Effective for the remaining 2011-2012 Cooperative Charting year, the national Cooperative Charting Committee, in conjunction with NOAA, has removed all program credits obtained for mileage.
The committee found that a disproportionately large number of program credits were being issued for mileage compared with those issued for information in the report. The committee believes that mileage credits should not exceed credits earned for reported information.
This change affects all reports except those already processed by NOAA as of 1 May 2011.
The committee believes this decision will allow all reports to be evaluated on the quality of the information they contain.
To maintain the credit level necessary to achieve Honor Roll recognition, the base report credits have been increased by an amount that should counterbalance the average number of credits lost by eliminating mileage.
Area representatives will closely monitor the amount of time spent on reports. In general, the amount of time per report will be limited to a maximum of 14 hours, allowing for a maximum of 8 hours’ field time and 6 hours’ processing time. For now, exceptions would be granted only if a district chairman, national committee member or NOAA requests additional field data to verify a questionable area of a depth survey. However, this additional time should not exceed the original time spent.
To encourage their participation and compensate for the removal of mileage credits, inland squadrons can receive additional credits for reports found to meet specified criteria.
The committee did not come to this decision lightly. After discussing and reviewing different ideas, we determined that this was the best, most practical method to make the adjustments.
The Cooperative Charting Program’s main goal is to provide NOAA with quality data to keep our nautical charts updated while recognizing everyone for their participation. The committee continues to look for ways to refine the credit system to achieve this goal. –Jim Strothers
Monday, June 13, 2011
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