Heather Henkel 2007 website http://sofia.usgs.gov The South Florida Information Access web site (SOFIA) was created as a 'one-stop-shopping' access point for research on South Florida. All USGS South Florida Priority Ecosystems Science research projects, ranging from mercury contamination in the Everglades to coral reef decline, are online at this site. The site provides project descriptions, proposals, publications, references, data (through the data exchange site), metadata, presentations, and contact information, as well as general interest items, such as photographs and posters. In addition, the SOFIA site has an educational section which displays the work SOFIA is doing with the Academy of Science and Technology in West Palm Beach, Florida. The initial version of the site was specifically tailored for scientists, managers and decision-makers. More recent and expanded versions of the site have added educational materials and general outreach items designed for the general public. The number of visitors to the site has increased from just under 80 per day in 1998 to over 1400 visitors/day in early 2003. The SOFIA site has grown tremendously since its inception and currently contains over 5500 documents. The objective of the SOFIA website is to continue to provide a usable and Section-508-compliant website that provides direct access to all South Florida Place-Based Studies information. Every effort is made to ensure that the SOFIA site is usable and accessible, though usability testing, link verification, and checking for Section 508 compliance. The South Florida restoration effort requires multidisciplinary information relating to present and historical conditions for use in responsible decision-making. The U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) began a research program in support of the restoration of the Everglades and South Florida ecosystem in 1995. USGS personnel have been conducting research projects designed to provide sound scientific information on which resource managers can base their decisions. The USGS also has recognized the need for a central site to provide all interested parties with information from this research and access to these data. The objectives of the SOFIA website are to continue to provide a usable and Section-508-compliant website that provides direct access to all south Florida Priority Ecosystems Science information. The initial version of the site was specifically tailored for scientists, managers and decision-makers. More recent and expanded versions of the site have added educational materials and general outreach items designed for the general public. 199604 Unknown publication date In Work As needed -82.375 -80 28.5 24.5 none SOFIA South Florida Information Access information management website ISO 19115 Topic Category environment 007 Department of Commerce, 1995, Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions, Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 10-4, Washington, DC, National Institute of Standards and Technology United States US U.S. Department of Commerce, 1987, Codes for the identification of the States, the District of Columbia and the outlying areas of the United States, and associated areas (Federal Information Processing Standard 5-2): Washington, DC, NIST Florida FL Department of Commerce, 1990, Counties and Equivalent Entities of the United States, Its Possessions, and Associated Areas, FIPS 6-3, Washington, DC, National Institute of Standards and Technology Broward County Charlotte County Collier County Glades County Hendry county Highlands County Indian River County Kissimmee County Lee County Martin County Miami-Dade County Monroe County Okeechobee County Osceola County Palm Beach County Polk County St. Lucie County none Central Everglades SW Big Cypress South East Coast Greater Lake Okeechobee Florida Keys Kissimmee River USGS Geographic Names Information System Big Cypress National Preserve Everglades National Park none none The website is Section 508 compliant. Heather Henkel U.S. Geological Survey mailing and physical address

