FREP Technical Guidance (formerly Technical Notes) provide detailed guidance for project leaders and other staff on various aspects of monitoring and evaluation (e.g., development of appropriate monitoring indicators, why the sites we sample for monitoring are randomly selected). Typically FREP will produce two to three technical notes per year that will be distributed electronically to staff.
- FREP Technical Guidance 01: Developing and Implementing Effectiveness Evaluation Indicators - April 2004
- FREP Technical Guidance 02: Forest and Range Evaluation Program Terminology - September 2004
- FREP Technical Guidance 03: Why the Units We Evaluate Should be Randomly Selected - October 2004
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FREP Technical Guidance 01 (PDF) Developing and Implementing Effectiveness Evaluation Indicators - April 2004 The Forest and Range Evaluation Program (FREP) is designed to assess the effectiveness of the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) in meeting government's objectives for each of the forest and range resource values under the Act, and to evaluate the appropriateness of the objectives themselves. This is accomplished primarily through effectiveness evaluations that use selected indicators or attributes of a particular resource value to determine the effects of forest management on that resource. There are three basic types of effectiveness evaluations conducted under FREP. Routine evaluations are relatively general evaluations that use simple visual estimates or measurements, often to answer yes/no type questions. Routine evaluations usually sample at a lower level of intensity, and may use checklists or categorical data collection. Extensive evaluations are generally more rigorous and quantitative than routine evaluations, and involve categorical data collection using visual estimates or more detailed measurements. Extensive evaluations can use similar checklists to routine evaluations, but with a higher frequency of data collection in a given area. Intensive evaluations are detailed examinations involving quantitative measurements of attributes or categorical data collected on a repeated schedule over time in order to detect long-term trends. |
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FREP Technical Guidance 02 (PDF) Forest and Range Evaluation Program Terminology - September 2004 The purpose of this document is to clarify some of the terminology commonly used in the resource evaluation field, particularly those terms used in the Forest and Range Evaluation Program (FREP). There are two primary components to FREP - effectiveness evaluations and resource stewardship monitoring. Effectiveness evaluations are carried out at the provincial or regional level, and are generally intensive in nature. Resource stewardship monitoring is carried out at the district or regional level, and consists of routine and extensive overview monitoring of on-the-ground forest practices to assess whether resource value objectives or strategies are being achieved. Resource stewardship monitoring provides valuable information on the status, trends and implementation issues related to specific resource values. This information identifies "red flags" that may require further investigation, and helps to focus the efforts of more detailed effectiveness evaluations.The terminology provided here applies to both effectiveness evaluations and resource stewardship monitoring. |
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FREP Technical Guidance 03 (PDF) Why the Units We Evaluate Should be Randomly Selected - October 2004 An initial step in the design of any evaluation is to clearly specify what in the physical world is to be studied. Some examples include:
In all three of these examples, the number of units within each population is quite large. It is easy to see that studying and measuring all of the units is often not practical. Thus, a subset of the units will need to be selected for measurement. This extension note will discuss why the units we assess should be selected in a random manner. |