Reserve Application Management System (RAMS)

The University of California’s Natural Reserve System needed an effective way of collecting data from their users and present this data in a report at the end of the year. RAMS, the reserve application management system, was initially created for this purpose. It provides a means for reserve manager to access a researcher’s application data and to made decisions on how they want to manage that user when they visit their research station. Over the years though it has grown to become a valuable tool for meta-data collection of research being done on the reserves and as a source of metric data that is used in reports and grant proposals. The system currently has more than 50 research stations in it’s database that are managing users applications and reservations to visit the location.  National Research Council of the National Academies Recommendation 1: "Field stations should work together to develop a common set of metrics of performance and impact. The metrics should be designed so that they can be aggregated for regions and the entire nation. Universities and other host institutions and funding organizations should support the gathering and transparent reporting of fieldstation performance metrics because such information will enhance the stations’ ability to document the contributions of field stations to the nation’s research and education enterprise."  Recommendation 2: "New mechanisms and funding need to be developed to collect, aggregate, and synthesize performance data for field stations, and to translate these data into metrics and information that can be used to document the value of the community of field stations to science and society."  Conclusions: "Measures of effectiveness that are aligned with field stations’ science, education, and business plans can lead to improvement in performance and impact but typically are lacking. In the absence of metrics, it is impossible to manage for improved outcomes."  RAMS begins to addresses these issues.