Selected Archives of Volunteer Monitoring Listserv Discussions

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 12:12:27 -0600
From: Jason Pinchback <jason.pinchback@geo.swt.edu>
Subject: [volmonitor] {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support for
volmons}}}

Greetings,

I am seeking advice on some ways to decrease costs and services without reducing program facilitation and volmon support.

Can you respond to any of the following points?

1. Do you think it's reasonable for new volmons to print (pdf from website) the procedures manual (65pages) for their initial training and reference?

2. Do you charge volunteer monitors for their participation in your program? Did you try it and it worked...or not? How much to charge?

3. Do you charge volmons for equipment, reagents, etc? Does your program subsidize all or part of the equipment?

Jason Pinchback
Texas Watch
JP30@txstate.edu
512 245 9148
www.texaswatch.geo.swt.edu/

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 12:26:24 -0500
From: "Filbert, Jennifer" <Jennifer.Filbert@dnr.state.wi.us>
Subject: [volmonitor] RE: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support for volmons}}}

#1- I think it is reasonable, although we do print the manuals for the volunteers.
We're working on an online version though.

#3- for chemical monitoring (beyond just secchi), we require the volunteer to get a grant to participate. Our program gives out a limited number of grants/year. If they get a grant, equipment is provided at no charge.

In response to # 4:
For those with on-line data entry...what percentage of volunteer monitors enter all of their data? Are there serious drawbacks from this approach? In Texas, I estimate 30% of our volmons are not computer wise; 30% of our monitors do not currently submit their collected data (via snail mail) in a timely manner. What's your experience?

#4 is nearest & dearest to what I work on most. We do have online data entry. I would say over half enter all of their data online. We had a form last year that emailed us the data. Then I had a program that manipulated it to get it into the database. This was somewhat time consuming on my end.

Also since the 1990s, we've had a telephone system where volunteers can call in their data by touch-tone phone. This works fairly well. The system has a few bugs, but mostly it works. We continue to run the phone system for people w/o the internet. We use Mastervox software. If you were interested, we could share our file that contains the design for our phone line. The other 50% of volunteers, or maybe 49% call in their data . So about 99% of our volunteers either call it in or enter it online.

With the online system, we went to a new form this year that requires a log in. This is somewhat more of a challenge for the less computer-savvy folks. The new system has a big advantage though: it puts the data directly into our database. Yet some volunteers miss the old system where they didn't have to log in & it emailed us the data. The solution I plan to implement is to conduct a few trainings/year around the state on how to enter data & how to get the most out of our website. Maybe the morning would be "how to understand your data" and the afternoon a computer training.

Sometimes, when a volunteer isn't computer literate, they have someone else on the lake, or their spouse, or grandaughter or grandson enter the data.

Ultimately, though, if they send it on paper, I still take it & find time to enter it in.

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 13:41:13 -0400
From: Nancy Hadley <hadleyn@mrd.dnr.state.sc.us>
Subject: [volmonitor] Re: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support
for volmons}}}

I am seeking advice on some ways to decrease costs and services without reducing program facilitation and volmon support.

1. Do you think it's reasonable for new volmons to print (pdf from website) the procedures manual (65pages) for their initial training and reference?

I dont think this is unreasonable but later you say your monitors are not computer savvy so how is that going to work.

2. Do you charge volunteer monitors for their participation in your program? Did you try it and it worked...or not? How much to charge?

No we do not charge and I cannot imagine they would pay.

3. Do you charge volmons for equipment, reagents, etc? Does your program subsidize all or part of the equipment?

No we supply all equipment and reagents. The volunteers do supply paper towels and distilled water.

4. For those with on-line data entry...what percentage of volunteer monitors enter all of their data? Are there serious drawbacks from this approach? In Texas, I estimate 30% of our volmons are not
computer wise; 30% of our monitors do not currently submit their collected data (via snail mail) in a timely manner. What's your experience?

