Data standards are back seat drivers! Methodology for incorporating information quality into quality assurance project plans.

Quality assurance project plans for environmental data collections consider user requirements for the measurements and express these in the form of data quality objectives. User requirements now may include capture of measurements and associated information in prescribed formats to facilitate entry into computerized information systems. Establishing ahead of time that the data requirements may be an important "back seat driver" for an environmental collection effort can save considerable resources for an organization. Also, the planning may need to accommodate unique requirements associated with the entry of data into data collection systems.