Pacific Northwest Research Station

New CDs put ‘PEP’ in step of scientific information delivery

USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station

Portland, OR: August 10, 2004

Contact:

Sherri Richardson-Dodge, (503) 808-2137

PORTLAND, Ore. August 10, 2004. Designed to enhance the delivery of scientific information to land managers, an innovative product recently released by the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station may hold promise for changing the ways in which some scientific information is communicated.

Titled “The Geomorphic Response of Rivers to Dams,” the product, a two-CD set, presents a short course on the topic by using the latest multimedia technology.

“In the scientific realm, this is an innovation,” said Michael Furniss, a hydrologist based at the Station’s Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, who served as the project’s producer and technical director. “Forest Service research hasn’t done it before.”

The CDs are a record of the short course, which was held at the University of Nevada, Reno, in March 2003, and feature an interactive interface that presents streaming video of the course’s oral presentations along with their accompanying slideshows, timed to correspond to the talks’ contents, as well as transcripts of the talks and links to external information. The interface also features linked tables of contents, which give users the option of viewing the entire short course from beginning to end or navigating its presentations in the order of their choice.

Because users have the ability to repeatedly view the CDs’ contents, in addition to starting, stopping, and pausing when they wish by using the interface’s controls, options not available in live short courses, Furniss coined the CDs “persistent electronic presentations,” or “PEPs.”

According to Furniss, the CD set can serve either as a stand-alone product, for individuals who did not attend the short course, or as a reference of information for those who did. Understanding the geomorphic response of rivers to dams is important to land managers and those involved with the environmental analysis of the effects of hydropower facilities.

“The Geomorphic Response of Rivers to Dams” project was sponsored by the PNW Research Station, the Forest Service’s Washington Office Lands Program, and the Stream Systems Technology Center of the Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Request a CD set, or contact Michael Furniss at (541) 758-7789, mfurniss@fs.fed.us
The Pacific Northwest Research Station is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. It has 10 laboratories in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington and about 500 employees.