Projects - EDMERP
Marine Environmental Research Projects - EDMERP
The European Directory of Marine Environmental Research Projects (EDMERP) covers research projects for a wide range of disciplines including marine meteorology; physical, chemical and biological oceanography; sedimentology; marine biology and fisheries; environmental quality; coastal and estuarine studies; marine geology and geophysics etc. Research projects are catalogued in EDMERP as factsheets or abstracts with their most relevant aspects. The primary objective is to support users in identifying interesting research activities and in connecting them to involved research managers and project results like data, models, publications, etc. across Europe. Useful features of the database are e.g. that also coastal and estuarine research projects are identified, including their data collection activities, and that grey literature is identified.
EDMERP was initiated in the EU Sea-Search project. As part of its successor project EU SeaDataNet it is being extended in projects coverage to all 35 countries, participating in SeaDataNet. Also recently a major upgrade has been finalised: the EDMERP user interface and online Content Management System have been upgraded to Version 1, which is better in line with the other SeaDataNet directories and makes use of the comon vocabularies, that have been introduced for SeaDataNet.
NODC is partner for the Netherlands and coordinates the national collation and maintenance of EDMERP entries by the NODC member institutes.
The EDMERP directory can be queried and browsed by users. Users can specify a combination of search criteria. The resulting entries, matching the query, are presented in a browse list, which indicates the number selected and allows for browsing between the listed results. This browse list can be sorted by a number of key fields. Additional details per entry can be viewed and the user can skip from one entry to another. The names of the involved organisation and the national collator are listed with hyperlinks, which link to the European Directory of Marine Organisations (EDMO) to present the full address and profile description of the specific organisation.
Maintenance and formats
The compilation and maintenance of entries for EDMERP is coordinated by the partners of the SeaDataNet network, who contact and communicate with institutes in their countries to gather and to ensure up-to-date information on important marine research projects and about addresses and profiles of related institutes. NODC coordinates the EDMERP maintenance by institutes from the Netherlands. This is done by means of a dedicated online EDMERP Content Management System (CMS). The NODC can set-up subaccounts for institutes in its country, with their own logon details, so that institutes can add and edit their own project records. However the NODC is responsible for validating all modifications and new entries, performed by local institutes, before making these available to users via the EDMERP user interface. Institutes have to indicate that a record is ready for validation. In that case the records appear in the overview of the NODC for validation and acceptance.
Alternatively institutes can deliver new entries and modifications of existing entries via XML file exchange. Therefore a new entry tool has been developed, MIKADO, for stand-alone use. For purposes of standardisation and harmonisation with other metadatabases within SeaDataNet and NODC the EDMERP V1 XML schema and XML exchange format have been formulated using tags from the ISO19115 metadata standard. The EDMERP XML format makes use of the Common Vocabularies, that have been initiated within SeaDataNet and that are kept operational via Web Services and a User client. By using the ISO tags and common vocabularies interoperability with the other metadatabases is ensured. The MIKADO tool works with the revised CSR V1 XML format and makes use of the SeaDataNet common vocabularies.