Bight '13 Field Computer

Background

The Southern California Bight 2013 Regional Monitoring Project (Bight ’13) is a cooperative effort involving nearly 100 Southern California agencies that work collaboratively to assess the overall ecological health of the Southern California Bight (SCB). Bight '13 builds on previous successful regional surveys.

A field data acquisition application was developed by SCCWRP and the LA County Sanitation District (LACSD) for use during the Bight ’03 survey, and was later refined for use in Bight ’08. The Bight’08 Field Data System facilitated the collection of all required station occupation and field sampling event information (e.g., grab, trawls, and water quality sampling events). The system was designed for use on laptop computers, and included an instruction manual for training and reference. This helped to eliminate additional processing and potential for errors from manual data transcription. In 2013, the field computer system transitioned to take advantage of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets that have touchscreen and voice recognition capabilities. Use of the system is recommended to Bight '13 participants as the field data collection system of choice in the survey.

Methods

The Field Data System has the following requirements and functions:

• Runs in Windows environments;

• Data format is compatible with the California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN);
• Receives direct input of data from DGPS (digital global positioning system) through a serial port, assuring that all samples are associated with an accurate location and eliminating transcription error associated with hand-written entry of coordinates;

• Provides data entry templates for all sampling event information required in the Bight ’13 Information Management Plan;

• Employs drop-down lists of acceptable values for many entry fields, thereby reducing entry time and assuring accuracy and compliance with Bight ’13 data standards;

• Capable of printing fully completed hard copies of Bight ’13 field sampling data sheets which can be used for data backup;

• Transmits data directly to the Bight '13 data server;

• Can be used as a primary data collection tool or a simple data entry system for information collected on paper field sampling data sheets.

Status

This is an ongoing project.

Partners

This project is being conducted in collaboration with the Bight '13 Information Management Committee.

For more information on this project, contact Larry Cooper at larryc@sccwrp.org (714) 755-3229.