600 Fourth Street South

St. Petersburg FL 33701 USA 727 803-8747 ext 3028 727 803-2030 sofia-metadata@usgs.gov http://sofia.usgs.gov/aboutsofia.html map showing the location of the area for the USGS Priority Ecosystems Scinece Program. GIF Project personnel include Tracy Enright and Kathy Pegram. Links exist between projects, Principal Investigators, data, metadata, and publications. Projects may be accessed by Region, Investigator, Topic, Title, and Program. In addition to the project and publication information provided on the SOFIA site, we also provide easy access to data and metadata. The data exchange site (http://sofia.usgs.gov/exchange/) provides direct access to a variety of data sets within the SOFIA program. These data sets are organized by topic and include site maps and methodology information. Access to Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)-compliant metadata is made available through both the SOFIA site (http://sofia.usgs.gov/metadata) and a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) node. Our objectives are to continue to add all available data and metadata to the SOFIA site. SOFIA web portal:: Work continued on the creation of new materials for the SOFIA site. This involved creating new project pages, adding publications, and posting materials for the Joint Florida Bay/Greater Everglades Ecosystem Restoration science forum in April 2003. We will also continue to add relevant south Florida information, including materials from sources outside of the PES program. As in previous years, demonstrations of the website will be given at various meetings, conferences, and open houses. In addition, the SOFIA site staff works with the students of the Academy of Science and Technology at Forest Hill High School in West Palm Beach, Florida, helping to create and post research projects and related educational information. Please see http://sofia.usgs.gov/forest_hill/. 2003 Work will continue with the addition of metadata records in cooperation with the SOFIA Metadata project. New and previously created data sets will also be added to the site. We also plan on enhancing the data exchange site to help better organize the information provided. The data exchange and metadata portions of the SOFIA site will be demonstrated alongside the rest of the website at a variety of conferences, forums, and workshops. 2003 The proceedings of the Joint Florida Bay/Greater Everglades Ecosystem Restoration Science Conference in April 2003 have been posted on the SOFIA website. 2003 In April 2003, the SOFIA website conducted a usability test to determine how useful and effective the website is. Forty people participated in the test, including scientists and managers from various federal and state agencies and universities. The site did very well, with 100% stating that they would return to the SOFIA site and 90% stating that SOFIA can help them do their job better. 200304 Work planned for FY 2004: SOFIA web portal Work will continue on the creation of new materials for the SOFIA site. This will involve creating new project pages, adding work plans, summary sheets, and publications. We will also continue to add relevant South Florida information, including materials from sources outside of the PES program. In FY05, we will once again post relevant materials for the National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration. Work will continue in helping design the SOFIA Internet Map Service (IMS), in cooperation with Roy Sonenshein. SOFIA data dissemination Work will continue with the addition of metadata records in cooperation with Jo Anne Stapleton (SOFIA Metadata project). New and previously created data sets will also be added to the site. We also plan on enhancing the data exchange site to help better organize the information provided. 2004 SOFIA News has been started as a bimonthly email update of new postings on the SOFIA website. The updates include announcements of new publications and datasets, new and continuing project information, notification of upcoming meetings, as well as other related information. In December, 2004 at the First National Conference on Ecosystem Resotration (NCER), SOFIA personnel demonstrated an updated publications website which included a more specialized, searchable interface. The database-driven website allows users to search our online publications by author, title, date, publication type, and topic. Updates to the SOFIA website (publications, data, metdata, staff, and project information) continued throughout the year. The SOFIA website has been invited to be part of GeoData.gov, a public gateway for improving access to geospatial informaiton and data under the Geospatial One-Stop e-government initiative. We are currently evaluating GeoData.gov and expect to join by the end of 2004. GeoData.gov will provide another portal through which users can find data and metadata on the SOFIA website. 2005 Work will continue on the creation of new materials for the SOFIA site adding new project pages and datsets, workplans and proposals, summary sheets, and publications. We will continue to add relevant south Florida information including materials from sources outside of the GE PES program such as the A. R. M. Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge Enhanced Water Quality and Modeling Program. Materials will be posted for GEER, NCER, and other conferences as appropriate. Work has been completed for upgrades to the software components needed for an Internet Mapping Service (IMS) to function. Work will continue on completing the design of the geospatial interface and preparing the IMS for publishing to the web. Once an initial version is ready for review, a usability study will be conducted to see how user-friendly the site is. When that is completed, work will continue with other projects to populate the geospatial library with background data layers, develop data layers representing the location of USGS data collection sites and published USGS products such as geologic contour maps. Work will be coordinated with the Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN) project for posting materials related to that project on SOFIA. Not complete Heather Henkel U.S. Geological Survey mailing and physical address

600 Fourth Street South

St. Petersburg FL 33701 USA 727 803-8747 ext 3028 727 803-2030 sofia-metadata@usgs.gov Heather Henkel U.S. Geological Survey mailing and physical address

600 Fourth Street South

St. Petersburg FL 33701 USA 727 803-8747 ext 3028 727 803-2030 sofia-metadata@usgs.gov SOFIA website This site is intended to be a portal to the projects, data, metadata, and publications produced for the USGS Priority Ecosystems Science Program in South Florida. Information and data may also be available from non-USGS sources. The data have no implied or explicit guarantees. HTML http://sofia.usgs.gov Log onto the SOFIA website. none 20070309 Heather Henkel U.S. Geological Survey mailing and physical address

600 Fourth Street South

St. Petersburg FL 33701 USA 727 803-8747 ext 3028 727 803-2030 sofia-metadata@usgs.gov Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata FGDC-STD-001-1998