Most of the volunteers who actually remember to go get the data do enter it. Those who are not comfortable with that fax us the data sheets or even snailmail them. The data that is entered appears to be entered correctly >90% of the time. A few people seem to stockpile their data and enter 6 months worth at a time which is a pain. I think the online data entry is very important because it gives volunteers more of a feeling that they are doing science. Our website also allows them to view the data in various formats and compare with other sites.
Of course we do have to check regularly for erroneous data and correct it. However I never suspect it was entered wrong - i think there was a faulty instrument or an inexperiencced operator.

We solved some of the expense by establishing water monitoring equipment depots which several volunteers share.

Jason Pinchback
Texas Watch
JP30@txstate.edu
512 245 9148
www.texaswatch.geo.swt.edu/

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 13:41:43 -0400
From: Dennis <hvama@bcn.net>
Subject: [volmonitor] Re: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support
for volmons}}}

Hi Jason,

We do not charge our volunteers for anything. In fact, I try to find ways to thank them. This year we were fortunate enough to be able to give them each a mug in appreciation for last year's help (this does not happen each year, though I wish I could do that!). If they weren't out there early in the morning taking those samples, I would not have the data and would not have the program, so I try to make everything as volunteer friendly as possible. Perhaps if I had volunteers lining up at my door I would think differently, but until that happens, I try to keep them happy, and luckily they have been coming back year after year. I also enter all our data, with the help of interns. That way I can QC it before it goes out our door.

Good luck decreasing your costs, especially in these tight fiscal times! I do understand your dilemma!

Carolyn W. Sibner
Housatonic Valley Association
So. Lee, MA
hvama@bcn.net

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 12:00:21 -0600
From: Barb.Horn@state.co.us
Subject: [volmonitor] RE: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support for volmons}}}

This is for Colorado's Rivers of Colorado Water Watch Program:

Barb Horn
Biologist, Colorado Division of Wildlife
151 E. 16th Ave., Durango, CO 81301
vc: 970/382-6667 fx: 970/247-4785

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Pinchback [mailto:jason.pinchback@geo.swt.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 12:12 PM
To: VOLMONITOR
Subject: [volmonitor] {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support
for volmons}}}

Greetings,

I am seeking advice on some ways to decrease costs and services without reducing program facilitation and volmon support.

Can you respond to any of the following points?

1. Do you think it's reasonable for new volmons to print (pdf from website) the procedures manual (65pages) for their initial training and reference?

NO--we found it prohibited quality training, we do require the download subsequent versions, we supply first copy

2. Do you charge volunteer monitors for their participation in your program? Did you try it and it worked...or not? How much to charge?--50$ to attend training, they supply some supplies and cost of
shipping samples, we did a survey to see if

We would lose volunteers if we charged a membership fee, result was yes we would

3. Do you charge volmons for equipment, reagents, etc? Does your program subsidize all or part of the equipment?
No, we supply 90% of it, have to to meet quality assurance/control and data objectives for our data uses, maybe you don't, function of data uses + data users needs.

4. For those with on-line data entry...what percentage of volunteer monitors enter all of their data? Are there serious drawbacks from this approach? In Texas, I estimate 30% of our volmons are not
computer wise; 30% of our monitors do not currently submit their collected data (via snail mail) in a timely manner. What's your experience?
We require it has a performance criteria in their contract, we get 80% compliance, when training was required it didn't work or Cost was greater than benefit, now with web, it is not. We make data entry
the last part of a sampling event, we make it as important as the sampling event itself. We require the hard copies to be sent to us so we can validate their entry and math errors, they are required to keep a copy of the data too.

Any information or comments will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Jason Pinchback
Texas Watch
JP30@txstate.edu
512 245 9148
www.texaswatch.geo.swt.edu/

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 11:34:12 -0700
From: Eleanor Ely <ellieely@earthlink.net>
Subject: [volmonitor] Re: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support
for volmons}}}

Interesting questions! I hope people keep responding to the whole listserv because I'm interested in the responses, and I imagine others are too.

