The System of Registries: An Evaluation of User Feedback... A Year Later

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) System of Registries (SoR) is a metadata management tool that is critical to supporting EPA's efforts to manage and integrate environmental information. In March 2003, an SOR users conference was held to demonstrate new services and to promote the SoR's role in supporting various information integration and sharing initiatives currently underway, including the National Environmental Information Exchange Network (NEIEN). We developed an online questionnaire and asked conference attendees to provide feedback on how they use the SoR and what their future expectations are regarding services provided by the SoR. Sixteen of the forty-nine participants responded to questions on familiarity with registries, the types of information sought, and how they have used the information they've obtained in their work. Respondents also gave suggestions for existing services. Combined with results from web usage statistics over a 5-year period, we provide an assessment of SOR usage.