How to plan and execute an effective EOIR field data collection

Sign on the wall in military testing facility in 1990: “The purpose of field testing is to support the process of making decisions. Only take the data you need to make the decisions.” In this case, decisions can include validation of models, phenomenology determination, acceptance testing, go/no-go testing for systems, etc. Planning and executing a field test or data collection can be daunting. For complex systems and data, there are many aspects of field testing that can go wrong. Field tests are expensive, time consuming, and are usually limited due to the effort required to plan, execute, and analyze test results. In this paper, we provide some highly recommended “rules for field testing” that will enhance the chances of field test success.