Internet based maritime information infrastructure
The preliminary results of a project for the development of an Internet-based maritime information infrastructure (MARINFO), funded within the EU's specific RTD programme in the field of Information Technologies (ESPRIT), are now available on the World Wide Web. The project, which will last for a total of two years, started in September 1997, and involves a group of ten European research partners under the leadership of the German shipbuilding research centre (FDS). After one year of information analysis, prototype development and testing, the MARINFO system is publicly available. The system constitutes the following main elements: - MarDATA: supplying essential information for industries related to organisations, companies, literature and research projects. A special service is also provided allowing interested parties to post information on maritime conference, workshops and exhibitions on the Website; - MarWORK: this service offers a virtual meeting and conference facility which is based on special software, and allows user groups to arrange protected Intranet working environments to arrange meetings, present and discuss documents, and store results; - MarEXPERT: this provides a data bank supported search engine for individual experts in the maritime industries. The service provided is also interactive, meaning that experts can register themselves.