Project Plan Certification, Reporting, Delivery

1. Project Plan Certification, Reporting, Delivery

2. Rationale This module emphasizes the completion of the project plan. Data validation, data certification, reporting progress and publishing the project are the final steps in a Project Plan. NASIS 6.0 is an integral part of this module and understanding data management and certification changes in the new version are important. Communications between the Soil Survey Office, State Office and MLRA Office are necessary in publishing a quality project plan product. The spatial and tabular databases are the publication product for all updates.

3. Objectives • Understand the Roles and Responsibilities for Quality Control, Quality Assurance and Certification involved in the Project Plan. • Understand the Project Plan validation to certification to publication process • Realize that the properly and accurately populated pair of databases is the publication product for the Project Plan • Understand the project plan is reported as complete when the databases are made available to the State Soil Scientist and posted to the SDM

4. Certification of Soils Data (610.07) Data Certification is the process step whereby a State certifies and exports a dataset to the Soil Data Warehouse. The State is assuring that the databases posted to the Soil Data Warehouse have passed quality control and quality assurance inspections and is suitable for use by the general public.

5. MLRA Soil Survey Office (MSSO) is responsible for • Ensuring that the datasets have passed quality control. • Coordinating with the State and the MO office to ensure that group membership for edit permissions is limited to authorized individuals delegated responsibility for populating, editing, or certifying data. • Coordinating with the State and the MO to obtain training for staff on populating and editing databases (attribute and spatial).

6. What is “Quality Control” • Soil survey quality control is the collective set of activities described in NCSS standards and procedures whose purpose is to achieve a high level of quality. Controlling quality involves providing direct review and inspection, direction, and coordination of soil survey production activities to ensure that soil survey products meet the defined standards for content, accuracy, and precision. The quality of soil survey products is controlled at the level where each of the soil survey process steps (from field work through publication) takes place. Quality control at the field level is the responsibility of the MLRA soil survey office leader. (NSSH 609.00a)

7. MLRA Soil Survey Regional Office (MO) is responsible for • Performing a quality assurance review of a soil dataset prior to certification and posting to the Soil Data Warehouse by the State; and assigning the quality assurance data certification levels in NASIS. • Coordinating with the State and MLRA soil survey office to provide training on using and editing soil survey databases and spatial data to ensure database and spatial integrity. • Managing group ownership, through coordination with the State and the MLRA soil survey office, to ensure that group membership is current, and that only authorized individuals are populating, editing, and certifying soil datasets.

8. What is “Quality Assurance”? • Soil survey quality assurance is the process of providing technical standards and guidelines, oversight and review, and training to ensure that soil survey products meet National Cooperative Soil Survey standards. Responsibility for assuring the quality of soil survey products such as maps, descriptions, data, texts, photographs, etc., rests with the MLRA Soil Survey Regional Office. (NSSH 609.00b)

9. State Soil Scientist is responsible for: • Certifying and exporting datasets to the Soil Data Warehouse. • The quality of data certified and posted to the Soil Data Warehouse. • Obtaining a quality assurance review from the responsible MO prior to certifying and exporting a dataset. • Confirming the certification levels for a dataset prior to export.

10. Certification of Soils Data (610.07) When a dataset has passed a quality control review by the MLRA soil survey office, the data is certified as having passed a quality control review and is now ready for a quality assurance review by the MO. After the MO has performed a quality assurance review, and all needed edits have been completed, the data is certified as passing a quality assurance review and is now ready to be certified and exported by the State Soil Scientist.

11. Certifying NASIS data

12. Certification of Soils Data (610.07) • Legend Certification History This table is used by the MSSO and MO staff to document the data quality of the legend

13. Certification of Soils Data (610.07) • Datamapunit Certification This table is used by the MSSO and MO staff to document the datamapunit quality

14. Certification documentation Text field is available for explanation

15. The following are used for recording edits: • Legend Text - for edits to legend-level elements (e.g. area type, overlap acreage) • Legend Correlation – for any amendment to the correlation • Map Unit History – for recording any correlation edits to the map unit symbol, name, or status • Map Unit Text – for any map unit-specific edits or comments