It sounds as if getting individual volunteers to pay could be problematic, but there are other approaches such as getting local businesses to adopt sites (and pay), getting financial support from local municipalities, homeowners associations, etc., who are interested in the data, getting corporate support ... all of these ideas are covered in the upcoming issue of The Volunteer Monitor, which will be available in August.

Ellie

Eleanor Ely
Editor, The Volunteer Monitor Newsletter
50 Benton Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94112
415-334-2284
ellieely@earthlink.net
The Volunteer Monitor is available online at
www.EPA.gov/OWOW/volunteer/vm_index.html
<http://www.EPA.gov/OWOW/volunteer/vm_index.html>

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 13:51:11 -0500
From: Steven Witmer <switmer@ci.johnston.ia.us>
Subject: [volmonitor] RE: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support
for volmons}}}

This is based on my own experience as a volunteer for the IOWATER program in Iowa.

1. Do you think it's reasonable for new volmons to print (pdf from website) the procedures manual (65pages) for their initial training and reference?

IOWATER supplies their volunteers with a hard copy at the time of training. The manuals aren't online yet but they're working on it.

The main drawback I see to printing or downloading their own manuals is the one others have already rought up - how computer-savvy the volunteers are, and also the quality of their hardware. Someone with an older printer or computer may have a difficult time printing a hefty manual. You could always have hard copies available but encourage people to print their own.

One suggestion that might be helpful in encouraging people to print their own if the manual is online would be to have the manual broken down into sections. Someone with a dial-up connection will have an easier time of it if the files are ten smaller files rather than one big file of - that way if they just want to look at one or two sections they don't have to wait ten minutes for their computer to bring up the entire thing.

2. Do you charge volunteer monitors for their participation in your program? Did you try it and it worked...or not? How much to charge?

IOWATER charges $25 for the basic training and $10 per advanced training module. Given that the basic training covers about a day and half and includes equipment, I felt that was very reasonable. There is no membership fee, only the training fees.

3. Do you charge volmons for equipment, reagents, etc? Does your program subsidize all or part of the equipment?

IOWATER volunteers receive their equipment as part of their training. Given the modest cost of the training, the IOWATER program subsidizes the vast majority of the cost of the training and equipment. The IOWATER program itself is operated under the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources.

To cut down on costs, the program asks volunteers not to take equipment items during the training if they know they aren't going to use them (for example, if they don't intend to test for dissolved oxygen, then they should not take a DO test kit). Also, while they do replenish expired equipment or equipment that has been used up, as a requirement of doing so they require the volunteer to have submitted a certain minimum amount of data.

The last question on data submittal I'm afraid I can't answer, but I know I've been guilty of waiting several weeks before submitting data to the program's online database before. The online database does require a password and monitor id for security, but I've never found that to be a problem and think it's pretty sensible. On my part the delay was more of an issue of my just needing to take the time to sit down and do the data entry.

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 15:32:37 -0400
From: URI Watershed Watch <uriww@etal.uri.edu>
Subject: [volmonitor] RE: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support for volmons}}}

1. Do you think it's reasonable for new volmons to print (pdf from website) the procedures manual (65pages) for their initial training and reference?

Jason, 65 pages seems like a lot to down load and print for your average volunteer (I know with my phone modem and printer at home it sure would be). However, if as mentioned earlier, there were short sections that folks could down load that would be more reasonable.

Our program (URI Watershed Watch) has its manual online and we suggest that potential volunteers take a look at it prior to attending our first classroom training. We provide a hard copy of the manual at the first training. But we do not hand it out until AFTER the first classroom session is complete (so they have a better sense of what they are getting into) and then provide it to only those who signup for the field training.

2. Do you charge volunteer monitors for their participation in your program? Did you try it and it worked...or not? How much to charge?

We do not charge our volunteers per se, but we do charge a registration fee per monitoring site that ranges from $250 to $600 per year depending on the site and the intensity of monitoring. This fee is paid for by a 'sponsoring' organization, typically a municipal conservation commission, lake or
watershed association, Trout Unlimited, etc. Some sites are also covered under various project grants, as well as some money directly from our state environmental agency to support the program from which they get so much data. We also encourage the local sponsor to help coordinate "their"
volunteers.

