The Geological Society of America (GSA) has been approached by the Biogeosciences Working Group and asked to prepare a proposal to design, build and host an independent, stand-alone Web site in support of the entire biogeoscience community. In Task I, www.biogeoscience.org is envisioned as a conduit through which information would flow to the biogeoscience community from funding agencies, program managers, societies, and others. In Task II, the Web site would be enhanced and expanded to support community building and dialog that will help guide and shape scientific discourse. At this time, GSA is seeking funding for Task I of the project.
Presently, there is no single source of information about biogeoscience funding opportunities, current research, centers of activity and other important resources. There is a need for a clearinghouse, a principle source of information about the biogeosciences. A wealth of information is available, and an easy to use, main source of up-to-date information is needed.
Defining the architecture and constructing the Web site will be the responsibility of a project team composed of members of the Biogeosciences Working Group, GSA staff and a student intern. The project team will conduct most of its work via teleconference and E-mail and may hold face-to-face meetings during scientific meetings attended by members of the team.
In Task I, the Web site would function as an information resource. A wide range of information would be posted, updated frequently, and made compelling with features on research, people or programs. Other content that will pull traffic would be job postings and funding announcements. An important Task I function is search capability that will make the Web site as useful as possible to site visitors. In addition, the site would contain meta tags to ensure that search engines would easily find it.
In Task II, it is envisioned that the Web site would become an interactive, community-building, dialog site. The Working Group has identified three broad topics that it will examine and about which it needs input from the community. Initially, these topics will be the focus of input sought from the community.
GSA is very well qualified to undertake this project for the Working Group with NSF support. GSA has many years of experience with creating and developing useful, easily navigated, and very attractive Web sites. GSA continually adds functionality and interactivity to its own Web site, www.geosociety.org. GSA is thoroughly familiar with the geoscience community and can bring much knowledge about the needs, wants and preferences of the community to the project.
www.biogeosciences.org will serve this emerging science in several ways: it will attract new researchers to the biogeosciences, support those already in the field, and help both the biogeosciences and its scientists flourish.
