Vision document Future EuroMarine website (EuroMarine+)

Transcription

1 Vision document Future EuroMarine website (EuroMarine+) The future EuroMarine+ website should act as an umbrella and joint communication portal, where it not only serves the former NoEs, but also the wider marine scientific community. This also means that the EuroMarine+ website could act as a platform and repository for past and new projects, but can also offer web services or building blocks to other marine related projects. Sharing common applications and tools means more standardization, avoids duplication of effort, ensures information remains live and up to date and ultimately reduces operational costs. The products (reports, brochures, posters, images.) produced by the projects can be archived and information (e.g. partner contact details ) and tools can be recycled in follow up projects. As each former NoE has built its own website and applications for storing and disseminating information over the internet, the existing tools were looked at and compared, and a combination of all possible features within one component or tool for the future website has been made. For the creation of the future website, it is advised that EuroMarine should try to only rely on opensource and free components. Since the source code of open source software is published and made available to the public, anyone can copy, modify an redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. Using paying components could result in a system which is hard and very expensive to maintain. Marine Science Yellow Pages Detailed information on people, institutes, datasets, projects and scientific publications related to marine biodiversity and marine biology research in Europe, can be stored in different modules of an online directory, embodying the Marine Science Yellow Pages. A Persons module can capture detailed information on each individual. Apart from name, title, function, gender and date of birth, also a status (i.e. if the person is no longer active in the marine scientific community either retired or deceased) can be attributed. Furthermore, contact information (professional and/or personal) can be stored, as well as the affiliated institute(s), possible URL(s) and keyword(s) describing the person s research interests and expertise. If publication(s) or other literature related to the person are available in the virtual library, links can be provided as well. Although all entered information will be stored in the database, one should be able EuroMarine: website vision document March

2 to decide what part of the information becomes publicly available and will be published on the website. Within a module related to Institutes, details on the institute or organization name (previous and current), type (administrative, education, scientific, etc.), contact address, divisions, employees and their roles, URL(s) and keyword(s) can be entered. A short abstract can be provided to describe the institute s main research domains and achievements. This module should not only comprise the affiliated institutes of the EuroMarine members, but also a range of organizations (agencies, users, stakeholders and research institutes) from across the world that may have an interest in the activities and outputs of the EuroMarine projects. Also here, the institutes and organizations should be able to decide which part of the information can be publicly displayed. Datasets could be extensively described in a separate module, which could include information on the dataset name, type (field survey, monitoring, laboratory, etc.), quality, progress and access constraints, but also on the origin of the dataset (which institute is data owner, data provider, etc.), where and how the dataset is physically stored and who is to be contacted. To acknowledge all persons involved in the collection and processing of the dataset, a list can be provided with their names, institutes and roles. The descriptive part can consist of an abstract, the attribution of data themes (biology, geology, etc.) and keywords, the determination of the taxonomical, temporal and spatial coverage, and the description of the parameter(s) involved. If related literature, based on the dataset or describing the dataset, is available in the virtual library, a link can be provided. Furthermore it could be possible to identify relations between datasets (parents and children), thus providing a hierarchical structure. And very importantly, the system should provide a clear and unique citation for each dataset, comparable to a literature citation, including (if possible) data authors, dataset version or year, dataset name, providing institute, link to the online dataset, etc. Projects could be stored within a module Projects. Project details can include project title (original title, acronym), a short abstract describing the project, URL(s) to e.g. the project homepage, keyword(s), progress (completed or still running), start and/or end date, project partners, derived or related projects, project managers, related publications and datasets, and events organized during the course of the project. A Virtual library can store information on relevant marine literature, such as scientific publications, journals, books, reports, master theses, doctoral theses, etc. It should be possible to search the module by title, author name, publication year, ISBN/ISNN number, etc. A virtual archive could be created, storing the digital documents if they are available. Being able to link between the different modules of these marine science yellow pages will even increase its serviceability: by looking for a specific person or institute, one can automatically get an overview of e.g. all the projects, publications or datasets related to this person or institute. Another useful feature is the possibility to tag persons, institutes, datasets and projects. Tags are module independent and make grouping of everything that is described within the directory very easy. In light of the new EuroMarine+ website, new tags could be created to identify and group all former NoE and current EuroMarine members, or to define partners related to individual EuroMarine EuroMarine: website vision document March

