A Note on Assessment of Transportation Infrastructure Data Management Practices

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-150
Author(s):  
Isaac C. Oti ◽  
Nasir G. Gharaibeh

The amount of data being maintained by state departments of transportation (DOTs) and local transportation agencies is increasing steadily. Although data provide opportunities to facilitate decision making at transportation agencies, there are challenges involved in managing large and diverse data. This article provides an assessment of the maturity of three data management practice (stewardship, storage and warehousing, and integration) for 16 transportation data groups based on a survey of 43 DOTs in the United States. The assessment results show that data management practices at the monitoring and operations phases of transportation infrastructure life cycle are likely more mature than those at other phases. Inventory data, in particular, has the most mature data management practices. On the other end, real estate data and travel modeling data have the least mature data management practices. A comparison of the practices indicates that data stewardship is more mature than data integration and storage and warehousing practices.

Author(s):  
John Patrick O'Har ◽  
Christopher W. Senesi ◽  
Keith R. Molenaar

Enterprise risk management is an area of growing interest for state departments of transportation in the United States. This research developed a risk register spreadsheet tool—applicable at the enterprise and program levels—that supports the user in identifying risk events, defining risk categories, and assessing the likelihood (probability) and consequence (effect) of an event occurring. A state-of-the-practice survey was conducted with regard to the use of risk register tools to support enterprise- and program-level risk management at U.S. state departments of transportation, international transportation agencies, and nontransportation organizations. On the basis of the survey results and to further inform development of the risk register tool, several organizations were selected for in-depth interviews to gather additional information on their risk management practices and use of risk register tools. The resultant risk register reflects information from the interviews and examples provided by the participants. The spreadsheet-based risk register is an editable template that does not use any macros or custom code. In addition to the editable template, two prepopulated examples—one for enterprise-level risk management and one for program-level risk management—were created. While the risk register tool can help facilitate good practice risk management, the findings of this research indicate that an organization's risk management governance along with staff commitment, availability, and capability to support risk management activities are equally, if not more, important to effective risk management as the risk register tool itself.


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 1674-1683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changyou Sun

State forestry best management practice (BMP) programs have been widely developed and implemented to prevent nonpoint source water pollution in the past three decades. The unanswered question is how forestry BMPs have affected the welfare positions of consumers, mills, loggers, and forest landowners. A Muth-type equilibrium displacement model was constructed to examine welfare changes of these stakeholders. The model considered a two-stage vertical production system with variable proportion production technology and imperfect market structure. Industrial mills experienced little welfare loss from forestry BMP regulation. Consumers had the largest absolute welfare loss, and loggers had the largest relative welfare loss in the base scenario. The supply elasticity of harvesting services had the greatest impact on the relative incidence of welfare losses between landowners and loggers, and in the long run their welfare losses were comparable. These results may help to improve future state forestry BMP guidelines and design incentive systems for increasing implementation rates.


Author(s):  
Michael D. Pawlovich ◽  
Edward J. Jaselskis ◽  
Reginald R. Souleyrette

Transportation agencies deploy and maintain millions of traffic signs in the United States. These include regulatory, warning, guide, work zone, motorist service, recreational and cultural interest, and tourist signs. Managing these large inventories under increasing requirements for reporting, accountability, and liability has caused many transportation agencies to reexamine sign management techniques. Conventional methods of sign management, which range from paper-based systems to relational data bases, have limited capabilities and inherent inefficiencies. Additionally, liability concerns are an increasing concern for many transportation agencies. The identification and application of emerging technologies for improving sign management inventory programs are addressed. Conventional sign management practices are described, and existing technologies promising the potential for more efficient and effective sign management are discussed. Because technologies range in price and complexity, an analysis that sizes technologies to markets is presented. Rather than emphasizing the development of new technology, it is proposed that existing technologies be combined to greatly improve current sign management practices.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Fear

This study explores how researchers at a major Midwestern university are managing their data, as well as the factors that have shaped their practices and those that motivate or inhibit changes to that practice. A combination of survey (n=363) and interview data (n=15) yielded both qualitative and quantitative results bearing on my central research question: In what types of data management activities do researchers at this institution engage? Corollary to that, I also explored the following questions: What do researchers feel could be improved about their data management practices? Which services might be of interest to them? How do they feel those services could most effectively be implemented?In this paper, I situate researchers’ data management practices within a theory of personal information management. I present a view of data management and preservation needs from researchers’ perspectives across a range of domains. Additionally, I discuss the implications that understanding research data management as personal information management has for introducing services to support and improve data management practice.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1402
Author(s):  
Jason A. Hubbart

Best management practices (BMP) are defined in the United States Clean Water Act (CWA) as practices or measures that have been demonstrated to be successful in protecting a given water resource from nonpoint source pollution. Unfortunately, the greatest majority of BMPs remain unvalidated in terms of demonstrations of success. Further, there is not a broadly accepted or standardized process of BMP implementation and monitoring methods. Conceivably, if standardized BMP validations were a possibility, practices would be much more transferrable, comparable, and prescriptive. The purpose of this brief communication is to present a generalized yet integrated and customizable BMP decision-making process to encourage decision makers to more deliberately work towards the establishment of standardized approaches to BMP monitoring and validation in mixed-use and/or municipal watersheds. Decision-making processes and challenges to BMP implementation and monitoring are presented that should be considered to advance the practice(s) of BMP implementation. Acceptance of standard approaches may result in more organized and transferrable BMP implementation policies and increased confidence in the responsible use of taxpayer dollars through broad acceptance of methods that yield predictable and replicable results.


