ABSTRACT
Extensive empirical work, critical theoretical development and rigorous data collection protocols laid the groundwork for what would become the SES Framework. Particularly important was the experience of designing coding protocols for the International Forestry Resources and Institutions program (IFRI) and similar protocols for coding CPR cases (Ostrom, Agrawal, Blomquist, Schlager, & Tang, 1989). This ultimately led to the vision for a framework that would enable case studies to be compiled into a single database using consistent definitions and procedures. The SES Framework only reached the stage of a framework but not an implemented system before Ostrom’s passing. But this implementation work has proceeded in the form of extensions to and refinement of the SES Framework (McGinnis & Ostrom, 2014). A particularly important dimension for implementing the SES Framework is articulation of the environmental dynamics in SESs (Epstein, Vogt, Mincey, Cox, & Fischer, 2013). But as important are the learning mechanisms and signals that actors use to interpret those environmental dynamics (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007). The question of what environmental data actors need to make effective decisions about environmental resources remains a scientific territory ripe for attention.
