Northeast Electronic Reporting System (NERS)

The NOAA/NEFSC Study fleets are a subset of fishing vessels from which high quality, self-reported data on fishing effort, area fished, gear characteristics, catch, and biological observations are collected. Participating vessels collect data within their permitted fisheries using normal commercial fishing operations, and are selected to address specific research topics. Vessels collect data via electronic logbook (ELB) and submit the data to NMFS (refer to VERS system for details). The data collected by the vessel operators serve as the basis for ancillary data which are collected by Study Fleet staff and are usually associated with one or more targeted research objectives. The data collected from these vessels can be used to supplement the stock assessment process and are especially useful when catch data are limited.

The NEFSC Study Fleet program was initiated to assemble groups of commercial New England vessels capable of providing high resolution (temporal and spatial) self-reported data on catch, effort and environmental conditions while conducting "normal" fishing operations. The ultimate goals are for scientific researchers to:

Provide additional data sources to the stock assessment process

Gain a better understanding of fishing operation in the region

Improve the accuracy and precision of fishery dependent data

Examine the catch estimation error associated with fishery dependent data

Collect biological samples based on specific special/temporal needs

Collect oceanographic data (temperature depth) during fishing activities

The NEFSC Study Fleet Program is a Cooperative Research program. Cooperative Research is designed to bring stakeholders together in a spirit of mutual participation, enabling an environment of shared knowledge and collaborative management strategies. As such, the Study Fleet program provides several benefits to its commercial participants including:

Participate directly in the scientific data collection process

Documentation of fishery and anecdotal knowledge inaccessible to researchers

Sharing of ideas and observations among fisheries scientists and commercial fishermen

Gain insight into how environmental factors influence catch rates

Financial compensation for time and effort involved

NEFSC data set which is governed by NEFSC Data Access Authorization

NEFSC Data Access Procedure:

1. Formal request in writing usually to the data owner/contact or Center Director;

2. Requester is contacted by data owner to review and verify the request content and details for data delivery options.

3. If data is confidential then owner will determine if the data may be released to the requester;

4. If data can be released, the data is downloaded and packaged for delivery electronically; or the requester may be directed to where the data is available online.

NEFSC Data Access Constraint:

If data is stored on an internal NEFSC network, the requester may not have direct access to query the data unless they are also authorized for network access.

not applicable

Oracle 11g on Centralized Data Management System

Data are audited in several ways: a) automated database audit triggers and procedures, b) post load comparison to other data sets (eg. matching biological sample trips to Observer data to examine fishing location and species composition), c) determination of 'realistic' values (eg. does the age determined from an age structure agree with the measured length of the fish)

Data validation during data collection, Data validation during data entry, Post audits by internal editors, Database integrity constraints, Matching of vessel reported data to external data sources (eg. VMS and observer data, archival data recording devices), post trip review by fishermen

Archival of source data preserving unaltered collected data, Scheduled backups, Remote storage backups, Password protection

Catch data are collected using the FLDRS data collection system (refer to VERS system), these data serve as the basis for additional data elements collected by Study Fleet staff which are stored in the NERS database. Study Fleet staff collect field data both on paper or via electronic application, logistics are dependent upon the particular configuration of the vessel and the data collection objectives of the specific trip.