Notes: Week 6 (5/3 - 5/9)

Card Sort Notes, Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, 5/4

• coal: utility? Other? Grouping with greenhouse gas
• HFC: emissions? group with greenhouse gas
• Coal
  • Propane
• Electricity
  • Emissions source
• greenhouse gas
  • HFC
  • CFC
  • Methane
  • PFC
  • Sulfur hexaflouride
  • hazardous waste
• haz waste/other chemicals may imply another cat, not moved yet
• transportation: groups campuses
• "business"y category
• Monitor: clarify computer monitor?
• Natural: clarify?
• reduction source/greenhouse gas offset tricky
• reduction source: what does this mean?
• Offset: fund/transfer
• reduction source: mitigation
• locations and transportation types are related
• cost avoidance: can be calculated off of other data, should it be present?
• Traditional: change to conventional?
• HFC/PFC emissions but not greenhouse gas, so separated
• campus: place, location: college/office
• campus will have a location
• Time as record identifier
• University-produced paper vs. production by outside sources (paper vs. yellow/white/newspaper/books)
• Cardboard category
• purchaseable materials vs. not
• measurement unit: what has been avoided, offset, or reduced vs. pounds, actual units of measurement (measurement unit vs. unit of measurement vs. unit measuring something)
• measurement unit critical to knowing greenhouse gas offset/cost avoidance/reduction source
• food vs. food waste - what is the difference?
• "we buy stuff" - "we do stuff with stuff"
• paper vs. printed/bound (subcategory)
• employee/enrollment data - imp for comparison, made into measurement units
• Event: better phrase available?

The final categories for this card sort are as follows (note: NO relationships or hierarchies implied at the first level):

• emissions source
  • Fuel oil
  • Diesel
  • Gasoline
  • Propane
• Lighting
  • Iridescent
  • Natural
  • LED
  • CFL
  • flouresent tube
• measurement unit
  • Enrollment total
  • Employee total
• Campus
  • Other address (location)
  • Tacoma
  • Bothell
  • Seattle
  • Harborview
• College
  • Building
  • Central Administrative Group
  • Center (research center)
  • Department
• record identifier
  • purchase date
  • Event
  • end date
  • start date
  • time
  • Quarter code
  • year (not academic year)
• transportation type
  • Foot
  • Single occupancy vehicle
  • air travel
  • bike
  • Car/vanpool
  • transit
• Waste type
  • Food
  • Food waste
  • Hazardous waste
  • Landscape waste
  • Sewage
  • Garbage
• Computer equipment
  • Electronic accessories
  • Printer
  • Monitor
  • CPU (central processing unit)
• Stuff (things we purchase)
  • baled cardboard
  • loose cardboard
  • UWMC cardboard
  • concrete
  • tin
  • plastic
  • Batteries
  • Packing materials
  • Starch peanuts
  • Pallets
  • Wood
  • Glass
  • Aluminum
  • Toner cartridges
  • Styrofoam
• Emissions management
  • Reduction source
  • Cost avoidance
  • Greenhouse gas offset
• Material type
  • recycled material
  • Ferrous material
  • virgin material
• Paper category
  • Paper
    • office/white paper
    • mixed paper
    • UWMC paper
  • Bound/printed paper items
    • books
    • Newspaper
    • white pages
    • yellow pages
• Emissions type
  • Greenhouse gas
    • Refrigerants
    • Chloroflourocarbon (CFC)
    • Sulfur hexaflouride
    • Methane
  • Other chemical
    • Perflourocarbons (PFC)
    • Hydroflourocarbons (HFC)
• Utility type
  • Green (utilities)
    • Hydro
    • Wind
    • Solar
    • Water
  • Traditional (utilities)
    • Steam
    • Gas
    • Coal
    • Electricity

Capstone Sponsor Meeting, 5/5

• General pattern of card sorts:
  1. A unit responds to a particular event with a type of reaction
  2. Locations take particular inputs and generate outputs
  3. (general categorization)
  These sorts all suggest an input/output model, so the XML hierarchy will use this structure.
• Suggested categories (whether some of these should be controlled vocabularies is up for debate):
  • Materials
    • Consumed
    • Purchased
  • Utilities
    • Traditional
    • Green
  • Electrical accessories
  • Location
• Inputs and outputs will have several attributes, including time/location.
• How do we track responsibility in this model? Who is responsible for handling vs. triggering inputs/outputs? Is there "good" versus "bad" responsibility (in other words, are some responsibilities deterimental to sustainability efforts)?
• Is there overlap caused by the enrollment/employee total elements?
• Time must be an attribute, since it describes the element.

Meeting with Celeste Gilman, Parking Services, 5/6

• List of questions from before the interview:
  1. Give examples of specific questions answered by the data you have available. Are there questions you would like to be able to ask that you currently have no way to answer?
  2. What is the best way for you to examine sustainability data? (ex: over time, by project/unit, by department...)
  3. Is there any currently available data that you would consider "noise" If so, is there a possible future use for that data?
• Biennial study of transporation options generates data on transportation usage across campuses
• Traffic counts, bike counts, and spreadsheets used to track and verify data
• Once annually, a football game transportation survey is completed. UPASS sales and faculty/staff commute data are separated.
• ORCA will yield more information on trip data (possible contact is Stephanie Parkins, the ORCA project manager for the UW).
• Surveys look at distance, transportation method, the number of miles traveled, and carbon emissions.
• Most important items: behavior (what people are doing) and cost (to users, to the university, to maintain, to carbon emissions)
• Some involvement of the UPASS coordinator in the Climate Action Plan (CAP)
• Most questions about the UPASS program that come in from external sources have to do with specific policies and overall program cost.
• Concerns: how many people participate in the UPASS program, the mode of transport being used
• Big issue is not knowing quarter-to-quarter usage - but the terms don't change too quickly, so this has a lower impact than it might otherwise.
• Data is for the origin of the trip, and does not tell anything about what campus facility the trip is being generated for (though this information would be nice)
• For specific UPASS reports: http://www.washington.edu/commuterservices/programs/upass/reports.php

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