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CROSS-CUTTING QA ISSUES INVOLVING GEOSPATIAL SCIENCES, CHEMISTRY, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, AND LAW

Contact

http://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_comments.cfm

Impact/Purpose:

The overall objective of this task is to provide the Agency with improved science guidance and strategies for more effective science management and administration.

Description:

The Agency spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually collecting and processing environmental data for scientific research and regulatory decision making. In addition, the regulated community may spend as much or more each year responding to Agency compliance requirements. To proect this investment, EPA requires that organizations implement a quality management system to assure that the environmental data used for decision making is the type, quality, and quantity needed. The EPA Quality System is wholistic in that it embraces science, management and administration. Traditionally, QA in science is associated with and described in terms of accuracy, precision, and reproducibility, etc., as applied to the sciences such as chemistry, biology, and physics. Those quality attributes are routinely defined in a QA management plan or QA project plan. However, in recent years, the expansion of technology has encouraged and accelerated the dissolution of the borders between the sciences themselves as well as between science and the peripheral disciplines that connect science to society including the management and administration of science. This weaving together of disciplines is resulting in an erasure of borders and has also introduced many new factors surrounding data that can affect the usability of the data. In this regard, quality assurance has become the thread that weaves together the fabric of diverse disciplines.

Record Details:

Record Type:PROJECT
Start Date:04/25/2003
Completion Date:04/25/2003
OMB Category:Other
Record ID: 56073