"ORION" is a LEONARDO DA VINCI Pilot Project which aims to create a  'Virtual' Marine Environment Department which can deliver Open and Distance Learning (ODL) courses in a variety of languages. ORION links university partners situated on the outer fringes of Europe: University of Stockholm in the north; University of Cork in the west; University of Algarve in the south; and is coordinated by the Institute of Marine Biology of Crete, even further to the south. Other partners are the National Centre for Marine Science (Athens), the Federation of European Aquaculture Producers (Belgium) and TEREUS S.A. (Athens).

This Newsletter gives more details on the actual progress of the ORION Project and information on how this project is moving forward and by whom. For more details on the background of ORION, see the   first ORION Newsletter.

Major decisions have been made  regarding course selection, selection of glossary terms, licensing of copyright materials, construction and maintenance of website, role of hardware in construction of distributed network, partner agreements and a new timetable for delivering workpackages.

ORION MEETINGS and PROGRESS

The 2^nd ORION Progress meeting was held in the Aquaculture Development Centre, Cork, Ireland, from 9-11th November 2002, hosted by the University of Cork. Click here for the  Meeting agenda and for the   Minutes of the meeting, including participants.

Important issues identified in the second ORION Meeting

Language Competency Programme

The Project Manager, Mrs Eleftheriou, gave a brief overview of the aims and objectives of the Language Competency Strand of the LDV Programme, with a view to showing how the ORION objectives fit very well with the EU Working Paper on Promoting Language Leaning and Linguistic Diversity.All this was quite new to the scientific partners who were not familiar with the pilot project concept and the type of deliverables required. There was a lively  discussion on open learning methodology and the ways in which it could be harnessed to the objectives of the project. The intention is to produce material that will use the delivery method (ODL) to its potential, and not to use it as a poor substitute for printed materials.

Distributed Network Technology

This was the most eagerly awaited  part of the meeting, as none of the partners had been involved in using a distributed network before, and until it was actually in operation (planned for early February 2003) it was difficult to envisage and  there were many questions from the partners.

Construction of the Distributed network has gone according to plan and should be completed in January 2003. The ORION website is to function at two levels: the outer, publicly available shell, where the basic language modules will be housed, and an inner, restricted entry level, where the marine science courses will be available to registered users only. The outer level  will also house the databases, the new glossary as well as the updated bibliography and some previous course ONEDIN material. The outer shell has been prepared by IMBC, working in conjunction with TEREUS SA, and was presented by Prof. Eleftheriou for approval.

From the 3 interface website designs circulated to all partners during the summer the chosen  design had been constructed and was examined in detail. The outer shell contained several sections, namely Project profile, Partners, Course Materials, Educational Database, Links and Contacts. The 2^nd draft design was approved but during discussion of the content of each section it was decided that some titles would have to be changed. In addition, the Irish partners pointed out that the use of the British flag to indicate both their participation and the use of the English language was inappropriate.

Questions answered by Mr Hapsiades TEREUS SA in teleconference

What kind of software and hardware will be needed for the distributed network to function as intended?

There are several different kinds of software which are suitable, Windows Edit-Pro, costs 500 dollars for 110 concurrent users. The mirror sites will be `Linux-based and user-friendly tools will be available.

-Hardware necessary: a computer of 1 gigabyte, with 40 gigabyte hard disk.

A server, Apache 2 or Server MYSQL.

Linux or Windows 2000 can be the operating system.

How easy will it be for the students and the lecturer to download the courses?

Each user will have a password which will enable him/her to input and to edit materials.  Students will be able to answer questions but will not have any kind of editorial function.

How easy will it be to update the materials, and to insert questions, questionnaires?

Each user will have a password which will enable him/her to input and to edit materials.

What type(s) of password will be necessary in order to ensure site security?

- There will be different levels of privilege, ie, editors, authors, tutors, students, system administrators, etc. Each will be allowed to carry out a specific function only, although some individuals may have more than one function within the system.

What about digital signatures?

These can be used in two places on the site.

What about the problem of different fonts?

This is something that derives from the different web browsers used.

Should the courses have a standard format?

In principle, each course will be designed by the author and the format will follow the needs of the course. However, in order to be inserted into the distributed database, materials will have to follow a template which will have a common structural format. Pdf format will be used, because this format protects the original creator.

Will it be easy to insert figures, graphs, etc?

Courses should include figures, graphs, illustrations, etc, and should not be simple text.

When will the management tool be ready?

It is ready now but can only be used when the website is operational

What has happened to previously submitted materials, ie, from NCMR and IMBC?

These have been used as tests for programming items. The first version of the NCMR materials on Oil Pollution was not good and had to be changed. The bibliography and the Meristics material from IMBC had been programmed. Some bugs had already been found in the bibliography, and 750 new items had been included.

ORION glossary

Choice of items from the AQUALEX glossary had been made, and circulated, resulting in a wide variation in the partners’ choices. Work on harmonisation was therefore essential and started immediately, led by University of Cork. Agreement was reached on a series of categories to be excluded(fish species, fish diseases, body parts) and which to retain (oceanography, statistics, some genetics) as these are relevant to content and methodology of the marine environment. See Minutes for list of references.

The agreed list of terms and definitions from AQUALEX (amounting to almost 1200 terms) will be circulated and translated by the Swedish and Portuguese partners, starting immediately.  Dr. Mousakitis produced a final list of words from the AQUALEX glossary, together with their AQUALEX dictionary index number. This Word document will be rewritten as an Excel file, with AQUALEX Multimedia Consortium supplying all the definitions from the AQUALEX master.

Language Learning modules

Materials for the self-learning packages have been produced, for English, Swedish and Greek. Level 1, the basic modules (14) will all be presented in graphic format which looks really attractive but takes a great deal of design and programming.  There remains a lot of linguistic preparation for these least widely spoken languages. Partners looked at the drafts and agreed with the presentation.

