recoveries/encounters to the bander as soon as
possible but do not delay making the information available on the
Internet until the bander is notified.
- Designate the databases for all BBL banding and recovery records as "Director's
Approved Databases" for USGS purposes (NOTE: maintaining this standard will
require continuing attention to data quality control, including various
verification procedures and the staffing necessary to ). Use both a general
disclaimer and the specific disclaimer required by USGS for "Director's
Approved Databases" in all matters related to data release and use.
- Actively encourage users to use appropriate professional ethics and
courtesies regarding banding data provided to the BBL by others (e.g., rights of
first refusal, citations).
- Work with the North American Banding Council (NABC) and the
scientific community to finalize ethical guidelines for banders, based on the
attached draft.
- Provide adopted ethical guidelines to all banders and place the
burden of observance on the banders (e.g. , the BBL will not be an ethical
broker for the banding community or bear responsibility for abuses).
- Use the same standard of precision for locations of bandings
and recoveries for all species in the banding database, including endangered and
other sensitive species. However, for species determined to be in these special
categories, develop a mechanism that will block viewing and retrieval of
location data through the Internet. Inform users of their right to request such
information in writing through the FOIA.
- Provide final data release policy to the banding community for their
information, with clear supporting information about FOIA constraints and
endorsement of the policy by the NABC and the scientific community through the
Ornithological Council.
Location Data
The general tenor of this Task Force's report is to improve the precision of
location information for both bandings and recoveries, in keeping with accepted
Federal standards for reporting of geospatial information.
Decisions
The BBL will:
- Change the standard for all banding locations from 10-minute block
to 1-minute block of latitude/longitude and require reporting at this
level of precision.
- Strongly encourage the use of GPS by banders to enable reporting of
even more precise banding location.
- Provide tools such as on-line gazetteers and information on GPS
units to assist the bander in making those determinations (although the
responsibility of determining the 1-minute block will lie with the bander).
- Maintain current knowledge of GPS and Internet technology changes so
that improvements in capability for reporting precise locations can be
incorporated into procedures.
- Expand the data fields for location but do not add new
fields for how location data were obtained or for the accuracy level of the
location data.
- Encourage banders to report recoveries at the same level of
precision as bandings.
- Consider training 1-800 number personnel (during lighter work
periods of the year) in the use of computer mapping programs, once the 1-800
number reporting system is fully functional and stabilized. Experiment with
the potential for converting reported locations to coordinates in the course of
the phone call.
- Use the same standard of precision for locations of bandings
and recoveries for all species in the banding database, including endangered and
other sensitive species. However, for species determined to be in these special
categories, develop a mechanism that will block viewing and retrieval of
location data through the Internet. Inform users of their right to request such
information in writing through the FOIA.
Ancillary Data
The general tenor of this Task Force report is that only ancillary data that
are of administrative or management value (e.g., quality codes, auxiliary
markers) should be incorporated into the banding database. Ancillary data such
as fat scores and wing length, which are potentially useful as covariates in
banding data analyses but are inconsistently collected, have no broad management
or scientific application, and are not cost-effective to process and store,
should not be incorporated into the banding database until value is
demonstrated.
Decisions:
The BBL will:
- Assure that the relational database adopted by the BBL will have the
flexibility to accommodate the addition of "tables" for new variables
as they become useful.
- Not (at this time) adopt a proactive stance with respect to bander
projects that make effective scientific use of ancillary data.
- Assure capability for incorporating the following types of ancillary
in the banding database: (1) how aged/ how sexed codes; (2) a series of flags
to indicate quality of data, changes and corrections made to data, and
verification of records; and (3) individually coded auxiliary markers (i.e.,
markers that can be traced to an individually banded bird).
- Do not, at least for the present, include the following
types of ancillary data in the banding database: mensural characters such as fat
scores, wing measurements, and mass (weight); other age and sex information;
skull ossification; brood patch; and molt.
Electronic Data Management
This report is only partly complete and deals with conversion of the
database management system from a hierarchical one to a client-server relational
database system.
Decision
The BBL will:
- Proceed immediately to develop a prototype client-server relational
database system and exhaustively test the system to further refine requirements.
Incorporate a capability for intranet/Internet communications with the banding
community. Maintain the current system to assure continuity of service
during development of the prototype, but do not unnecessarily upgrade the
current system.
- Employ computational models (e.g., 2-3-tiered models) that emphasize
distributed components, re-usability, and ease of maintenance should be used.
- Employ scalable, open-systems architecture.
- Assign responsibility for final recommendations on specific details
of database management design to the BBL's new computer specialist.
- Maintain the Task Force or a similar one as a technical advisory
body during the development and implementation phases of the new system.
- Complete development of user-friendly software allowing banders to
pre-edit and submit all data electronically by September 30, 1999.
Complete implementation of a fully operational new bird-banding database
management system and related conversions in electronic communication by
September 2000.
cc: Director, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Chief, FWS Office of Migratory Bird Management
Acting Leader, USGS Monitoring and Applications Team
