Eco-Informatics for Decision Making Workshop

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This award funds a workshop to bring together ecological and environmental decision makers from government and non-government organizations, computer scientists, social scientists, ecologists and biologists, and funding and mission agencies to address how the emerging area of eco-informatics can be harnessed to help solve problems of ecological and environmental decision makers. Information technology issues to be addressed include: data gaps, data presentation, and how to use or create appropriate indicators. Computer science research areas to be included in the workshop discussion are: information integration, modeling and simulation, data quality, ontologies, human-centered issues such as training, technology transfer, best practices for information provision and use, and human-friendly software for decision makers and information providers. Thirty-five participants from the resource management, computer science and social science research, and mission agencies will attend. The primary outcome of the workshop is a January 2005 report to be widely disseminated, defining the problems faced by ecological and environmental decision makers, the research that might begin to address those problems, and the likely impact on specific decision making scenarios. The aim is to help program officers from mission and research funding agencies better understand how new information products and information technology can foster better ecological and environmental decisions. Resource managers and decisions makers will have the opportunity to articulate problems and see them expressed in the report; they will gain a better understanding of the current state of the art of information technology, and what promise technology has to offer for future improvements. Participants from the research community will learn about new research problems and competitive opportunities. Both decision makers and researchers will have opportunities to learn about potential collaborators. The report will briefly address how new research and resource management policy might be integrated into curricular design in ecology, biology, computer science, social science, mathematics, and engineering, to be informed by a report from students providing logistical support at the workshop.