Resource Repository  - copyright issues

Ms Sofia Goulala (NCMR) gave a comprehensive presentation on the latest copyright issues with regard to online presentation of information, including abstracts, and set out her strategy of information dissemination. Click here for the documents (1, 2, 3) The new regulations concerning copyright and intellectual ownership  were explained. Ownership of tools created during the project belonged to the consortium as a whole, while intellectual ownership of materials previously devised and used remained with the creator, who, for the purposes of the project, allows the other partners unrestricted access to and use of the materials. It was emphasised that the Course materials part of the website would not be open to the general public, but only to registered users of ORION. Since the courses will be in the restricted part of the website which will be protected by firewall software, and since the website would also have a copyright notice, it was felt that this was for the moment sufficient precaution.

Course Materials

Courses that are ready

1. Age Determination of Marine Fish (English)

2. Larval Rearing(Rotifers), Larval Rearing (Phytoplankton), Larval Reading (Artemia)
   (Portuguese)- English version still to come

3. Introduction to the Marine Environment (English and Greek)

1. Marine Biodiversity - end of January 2003
2. Endocrine disruptive chemicals (Greek)
3. Tropical Ecology materials

Dissemination plans

Mr Hough (FEAP) outlined his dissemination plans, starting with the ORION newsletters which will be put online, in the  www.aquamedia.org website. Marine science Newsletters could be targeted (EAS, AQUAMEDIA, MARS, MARIS, EELANZUAL) as well as ICT and language ones (HERMES, PROACTE) as well as national ones.

Dissemination plans

The meeting ended with a Steering Group meeting, with Professor Davenport, Professor Eleftheriou and Dr. Papathanassiou, who drew up a timetable and Action Plan.

ORION People

Professor Anastasios Eleftheriou

Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Crete, Greece.(1986-2003). Founder and previous Director of the Institute of Marine Biology of Crete (1988-1998). held national and international committee membership(Royal Society (IBP, India); CIESM; IOC; UNEP; MEDMARIS; MAST-COM Committee DG XII; MARS. His scientific interests include many aspects of marine environmental health: the structure and function of marine ecosystems; stability and production of marine ecosystems; ecological and biological aspects of pollution impacts; coastal zone management; biodiversity and climatic changes; interactions of aquaculture and the environment. His 25 transnational EU projects include responsibility for the production of scientific guidelines for BEP and review of European regulatory and institutional monitoring (MARAQUA); organizer of AQUACHALLENGE, the 3-day Workshop in Beijing (April 2002); steering group member, ASEM project, organisation of ASEM workshops in the Philippines (education) and Athens (food safety, legislation) (2005).

  EU special posts: 1995-99: Evaluator for the Training, Mobility & Research (TMR) Committee. 1998-99.Member of the TMR Review panel. 2000-to date.Vice Chairman, Marie Curie Evaluation Panel. 2000-2001: Expert Adviser in External Advisory Group for 5th Framework (Water & Marine Ecosystems): 1999-2000: Member of 5-year Assessment Panel, INCO.

International Appointments: 1971 to 1981: Royal Society (UK) International Biology Programme, India; W.H.O. (Environmental Pollution Control Project Athens); UNESCO (Biological Oceanography in Athens, Greece). 1981-86: Chairman, North Sea Benthos Working Group ICES(International Council for the Exploration of the Sea).

Educational Activities

Professor of Marine Biology, University of Crete; Lecturer in Marine Biology and Environmental Sciences at Aberdeen University, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, University of St. Andrew’s, Scotland

Supervision of undergraduate, post-graduate (Master) and doctoral (Ph.D) theses in British, Irish and Greek universities

Appointments as External Examiner in all the above-mentioned universities, as well as University College, Galway, Ireland.

Since 1987, National Coordinator of ERASMUS and SOCRATES networks involving over 24 European universities, responsible for more than 100 student exchanges.

Publications: Editor of 4 Proceedings Volumes; editor of 2 books on marine biological methods and techniques. Author and co-author of more than 80 papers published in international journals and books. Author of more than 35 Research Reports produced and circulated in recognised series.

Sofia Goulala

Chief Librarian since 1975 at the National Centre for Marine Research in Athens, took her Bachelor’s degree in Librarianship, followed by a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration. She is very experienced in the use and application of electronic resources, with up-to-date knowledge of current and emerging information technologies. Her range of skills and services  also includes the provision of reference services and the production of bibliographies on environmental issues. In addition to her sterling and pioneering work as a scientific librarian, Mrs Goulala has also taught bibliography in science for two years at the School of Librarianship.

She has many years’ experience in organizing seminars on Aquatic Information for university students at Greek universities. She has been a long-term member of IAMSLIC (International Association of Marine Sciences Libraries and Information Centers) and EURASLIC (European Aquatic Sciences Libraries and Information Centres) in which she played a leading role, becoming its President from 1998-2000.

She is a member of lead Information Management organisations: GEMIM (Group of Experts in Marine Information Management) of IOC, UNESCO; member of the Advisory Board of the International Database ASFA Aquatic Sciences Fisheries Abstracts), responsible for the Input Center for the Greece. She has made a major contribution to the following projects: EUROPEAN Directory of Marine Research Resources (Glodir), IOC. Responsible for the Greek scientists input, 1998; UNIVERSE, funded by the EC for the direct access to Libraries’ Union Catalogues, from 1998 to 1999. EURASLIC Directory of Aquatic Libraries and Information Centers. IOC. Responsible for the update of  the database, 1999. Coordinator of the NCMR Library’s Support (the installation of an advanced information system) from 1997 to 2000.