The Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) is the applied economic research organization for the University of South Florida. It is structured within the University’s College of Business. Its mission is stated as follows:

“The Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) - conducts applied economic research on regional, statewide, and national economic development issues. CEDR’s education activities cultivate excellence in economic development practice and are bolstered by the annual, week-long Basic Economic Development Course that is accredited by the International Economic Development Council. Through its Internet data center, CEDR serves those interested in obtaining national and regional economic / demographic data sets and research reports.”

Historically, CEDR’s data center / data warehouse has served to support its dissemination and service mission, but its content and structure have generally been determined on an ad-hoc and as-needed basis. CEDR retained Innovation Insight, Inc. to conduct the first objective review of this economic data center. Research was performed from May-June, 2005 by Guy Hagen (President and Principal Investigator). The objectives of the research were multifold.

1. Review the hardware, software, and network technologies that support the data center in terms of ability to meet current and future needs, and general industry-standard practices.
2. Construct an ex-post-facto understanding of whom is using the data center, and the experiences that CEDR stakeholders (e.g., economic development service organizations in the Tampa Bay area) have had with the data center and how they are using it to further their economic development missions.
3. Identify general data, information systems, and information services trends among CEDR stakeholders to help CEDR align the data center with common future needs.
4. Identify opportunities for CEDR to improve and align its data center to most effectively meet its service mission, with the best use of existing resources as possible. Integral to this item are the concepts of avoiding redundancy and parallel efforts, and making best use of limited resources.

The methodology for the research included one-on-one interviews with CEDR staff, key local economic devleopment researchers and market intelligence staff, a directed focus / discussion group with stakeholder organizations, a limited online survey to collect technical information, and database / internet research to track data center usage.

Recommendations were drawn from these efforts as well as the author’s direct experience in these subject areas and working with other economic development organizations nationwide.