Creating the Flow: expanding the role of the
Aquatic Commons
presented by Stephanie C. Haas,
Jan Heckman, and Lisa Raymond
Presented at SAIL 2008
Panama, Republic of Panama
April 14-16, 2008
Aquatic Commons Initiative
is a model for digital resource sharing between
stakeholders in the marine/aquatic information world.
Its integrative architecture accommodates
researchers and research institutions at all
technological levels.
History of the Aquatic Commons Initiative
2005
The Aquatic Commons Initiative was introduced to the ASFA
Board and IAMSLIC at the Rome meeting.
2006
The Aquatic Commons Implementation Task Force was charge
witH implementing the "Aquatic Commons." Task Force’s
report was submitted in August 2006. Discussion and voting
occurred at the annual meeting in Portland.
IAMSLIC signed the contract for the development of an EPrints
based repository with the Florida Center for Library
Automation.
Fred Merceur of IFREMER announced the development of the
AVANO harvester.
An Aquatic Commons Board appointed to oversee the
development of the repository.
2007
•
Aquatic Commons repository is built on version 3
of EPrints. Goes live in August and deposits
begin in September.
• AVANO out of IFREMER is designated as the official harvester for
IAMSLIC. Google and OAIster also harvest records, and
repository is registered at Registry of Open Access
Repositories (ROAR) and OpenDOAR Directory of Open
Access Repositories
• Web site is created off the IAMSLIC home page at
http://www.iamslic.org/index.php?section=175
• ASFA Board allocates $28 000 dollars to help build digital
collections.
• Late 2007, three working groups are formed to help
further the Aquatic Commons mission: Collection Development
Working Group, Metadata Working Group, and a Tech Group.
2008
• Recruitment of content begins
• Citation format display is modified for monographs
• Issuing agency is added as a “branding” field similar
to communities in DSpace
Active contributors include:
California Department of Fish and Game
Fisheries Society of Nigeria
Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Florida Geological Survey
Florida Marine Research Laboratory
Florida Sea Grant College Program
International Collective in Support of Fishworkers
National Fisheries Resources Research Centre, Uganda
National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research, Nigeria
Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific
Oceanographic Engineering Program, Department of Civil and Coastal
Engineering, University of Florida
University of Botswana. Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre.
United Nations Environment Programme. Mediterranean Action Plan
Deposits into AC
(n=909 as of April 10, 2008)
Statistics December 2007- January 2008
• 1,919 unique IP addresses visited; an average 169 users per day
• 2,500 downloads
Title
Downloads
Checklists of Selected Shallow-Water Marine Invertebrates of
Florida
413
Aquaculture Asia, vol. 9, no. 1, January - March 2004.
260
Aquaculture Asia, Vol. 12, no. 2, April-June 2007
204
Florida's East Coast Inlets: shoreline effects and recommended
action.
192
Studies on the use of sulfites to control shrimp melanosis
(Blackspot)
147
Entendiendo, Evaluando y Solucionando los Problemas de
Contaminación de Luz en Playas de Anidamiento de
Tortugas Marinas.
110
Bioeconomic modelling of hard clam growout in Florida: the
replacement decision.
106
Statistics January 2008 - March 2008 update
Visits from 4,612 unique IP addresses; daily
average between 100 to about 600 visits
Total # of visits = 11,649; 10,192 of these visits
were not referrals or links from other sites like
Google
* Over 1,000 searches in Google led users to
aquacomm.fcla.edu
* the top non-search linking sites were enaca.org,
www.irfremer.fr, eprints.org, agnic.org,
iamslic.org
Navigating the site
Most browses were by subject categories (50% of all
browsing), followed by year (25%) and then the "latest
additions" category (25%).
167 Simple searches conducted within the repository search
interface
197 Advanced Searches conducted within repository search
interface
Record #125 was the most-viewed object metadata record
(52 views)
Florida's East Coast Inlets: shoreline effects and
recommended action.
Aquaculture Asia Oct. 2007 issue was the most downloaded
paper (89 downloads)
http://aquacomm.fcla.edu
Repository purpose and scope
 Facilitate exchange of scientific research related to
marine/aquatic environments.
 Build content based on born digital and legacy documents
produced by IAMSLIC member organizations and
their partners.
 Offer repository services where local, stable IT support is
lacking (or where non-OAI compliant services exist).
 The contents of Aquatic Commons goes beyond the scope
of the Open Access which focuses on capturing the scientific
and research literature that authors give to the world without
expectation of payment.
 Long-term goal is to assist in providing access to legacy
collections.
Relationship to OceanDocs
Aquatic Commons is one of a number of thematic digital
marine and aquatic repositories. It is
complementary to OceanDocs, which is supported by
the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(IOC) specifically to collect, preserve and facilitate
access to all research output from members of their
Ocean Data and Information Networks (ODINS).
The records of both repositories are harvested by Avano
which aggregates records from marine and aquatic
repositories around the World.
Creating the Flow:
expanding the role of the Aquatic Commons
Reasons to share through Aquatic Commons Initiative
 Open access materials are used more, both in terms of citations
and downloads.
 NIH, Wellness Trust, and other governmental agencies have taken
the position that publicly funded programs should make the
results of those programs freely available to the public.
This interpretation is rapidly gaining global acceptance.
 Malcolm Getz of Vanderbilt reported “a sevenfold increase in use
of the MedLine Index followings its move to open access and 30%
use by non-professionals, which clearly suggests that there can
be a significant impact beyond traditional subscription users…”
 Aquatic Commons repository is OAI compliant permitting service
providers to harvest and broaden access.
Harvested by:
AVANO
OAIster
Google
Listed with:
• ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repostories
http://roar.eprints.org/)
• SCIRUS http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/advanced/index.jsp
• OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access
Repositories http://www.opendoar.org/)
• University of Illinois OAI-PMH Data Provider Registry
http://gita.grainger.uiuc.edu/registry/details.asp?id=2218
Email account
Aquatic Commons Board now has
a Google mail account:
AquaticCommons@gmail.com
Searching and depositing