3 projects. Furthermore, tagging within the directory makes it straightforward to display certain information on the EuroMarine+ website, e.g. a list of all EuroMarine institutes, a list of past and current EuroMarine projects, etc. To cluster all information on major European marine infrastructures and to facilitate sharing of laboratories, research vessels, ROVs, mesocosms and other equipment among marine scientists, the register can also contain an infrastructure module. However, currently there is no complete list of all available marine infrastructures within Europe. Discussions with e.g. EurOcean ( are required to draw up a plan to bring all this information together on the EuroMarine+ website or to create links to it, and will require careful consideration to avoid any duplication of effort. By merging the content of the existing directories developed within the former NoEs, a comprehensive source of information on the current status of marine science in Europe can be created into these proposed marine science yellow pages. Because of obvious overlap (most scientists, and certainly most institutions are partner in more than one project), sharing a common directory between projects will be a major benefit for future projects. The incorporation of such directory into the EuroMarine+ website could proof an exceedingly valuable tool for the European marine scientific community. An important task within EuroMarine+ will be to keep all this information up to date. An error reporting system can enable everyone to notify the database administrator of any deviations or of information that has become out of date. Maintaining an extensive directory of numerous people, institutions, projects, datasets, publications and facilities is a time consuming and costly activity. This task could be executed more adequately and more thoroughly by the database managers if EuroMarine+ were to fund these activities. Member accounts After paying a membership fee, former NoE and current EuroMarine members will receive a login and password. Members will have more access rights than non members, i.e. some contents of the website, such as online documents (e.g. course materials) and website functions (e.g. commenting on images in the media gallery), will only be accessible after authentication. Members with full access rights could be identified based on the tags in the Persons module of the Marine Science Yellow Pages (see above). Mailing lists In order to efficiently spread news to different target groups (partners, administrative contacts, scientists, the interested public at large), there is a general need to create and work with multiple mailing lists. EuroMarine has currently set up several mailing lists to enhance communication between partners; but has also set up a more general mailing list, based on the addresses from the three former NoEs. This mailing list is used to spread general news on the project and will form the basis for the newsletter mailing list. On the website, a subscribe/unsubscribe possibility is offered for the newsletter: people can sign in or out from this list via the website. EuroMarine: website vision document March

4 EuroMarine wants to offer a number of services to marine related projects and one of the services could be a mailing list tool, where partners (or members from any other marine related project) can easily sign in & out to various newsletters (and ideally need to update their only once), and moderators (project managers, communication managers) can easily manage incoming and outgoing messages. On a technical level, an adequate solution will still have to be developed to deal with invalid addresses or people changing address, so the mailing list can easily be kept up to date. News Each project generates news and wishes to spread this news within or outside its project consortium. The EuroMarine+ website could create a tool where news items can be generated by the EuroMarine project management and spread via the various mailing lists. Relevant news from other (short term) projects could be harvested from the respective websites to be spread, or EuroMarine could act as a general news repository for smaller scale projects, spreading the news items to specific mailing lists or make them available through e.g. RSS feeds. However, the former NoE websites are still generating and spreading news separately. In order to avoid duplication, EuroMarine currently only distributes news items that are directly related to its own project or cannot be posted on another website. The effort to collect and compile news items should not be underestimated and if one or more of the former NoEs should no longer be able to generate and spread news items to a wider community, EuroMarine+ may take over, if necessary resources are available. For the latter scenario, news could be harvested and (semi )automatically compiled into a weekly (bi weekly, monthly) newsletter, sent out to all subscribers. Also a newsletter archive can be created, with past editions of the EuroMarine newsletter and possibly even of the former NoEs newsletters. Job portal The evermore increasing demand for marine science jobs and training programs has inspired the former NoEs to develop a system which makes it easier to look for a job or training program and to match the right job or training course to the right candidate. These former NoE systems offer a facility where recruiters can advertise their jobs or training opportunities. They simply enter the details of the job or course being advertised and this is automatically displayed for online users. Job seekers or persons currently in employment who may want to improve or update their skills for example by undertaking an internship, voluntary work, etc. can freely search these online databases for jobs, training courses, etc. Training programs will also be listed under the Education part of the EuroMarine+ website. Another valuable resource available on one of the former NoE websites, is the facility that allows job seekers to submit and store their CVs online. An extensive number of fields have been created, not all of which are mandatory, where information on their scientific background, career aspirations and preferences can be stored. Also, as these two archives (i.e. advertised jobs and CVs) are interlinked, a potential employer can see which CVs match their vacancies. And should a potential candidate with a EuroMarine: website vision document March

