Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained: Lessons Learned from the Development of a Flowing Waters Information Management System for the Great Lakes Basin

Collaborators in Ontario and around the Great lakes have been developing a data management system and network to facilitate sharing of ecological data for streams. This paper highlights lessons learned and directions forward.  Key lessons are that partners are willing to share data provided those who access data, also share their data, or at least contribute in some meaningful way to the collaborative approach. This tit-for-tat data sharing strategy is fundamental to sustainability of a shared system.  Database development must balance security with user needs. Systems should not be so complex that users cannot readily develop queries and so that programmer skills do not become a bottleneck.  Canned queries and reports are essential “carrots”  for partners and these should be able to be customized.  A constant challenge is managing duplicate data that has been mitigated somewhat by agreed upon sample identification rules.  It is not possible to rely on geocoordinates for this task as these changeable and vulnerable to data entry errors. The main challenge to this process is that because no one organization has a clear mandate for monitoring and therefore data management, we have yet to be successful in developing a sustainability strategy.