Author(s):  
Philippe D’Iribarne ◽  
Sylvie Chevrier ◽  
Alain Henry ◽  
Jean-Pierre Segal ◽  
Geneviève Tréguer-Felten

Transferring ‘good practices’ and management ‘tools’ is a recurring challenge for companies working internationally, particularly in emerging and developing countries. As regards management tools, distinguishing what is part of universal rationality from what should be adapted to the local universe of meaning is particularly tricky. This chapter discusses two cases of Total Quality implementations which highlight the key influence of cultural contexts. In the first case, a Japanese company failed in transferring their methods in the United States, in the second one, a French multinational company succeeded in transforming the Moroccan subsidiary’s management. Drawing lessons from both examples, the third part provides some clues to significantly improve management practice transfers. While companies are concerned with ‘knowledge management’, they lack an operational method for dealing with cultures. However, scrutinizing successful local practices will reveal the characteristics of the local culture and provide replicable solutions.


Author(s):  
Mary Banach ◽  
Kaye H Fendt ◽  
Johann Proeve ◽  
Dale Plummer ◽  
Samina Qureshi ◽  
...  

With the focus of the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to reach all stakeholders representing communities concerned with good clinical data management practices. We wanted to represent not only data managers but bio-statisticians, clinical monitors, data scientists, informaticians, and all those who collect, organize, analyze, and report on clinical research data. In our paper we will discuss the history of clinical data management in the US and its evolution from the early days of FDA guidance. We will explore the role of biomedical research focusing on the similarities and differences in industry and academia clinical research data management and what we can learn from each other. We will talk about our goals for recruitment and training for the CDM community and what we propose for increasing the knowledge and understanding of good clinical data practice to all – particularly our front-line data collectors i.e., nurses, medical assistants, patients, other data collectors. Finally, we will explore the challenges and opportunities to see CDM as the hub for good clinical data research practices in all of our communities.We will also discuss our survey on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the work of CDM in clinical research.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara L Wilson ◽  
Micah Altman ◽  
Rafael Jaramillo

Data stewardship in experimental materials science is increasingly complex and important. Progress in data science and inverse-design of materials give reason for optimism that advances can be made if appropriate data resources are made available. Data stewardship also plays a critical role in maintaining broad support for research in the face of well-publicized replication failures (in different fields) and frequently changing attitudes, norms, and sponsor requirements for open science. The present-day data management practices and attitudes in materials science are not well understood. In this article, we collect information on the practices of a selection of materials scientists at two leading universities, using a semi-structured interview instrument. An analysis of these interviews reveals that although data management is universally seen as important, data management practices vary widely. Based on this analysis, we conjecture that broad adoption of basic file-level data sharing at the time of manuscript submission would benefit the field without imposing substantial burdens on researchers. More comprehensive solutions for lifecycle open research in materials science will have to overcome substantial differences in attitudes and practices.


Shore & Beach ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Kathryn Keating ◽  
Melissa Gloekler ◽  
Nancy Kinner ◽  
Sharon Mesick ◽  
Michael Peccini ◽  
...  

This paper presents a summary of collaborative work, lessons learned, and suggestions for next steps in coordinating long-term data management in the Gulf of Mexico in the years following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWH). A decade of increased research and monitoring following the DWH has yielded a vast amount of diverse data collected from response and assessment efforts as well as ongoing restoration efforts. To maximize the benefits of this data through proper management and coordination, a cross-agency and organization Long-Term Data Management (LTDM) working group was established in 2017 with sponsorship from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) and NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Restoration Center (NMFS RC) and facilitated by the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Response Research Center. This paper will describe the LTDM working group’s efforts to foster collaboration, data sharing, and best data management practices among the many state, federal, academic and non-governmental entities working to restore and improve the coastal environment in the Gulf following the DWH. Through collaborative workshops and working groups, participants have helped to characterize region-specific challenges, identify areas for growth, leverage existing connections, and develop recommended actions for stakeholders at all organizational levels who share an interest in data coordination and management activities.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Andrews ◽  
Marta Teperek ◽  
Jasper van Dijck ◽  
Kees den Heijer ◽  
Robbert Eggermont ◽  
...  

The Data Stewardship project is a new initiative from the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands. Its aim is to create mature working practices and policies regarding research data management across all TU Delft faculties. The novelty of this project relies on having a dedicated person, the so-called ‘Data Steward’, embedded in each faculty to approach research data management from a more discipline-specific perspective. It is within this framework that a research data management survey was carried out at the faculties that had a Data Steward in place by July 2018. The goal was to get an overview of the general data management practices, and use its results as a benchmark for the project. The total response rate was 11 to 37% depending on the faculty. Overall, the results show similar trends in all faculties, and indicate lack of awareness regarding different data management topics such as automatic data backups, data ownership, relevance of data management plans, awareness of FAIR data principles and usage of research data repositories. The results also show great interest towards data management, as more than ~80% of the respondents in each faculty claimed to be interested in data management training and wished to see the summary of survey results. Thus, the survey helped identified the topics the Data Stewardship project is currently focusing on, by carrying out awareness campaigns and providing training at both university and faculty levels.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document