5 CV in the archive not see the advertisement, they will be notified by when a potential match occurs. Both the former NoE job portals and the job CV matching tool are currently still attracting new vacancies and CVs. The integration of these successful functionalities would therefore add a valuable asset to the new EuroMarine+ website. In a nutshell, a job portal can allow People to post vacancies online People to search through posted vacancies randomly or by making use of specific filters People to post their curriculum online To send an alert when a match between a curriculum and a vacancy occurs Institutes to search the database for suitable candidates, based on the submitted curricula Such a job portal could easily be integrated within the EuroMarine+ website. If EuroMarine were to decide not to have its own job portal, links could be provided to the job sections of other marine network websites, e.g. EurOcean ( By doing so however, the convenient job CV matching tool, currently available at one of the former NoE websites, would be lost. To overcome this, EuroMarine could negotiate with e.g. EurOcean to incorporate this tool in their website. In addition, EuroMarine may also connect to the social network site for professionals LinkedIn ( This will be described more into detail under Social media. Project archive The risks of losing information after a project ends are high when websites go off line. Therefore, EuroMarine+ may provide an archive for marine related projects funded by the EU (or other) by offering them a webpage that can hold basic information on the project and store its deliverables (e.g. reports & publications). Where the costs for this service are minimal, the benefits for the community are legio. Events calendar EuroMarine+ will need a calendar of events it (co )organizes, but it may as well retrieve event information from other marine related projects. This calendar should chronologically list different events with their title, place, date, related project, contact person and link. Events could be classified by type (e.g. conference, workshop, flagship, advanced course, summer school, training, mobility, education, meeting, etc.), or according to the funding received (internal, external). Furthermore it could be very interesting to be able to filter the calendar based on the specific topic of the event. By using this option, scientists will more easily find events closely related to their research field. This could be accomplished by attributing keywords to every event. How this will be integrated into EuroMarine+ will depend on the systems used by the NoEs and other websites. EuroMarine: website vision document March

6 Media gallery Images or movies may attract far more readers than plain text information. The online media gallery on the future EuroMarine+ website could store and display images and video files related to several marine topics, grouped in albums with further subdivisions, e.g.: Pictures and drawings of marine species, grouped by taxon, or possibly with attention to endangered species groups (marine mammals, marine birds) or economically important species groups (crustaceans, fish, bivalves) The diversity of marine ecosystems (deep sea, mangroves, intertidal areas, etc.) Marine resources and renewable energies The impact of marine pollution. Additional albums could be: events organized by EuroMarine or related projects (conferences, workshops and courses), images specifically for media and outreach, etc. Also several relevant animations for educational purposes and audio documents can be up and downloaded. While the creation of a user account and log in is not necessary to upload images and video files, account holders do have edit privileges. File upload and display are user controlled. To decide to what extent others may reproduce their images, users are able to select different copyright options: GNU General Public License, Creative Commons (CC) and Public Domain. Therefore media gallery visitors can view but not necessarily download all the photos and videos. Media galleries permit users to add minimal metadata to their uploaded files: title, author, , possibly a short description within a free text field and keywords. These keywords are part of a controlled vocabulary and multiple entries are possible. For instance, for images of marine species, a drop down list of taxonomic names can be available, with persistent LSIDs and linked to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). Further available metadata is the embedded camera captured metadata (i.e. exif, gps), which is automatically read from uploaded pictures. Based on the metadata attributed to the files, users can search the gallery for any term (title, author, keyword, etc.). In order to make the media gallery more interactive, users could be allowed to provide comments, which have to be moderated by the database administrator. Furthermore, the number of times an image has been viewed can be tracked. In addition, links could be made to already existing media galleries and films, for example the films from CLAMER and Tara Oceans or the 14 short scientific films already archived at one of the former NoE websites. Images can be automatically shared between projects. For short term marine related (EU) projects, the EuroMarine+ media gallery could provide the possibility to host all produced media even beyond the duration of the project and thus prevent loss of valuable information, which closely links with the previously described project archive. EuroMarine: website vision document March