This system has worked very well for our program. In addition to providing much needed basic program support, the fee encourages the sponsoring agency to at least review the data, and hopefully put it to good use. In some cases this arrangement has helped local organizations to recruit new members who started out monitoring a waterbody that they were interested and through that sponsorship discovered that there was this group working to protect it.

3. Do you charge volmons for equipment, reagents, etc? Does your program subsidize all or part of the equipment?

Our program maintains ownership of all our equipment - and covers all of its cost. Each spring we hand out one set of monitoring supplies for each monitoring site (teams or partners sharing responsibility for an individual site have to make their own arrangements for sharing the equipment). Then in the fall all of the equipment is returned with the last set of water samples. We clean and recalibrate stuff, discard old reagents, etc, then repack everything in the spring....

4. For those with on-line data entry...what percentage of volunteer monitors enter all of their data? Are there serious drawbacks from this approach?

We have not gone to on-line data entry yet for 2 reasons. First - I'm not convinced that we have the level of technical support here on campus to support that. And second, after many years of dealing with the data entry errors of students which are generally fixable by reviewing the data postcard that the volunteer had mailed in, I'm still not comfortable not having a hard copy to refer back to. It's just too easy to transpose numbers and without that paper you may never realize where the mistake was...

Elizabeth Herron
URI Watershed Watch
Phone: 401-874-4552
Fax: 401-874-4561
Web: http://www.uri.edu/ce/wq/

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 12:55:40 -0700
From: Chrys Bertolotto <ChrysB@ci.issaquah.wa.us>
Subject: [volmonitor] Re: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support for volmons}}}

We don't charge volunteers a few: their service is their payment. I try very hard to articulate to decision makers the cost savings they are receiving by having volunteers collect data rather than consultants or
staff. Of course, we could never get the data without volunteers (too few staff, too great cost).

I have worked with volunteers and paid interns with lower billing rates than permanent staff to prepare kits or coordinate volunteers. Both of these have helped to reduce cost and save staff time. For us, staff
time availability is the big sticking point. Perhaps you could connect to a local university and try and secure interns.

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 10:34:34 -0500
From: SHELLY FULLER <SFULLER@dnrmail.state.il.us>
Subject: [volmonitor] Re: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support
for volmons}}}

This is from the Illinois EcoWatch Network's perspective. I hope it helps.
See responses below..

Shelly Fuller
IL RiverWatch Program Coordinator
IL Department of Natural Resources
sfuller@dnrmail.state.il.us

1. Do you think it's reasonable for new volmons to print (pdf from website) the procedures manual (65pages) for their initial training and reference?

No. We feel the program should supply the manual & training materials as an issue of quality assurance. Our RiverWatch manual is bound & we supply new manuals to everyone on the rare occasion a new edition is printed. Our ForestWatch and PrairieWatch procedures are ever evolving so those manuals are placed in 3 hole punched report covers so replacement pages can be sent & downloaded from our site. Perhaps this method could help you cut costs.

2. Do you charge volunteer monitors for their participation in your program? No. Did you try it and it worked...or not? How much to charge? Years ago our surveys indicated some(but not all) were willing
to pay $25-50 for training. We didn't want cost to deter really dedicated people from participating so we don't charge.

3. Do you charge volmons for equipment, reagents, etc? no Does your program subsidize all or part of the equipment? We conduct biological monitoring so no reagents are necessary. Kits cost around $125 and cost was considered when the equipment was selected several years ago. DNR owns ~ 90 stream kits which are housed at 60 loaner locations statewide. Several volunteers, nature centers, counties etc also own their own equipment and loan it to local volunteers.

