Latest
Ocean News
with thanks
to Nausicaa for the RSS feed.
Project
news
::
AquaRing launch and final workshop announced! ::
AquaRing Final Workshop, Acquario di Genova, Italy, Thursday 26th March
2009
This roundtable
event brings together experts in the field to discuss not just AquaRing’s
utility and functionality but the state of the art in Europe of how we
deal with the wealth of digital images, videos, documents and other material
which could be shared to help communicate to the public about these issues.
Who provides content to AquaRing, and who could in the future? What networks
exist in the field where documentation meets seas, rivers and oceans?
How are these digital documents put to use? What are the future challenges
ahead, and what can we imagine for AquaRing 2.0?
Participation
is free of charge. Download the provisional programme here
and contact Michael Creek to register,
or for further information.
::
Join AquaRing as a content provider! ::
The AquaRing project is now offering institutions working in aquatic sciences
the opportunity to make their documents accessible through the AquaRing
portal. To find out more about the advantages of joining, see Join
AquaRing.
Upcoming
events
::
February 18th 2009 :: AquaRing
will be disseminated at the European Parliament at a roundtable
event organised by Ecsite. This conference examines, nine
years on from the adoption of the Lisbon Strategy, how are science centres
and museums working to transform Europe into the world-leading knowledge-based
economy? We gather together representatives of key institutions, from
both within and outside of our field, to define our role in this agenda.
What can we learn from the work done to achieve this goal, and what does
the future hold for the field of science communication in Europe?
::
March 10th-11th 2009 :: Nausicaa
will hold the 26th
meeting of OMER, the French network of libraries and information
centres specialized in the domain of marine and aquatic sciences, whose
aim is to exchange about updates of technologies and initiatives about
marine information.
::
March 26th 2009 ::
AquaRing Final Workshop, Acquario di Genova, Italy, Thursday 26th March
2009. Participation
is free of charge. Download the provisional programme here
and contact Michael Creek to register,
or for further information.
The
project so far
::
October 26-30, 2008 :: Marta
Gonzalez Rodriguez of Robotiker Tecnalia presented the project at the
7th
International Semantic Web Conference, a major international
forum looking at visionary and state-of-the-art research of all aspects
of the Semantic Web. The proceedings of the poster and demonstration session
have been published as CEUR-WS
Volume 401.
:: October
24th 2008 :: Stefano
Bianchi of Softeco Sismat presented AquaRing at the 18th eChallenges2008
Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. This event brought together
over 650 delegates from leading commercial, government and research organisations
around the world to share knowledge and experience in ICT.
::
October 8th-9th 2008 :: Catherine
Franche of Ecsite disseminated the project at the IUCN
World Conversation Congress, Barcelona, Spain.
::
September 30th 2008 :: Michael
Creek of Ecsite presented the project at the Eugenides Foudation, Athens,
Greece, for the event "RESEARCH LABORATORY - EDUCATORS – SCIENCE
CENTRES: collaboration with the use of Information and Communication Technology."
This event was helf in the framework of the eKnowNet
project.
::
September 30th 2008 :: Marta
Gonzalez Rodriguez of Robotiker Tecnalia presented the project at the
7th International
Semantic Web Conference, a major international forum looking
at visionary and state-of-the-art research of all aspects of the Semantic
Web.
::
September 23rd-24th 2008 :: The
second Project Workshop and Press Conference
was held at Rotterdam
Zoo. This two-day workshop was attended by over 40 professionals
from across Europe. Institutions represented included networks like EAZA,
EUAC, EurOcean
and organisations like AthenaWeb,
Science LinX and
OCIM as well as numerous
zoos and aquariums. Participants had the opportunity to discuss the issues
related to communication on the aquatic world, and give the project valuable
feedback. Carel Drijver of WWF Netherlands
gave the keynote speech.
::
29th-31st May 2008 :: The
project was presented and discussed at the Ecsite
Annual Conference, Budapest, Hungary, at a poster session
entitled "Making the most of online portals."
52 people attended the session and the session evaluation was very positive,
with an overall rating of 4.1 out of 5.
::
17th May 2008 :: The
Lithuanian
Sea Museum celebrated Harbour Porpoise Day, and Jurgita Eglinskiene
presented AquaRing as part of the events they planned. Present werecolleagues
from Hell Marine Station, Hel, Ploland, representative of the Lithuanian
Environmental Ministry, scientists, specialists and students from Klaipeda
University, and young naturalists from Klaipeda.
:: 31st
March - 2nd April 2008 :: The
project was presented at the SeaDataNet
International Conference on Marine Data and Information Systems,
Athens, Greece, in a session entitled User Oriented Services and Products.
Project brochures were received by the 170 participants: high-level marine
scientists, many directors and several project managers, including the
representatives of many important research institutes in the field. Discussions
highlighted AquaRing's metadata tagging as a particularly effective way
of classifying documents for the semantic web.
:: 20th
March 2008 :: The
project was presented at the 25th Journées
d'OMER event, Villefranche sur Mer, France. A representative
of Nausicaa presented the project to the members of OMER, a network of
over 80 libraries and documentation centres specialised is aquatic sciences. To download the presentation of AquaRing in French, click here
(PDF)
::
11th-13th March 2008 :: The
project was presented at the European Commission's stand at Oceanology
International, London, the world’s largest and most
respected meeting place for the marine science and ocean technology community.
Project brochures and a presentation of the project were available for
participants.
:: 6th-7th
March 2008 :: The project consortium met at Softeco,
Genoa, Italy. Topics discussed included the strategy for the development
of the AquaRing collection, comments on the prototype portal that partners
have been testing and the implementation of the changes recommended by
the Project Review.
::
28th February 2008 :: The
project brochure is now available to download in PDF.
This brochure presents the project in detail, its advantages to both users
and content providers, as well as giving more information about the structure
of the project itself. Look out for high quality recycled paper versions
at future AquaRing events. To download the brochure please click here
(PDF).
:: 22nd
January 2008 :: The
Project Review took place in Luxembourg. The results
from the European Commission's review panel were very positive for the
project, with the review team praising the collaboration, project management
and technical solutions implemented. Recommendations were made for the
future shaping of the project which are currently being addressed.
:: 27th-28th
November 2007 :: The
first Project Workshop took place at the Blue
Planet Forum in Brussels, Belgium. Here, the participants at the Forum
were invited to take part in the session on Knowledge Based Society. In
this session, convened by Project Coordinator Antonio Di Natale, AquaRing
was introduced to the participants of the Forum as a means of keeping
the European public informed on maritime issues, and project brochures
were distributed to the participants. The second part of the workshop
was a stand in the Thematic Village area of the Forum. Here, participants
were able to discuss the project in more detail with AquaRing representatives.
Click
above to see a YouTube video of the Blue Planet Forum. Below, Catherine
Franche of Ecsite and Antonio Di Natale of Acquario di Genova speak at
the workshop on Knowledge Based Society.
:: 29th
March 2007 :: A
session on AquaRing was held at the Semantic
Web Workshop held by Technalia Infotech in Zamudio, Spain. Project
coordinator Antonio Di Natale spoke about the use of the semantic web
with regards to the AquaRing project.
:: 27th-28th
March 2007 :: A
project meeting was held at Robotiker,
in Zamudio, Spain.