7 Outreach Where the educational pages (see further) reach science students, scientists and teachers, the Outreach section should be targeted more towards the general public. Existing web pages for the more broadly interested public can be found on the former NoE websites, and could serve as a basis for the pages to be developed within the EuroMarine+ website. One very effective way to reach the more general public is to provide booklets, flyers and pamphlets on popular, hot topics, such as the oceans, climate change, biodiversity, overfishing, etc. These documents should be free to download for everyone. Wiki pages (see next section) can contribute to the outreach section of the EuroMarine+ website. Wiki pages The Coastal and Marine Wiki ( is an Internet encyclopedia providing high quality information, which is continuously improved, complemented and updated by experts. This Wiki was developed within the framework of the European Network for Coastal Research, ENCORA. The main differences between the Coastal and Marine Wiki and the online Wikipedia are the procedures to maintain the quality, consistency and comprehensiveness of the information. This resulted in the requirement of an editing authorization for contributors. Anonymous contributions are excluded; authors and co authors of articles or article revisions are explicitly acknowledged. The access to the Coastal and Marine Wikipedia is free to any coastal and marine stakeholder, but only experts registered in the Wiki Contact Database are entitled to enter new information. Editing authorizations are granted only to users with a professional background, checked by the editorial team. This team also oversees the overall quality of the Coastal and Marine Wikipedia. EuroMarine+ and other projects could also make use of this wiki platform and can create new wikipages on relevant subjects e.g.: descriptions of models relevant to / used by the EuroMarine community specific fact sheets like those created by Eur Oceans sheets on past research highlights of the former NoEs sheets on research topics within the EuroMarine community Education Education was defined as one of the most important objectives of the EuroMarine project. An inventory of European marine training possibilities has already been compiled within EuroMarine, and includes master programs, doctoral schools, summer schools, hands on training possibilities at research institutes and digital online courses. The targeted audience is broad: bachelor students, master students, doctoral researchers, technical staff members and post doc researchers. This section may be implemented and further developed and maintained in a future EuroMarine+ website. Institutes are invited to send information about training possibilities in marine sciences by filling out an online web form. All education events will be included in the events calendar. EuroMarine: website vision document March

8 Educational material (or at least links to) should be available on the website as well. This comprises course materials for bachelor and master students, e learning modules, webinars, but also educational packages (in various languages) and animations meant for teachers. Access can be restricted to participants of the education events or account holders. Data portal Within WP4 (Scientific Data Integration), an overview of existing data portals has been created. This overview has been made available on the prototype website, as a static list. For the future website, it could be opted to provide an online form where new data portals can be described and added to the overview. Further details on shaping a long term integration of data will be described in a vision paper for data integration in marine science, written by WP4. Social media Nowadays, social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have taken a strong position in spreading news quickly around the globe. Because they help improving the connectivity of researchers, engineers, PhD candidates, post docs, and students worldwide, they have become very popular within the scientific community. Twitter ( is an online social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read text based messages of maximum 140 characters (so called tweets ). Apart from creating its own tweets, EuroMarine can follow and post tweets from already existing (marine) scientific networks (e.g. VLIZ, NatureNews, National Geographic, BBC Science, Scientific American, etc.). This accumulation of marine tweets on one website can e.g. help to guide students and scientists through the jungle of (sometimes unreliable) news facts about marine sciences available on the World Wide Web. Through the social networking service Facebook ( marine scientists and students are able to connect and network on a less professional level. This could be more approachable and attractive for secondary school students, master students or young PhD students at the dawn of their scientific career. Furthermore, the EuroMarine Facebook page could be used to provide additional images of events (co )organized by EuroMarine. In addition, EuroMarine could also connect to LinkedIn ( the social networking website for people in professional occupations. LinkedIn enables people to find past and present colleagues, to broaden their scientific network, and to make connections with industry experts. Furthermore LinkedIn is the perfect opportunity to stay informed on new jobs or business opportunities. EuroMarine: website vision document March