16. The following are used for recording edits: • Data Mapunit Text – for recording any edits to specific State interpretations (e.g. IA CSR, VT Septic System) or changes in certification status • Component Text – for recording any edits to component-specific elements (e.g. composition percent, component name, slope, depth, drainage) • Horizon Text – for recording any edits to horizon data (e.g. textures, chemistry)

17. Editor Identification New columns are added to identify editor NASIS6 will track the last person to edit a row of data in all tables

18. Data Certification: • The State is responsible for the quality of data certified and posting data to the Soil Data Warehouse. • Prior to certification and posting to the Soil Data Warehouse all datasets must have passed a quality control review by the Survey Office Leader (or State Office) and a quality assurance review from the MLRA Regional Office (MO). • Edit permissions must be limited to authorized individuals who have been delegated responsibility for populating, editing, and certifying data. • There must be consensus between the MO, State, and the MLRA soil survey offices before the MO grants edit permissions to an individual.

19. Data Certification: • A SSURGO certified dataset designated for update must undergo an evaluation process before changes can be made to the dataset. • All changes to a SSURGO certified dataset must be documented in NASIS. • States can review, and initiate changes to, their State programmatic information but those changes must be coordinated with the MLRA soil survey office and the MO office.

20. Project Plan Reporting

21. Reporting of Project Plans • Projects are reported when certified and posted to the Soil Data Warehouse • Project plans identify the reportable acreages based on the map unit acres • Milestones can be recorded to assist managers with identifying project progress

22. Project Object and Project Plans Identify and populate the map units within the project

23. Project Data Needs

24. Project Members Add the survey members to the Project Staff table

25. Goals in NASIS6 Goal the Survey Member acres

26. Milestones

27. Managing Project Plans in NASIS6 • Milestones are reported in the Project Milestone Progress table

28. Managing Project Plans in NASIS6 • Acres are Reported in a child table of the Project Land Category Breakdown

29. Soil Survey Publication Publication concepts for the MLRA Maintenance

30. Product Delivery - Historical

31. “National Soil Information System”? • The NAtional Soil Information System is the NRCS’ soils inventory (collection to publication) database system • NASIS is one part of NRCS resource information system • NASIS is a set of soil survey concepts • NASIS is a data management system (software)

32. Identifying the Project Publication Publication methods are documented in NASIS6

33. eFOTG National Soil Information System Resource Data Gateway Product Delivery On-line Soil Surveys Electronic Soil Surveys Web Soil Survey Spatial Data (Dig Units) Soil Data Mart(s) Soil Data Viewer Soil Data Warehouse Soil Staging Server NASIS Transaction Database Soil Data Access Pedon LIMS Models & Applications -- RUSLE2, WinPST, WEPS, etc

34. Product Delivery - SDM

35. Product Delivery – SDM Reports

36. Product Delivery – SDM Downloads

37. Product Delivery – SSURGO Template

38. Top Survey Downloads

39. Product Delivery - eFOTG

40. Product Delivery - GDG

41. Product Delivery - SDV

42. Product Delivery - SDV

43. Product Delivery - WSS

44. Product Delivery - WSS Customized soil survey manuscripts and pretty maps

45. WSS Average visits per day

46. WSS

47. WSS – First Year Web Soil Survey was released in August 2005 providing easy user access to soil survey maps and tables for about 3/4 of the country and is currently receiving about 1,500 visits per day.  At this rate the number of visitors in the first year will exceed the number of soil survey copies printed in thelast 8 years and the number of first year unique visitors will exceed the number soil survey copies printed in the last 6 years.  Additional functionality and information will be added to Web Soil Survey over the next year, reducing the number of hard copies that will need to be printed and decreasing the time it takes to make the information available to the public.

48. WSS – Lifetime stats • Came on line August 16, 2005 • 500K visits June 2006 (10 months) • 1M visits Jan 2007 (+ 6 months) • 2M visits Oct 2007 (+ 10 months) • 3M visits in July 2009 (+10 months) • Run 3500 to 4500 visits per day • Total hardcopy publications since inception:est. 3300 surveys * avg 1K books per survey = 3.3M books since ~1957est. 3.8M WSS visits in 2.5 years

49. Soil Data Access The most useful tool of our arsenal

50. Soil Data Access – Tabular