Project Folder Navigation

The “Automated Stock Assessment Workflow” project folder can be found in your “Shared Drives” folder in Google Drive. This folder contains important documents and resources related to the Workflow Team’s activities, including meeting notes, reference documents, and other relevant materials. You will obtain access to this folder once you request it during the onboarding process.

The following folders contain the most relevant resources:

• Scoping: A variety of subfolders with material related to workshops, information about report tables and figures, standard naming conventions, and more.
• Cheatsheets: Materials needed to make {asar} and {stockplotr} cheatsheets along with the current versions of the cheatsheets.
• Communication: Materials related to communication with stakeholders and collaborators, as well as the one-pager.
• POC interviews: Notes from interviews held with FSC (Fisheries Science Center) representatives from across the agency when the project was in its early stages (2024).
• Manuscripts: Materials associated with manuscripts that are being written about the project.

GitHub Project Management

• GitHub projects help us stay on top of short-term and long-term tasks for {asar} and {stockplotr}.
• Similarly, GitHub milestones help us (and higher-level leadership) gauge progress for {asar} and {stockplotr}. We create new milestones in 6-12 month cycles.

Other Important GitHub Repositories

• workflows-workshop: Repo for the 2026 workshop series presented to each fishery science center
• a11y-sandbox: Repo for testing and recording accessibility features relevant to reports, figures, and tables
• asar-demo: Repo for tutorial on creating a stock assessment report with {asar} and {stockplotr}
• region_spp_stock_assessment: Template repository to organize and standardize files created in the stock assessment workflow

Other Project Resources

Accessibility

• Section 508 Compliance: Quick Start Guide: 508 Compliance For NOAA IR Submissions
• Tagging PDFs with asar relies on the tagpdf LaTeX package. The following are useful resources from the LaTeX Tagging Project:
  • Tagging Status of LaTeX Packages and Classes. This page is very important for tracking which contributed packages are working, which conflict with one another, and more.
  • Documentation
  • Example of a well-tagged PDF from LaTeX.
  • Tagging Project issues
  • tagpdf issues
  • Tagging Project discussions about issues with accessibility checker software
• Quarto’s 2026 blog post about the accessibility features in Quarto v1.9
• veraPDF accessible PDF-checking tool demo

Presentations

• Sam’s 2024 National Stock Assessment Seminar Series (NSASSS) talk: Learning and Improving upon Stock Assessment Workflows across the U.S.A.
• Sophie’s 2026 NSASSS talk: Increasing the Accessibility of NOAA Fisheries Stock Assessment Reports

Affiliated Project Resources

• fishdictionary: Repository for the FishDictionary, a tool aimed at providing a standardized, shared language for terms used in stock assessment reports.
• Regional Cheers for Peers: Google apps script, spreadsheet, form, and email address associated with program aimed at boosting morale and building community across regions by recognizing community collaboration and achievement. The first three resources are associated with Sam Bredeck’s Google account; the latter is associated with a separate Google account.

Useful Tools

• Mentimeter: A tool for creating interactive presentations and gathering real-time feedback from participants. Used during 2026 workshops to elicit opinions about {asar} and {stockplotr} before and after the workshop.
• Liberating Structures: A collection of facilitation techniques designed to foster engagement and collaboration in group settings.
• Easyretro: A tool we’ve used to obtain feedback from workshop participants. Can be used for other purposes too.

Project Expansion/Future Directions

• As of 2026, we have begun a new initiative: developing a cloud-based, streamlined stock assessment workflow. This involves building a cloud-based pipeline that connects the steps from data processing to FIMS to {asar}/{stockplotr} to SIS.