V1, 7/18/05 3 Response Preamble The evaluation provides a very useful initial external review and programmatic assessment of SEACOOS.  The panel of evaluators represented academia, government and industry in an effort to obtain a broad and balanced perspective on the program to date.  Given the short time frame in which it was executed, we feel the evaluation reflects not only the evaluators’ perceptions of SEACOOS and its merits and deficiencies, but also the ability of SEACOOS to concisely convey what the program is about.  Much was gained from this exercise, and we greatly appreciate the time and effort applied, and analyses and insights provided by the evaluation team. We have chosen to include responses to the evaluator’s comments and recommendations on a bullet-by-bullet basis.  Some general comments are included.  All response text is formatted in italics for clarity.  The material presented to the evaluators is available in its entirety at http://seacoos.org/General%20Information/Folder.Organization/ExternalEvalDoc s/document_view Summary of Recommendations This review was requested by the SEACOOS project team itself and was not conducted at the request of the sponsoring agency, the Office of Naval Research. It is understood by the review committee that the findings in this report are to serve as guidance for the “fine tuning” of the future direction of the program and are not to be used as indication that the commitment to the sponsor has been fulfilled. General Recommendations: · It is the assessment of the committee that SEACOOS as an entity is often unsure of its “Mission”.  There is conflicting language in the briefing documents as to what it is. It is pitched to ONR as one entity (technology demonstration), to Congress as another (societally-relevant) and preliminary configured as another (observing system to answer research needs). The committee realizes that with the given amount of funding, it is not, nor could ever be, an operational system.  It is developing a concept of operations and a scaled down prototype for an operational system. Its mission and vision must be firmly stated. As SEACOOS has developed over the past few years, its mission has evolved as it identified specific objectives and new areas of focus, as IOOS has become better defined, and as SECOORA was initiated and began to identify its mission.    One recurring point of confusion is associated with the question of whether SEACOOS is serving only researchers’ needs or whether it is serving some societal needs. Being aware of the broad OCEAN.US aims for COOS, SEACOOS has operated on a regional scale to implement a set of observing system testbeds (pilots or prototypes) that allow testing observing system technologies, model system validity, and information management system