4. For those with on-line data entry...what percentage of volunteer monitors enter all of their data? Are there serious drawbacks from this approach? In Texas, I estimate 30% of our volmons are not
computer wise; 30% of our monitors do not currently submit their collected data (via snail mail) in a timely manner. What's your experience?
We've had on-line data entry for several years. About 40% of our volunteers use it and that number is on the rise. It saves us tons of staff time. Time we use to do entry for those w/out access. I like it
because we are able to standardize the formatting and have less QA cleaning up of the database later on. It also calculates the biological indicies which is a stress reliever for the volunteers. The site is
super user friendly and we're pretty happy with it.

Our on-line data entry by volunteers is optional but ALL volunteers must also submit their data sheets and samples or their data is rejected. They get 6 weeks from the end of the monitoring season. We
verify all entry (volunteer & staff) with the hard copies and file the paperwork for safe keeping & future reference. Most volunteers are conditioned to adhere to the 6 week data submission period and it seems those who use on-line entry are equally timely in sending bug samples and data sheets as those who don't use the on-line system.

The major down side is we have to pay for a programmer and we've had turn over in this position a couple of times . To save money we share this person with our professional monitoring staff so she stays pretty busy...which can be a hassle if any glitches arise and she's busy with other projects.

If you'd like to see the site I can arrange temporary access. Again, this is for biological data so maybe it's not what your looking for.
Let me know.

Jason Pinchback
Texas Watch
JP30@txstate.edu
512 245 9148
www.texaswatch.geo.swt.edu/

Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2004 14:48:11 -0400
From: "Lamoreaux, Andrea M" <alamoreaux@des.state.nh.us>
Subject: [volmonitor] RE: volmonitor digest: June 23, 2004

I coordinate the New Hampshire Deparment of Environmental Services Volunteer Lake Assessment Program (NHVLAP). In response to your questions regarding volunteer monitoring program costs, here is what we do with NHVLAP....

1. We provide one laminated, colored manual per volunteer monitoirng group at their initial training. If they would like additional copies, we ask them to go to our website and printoff a pdf manual.

3. We loan sampling equipment out to volunteer monitors free of charge. Volunteers use equipment to collect water samples from the lake deep spot and tributaries. These water samples are brought to a NHDES approved VLAP laboratory where they are analyzed. Turbidity, pH,ANC, conductivity, chlorophyll, and plankton samples are run free of charge. The volunteers are charged $10 per total phosphorus and E.coli sample.

4. NHVLAP volunteers do not participate in on-line data entry. All data entry is conducted by DES Biologists and trained staff.

For more information about our program, please visit our website or feel free to contact me directly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrea LaMoreaux
Volunteer Lake Assessment Program Coordinator
New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services
PO Box 95
29 Hazen Drive
Concord, New Hampshire 03302-0095

Telephone: (603) 271-2658
Fax: (603) 271-7894
email: alamoreaux@des.state.nh.us
website: www.des.nh.gov/wmb/vlap

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 11:46:44 -0400
From: Ginger North <ginger@dnsashland.org>
Subject: [volmonitor] RE: {{{cutting costs & services without reducing support
for volmons}}}

I am sorry that my reply is so tardy but I have been out of the office.
#1. - We supply manuals free of charge, but have private industry donate the printing costs, so it does not cost us anything but the labor of writing it in the first place & editing it periodically.
#2. - We have done both charge & offer it for free. It doesn't seem to make much difference in attendance. We currently offer it for free unless we are doing something special (like canoeing) in addition to the workshop.
#3. - We offer equipment to borrow for our stream adoption program. We supply all our technical monitors (the ones who monitor chemical parameters monthly) with equipment, supplies, refills, etc. free of charge. Again we get private industry to actually buy the equipment & supplies.
#4. - We do have technical volunteers enter their data electronically if they want. Probably 3/4 do - I now we are in the process of upgrading it & they cannot use it & they are quite upset about it. So I feel this is a positive & important part of supporting the volunteers. Volunteers who use snail mail vary widely in how prompt they are in submitting datasheets. Some do it every month & some hold onto it for 3 or 4 months.
I hope this helps.
Ginger North
Stream Watch Coordinator
Delaware Nature Society
302-239-2334x100
Fax 302-239-2473
ginger@dnsashland.org
www.delawarenaturesociety.org

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