New Portal for Ocean Science Summer Schools

Last August, a group of organizations that sponsor capacity development activities related to ocean science met at the University of Bremen (Germany) to share our current activities and discuss how we could work better together on capacity development. One need that was identified was for a portal for ocean science summer schools. Many of these schools take place each year, but there is no single Web site where graduate students and early career scientists can go to find out what is available. The International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) offered to set up and maintain such a portal, the Ocean Summer Schools site, which was recently launched (see http://www.oceansummerschools.org/). Although we still plan to make some changes in how the information is presented, the site is operational and we are seeking new listings and new users. For projects and organizations that frequently sponsor summer schools and want to be able to list your summer schools directly, please contact me and I will forward your message to the IODE Web master to set up a user account for you. For those projects that only occasionally conduct summer schools, I can post the information for you. I have entered into the database summer schools that I have found out about over the past month and we have registered several organizational users. Please note that we will change the label of “Organizing Institution” to “Listing Institution”. We are using a rather loose definition of summer schools, including short courses in any season of the year, training cruises, and longer courses. The site is co-sponsored by IODE/IOC, SCOR, and the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO).

For more information please contact:

Ed Urban, Ph.D.
Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research
College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment
Robinson Hall
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716 USA
Tel: +1-302-831-7011/7013
Fax: +1-302-831-7012
E-mail: Ed.Urban@scor-int.org
Web: www.scor-int.org