Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
gathered the most results in manipulating the viewer. Setting the units proved to
be the least utilized tool with only 3 respondents (8.8%). When asked specifically
about the utilization of the query tool, participants were asked which data layers they
made active in order to perform the function. Fourteen responded to this question
with 7 respondents (50%) using the stream network and 7 respondents (50%) using
the watershed boundary for their queries.
Participants were then asked to rate the Maumee Basin Online GIS. Of the thirty-
four respondents, 24 (70.6%) rated the online viewer as good and 7 (20.6 %) rated
as excellent. Two open ended questions concluded this section. The first question
asked the participants how the developers can make the Maumee Basin Online GIS
more useful for their organizations. Fifteen responses included suggestions such as
making the data available for download and having clearer instructions especially
for those who do not fully understand GIS. Other suggestions were to provide
links to metadata, provide source citation and display scale in the title of the layer.
The second question asked participants to provide websites that are useful to them
in watershed work. Seven responded to this question, with two respondents
providing multiple sites. Several university websites such as Heidelberg College,
Bowling Green State University, and University of Texas were suggested as well as
websites that provided general watershed information on issues and planning, such
as Ohio Department of Natural Resources' website on stream morphology and U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's water science page on basins.
9.5.5 Data Distribution, Data Sharing, and Data Exchange
This group of questions was open-ended. The first asked participants about their
participation in GIS user groups or other organizations to coordinate data develop-
ment, data sharing or application development activities. Twenty-eight of the fifty-
five responded to this question. Responses included were split between “yes”, they
participated in some kind of user group for data exchange, and “no”, they didn't
know of any groups, or not sure. The second question asked if their organization
provided any GIS data online through an ftp site or GIS web server. Of the 26
responses, 14 said they did not, 10 said they did, and 2 were not sure. The final
question in this section asked for comments or suggestions related to GIS coordi-
nation. Comments included that “it is good to see that a clearing house is being
developed for this information” and “we have a long way to go to incorporate this
information into our work here.” Suggestions included “asking local watershed
groups for information and what websites they use” and “would like to see a
regional workshop or conference where area GIS users could meet and share ideas.”
9.5.6 Future Use of GIS
This last set of open-ended questions asked about utilizing the GIS viewer they had
just explored, future mapping needs, and dataset needs. Twenty of the thirty-four
