What's new on CORDIS? CORDIS of course!
CORDIS, the European Commission's official web-based source of information on research and development, has a new look. The CORDIS service, now coming up to its tenth year in operation, is more user friendly and easier to navigate, even for new users, says the CORDIS team. The new structure helps the user to quickly find information from some 300,000 pages on the World Wide Web and is available in English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. While the old service was attracting more and more users, it was clear to the CORDIS team that many people who frequently visit CORDIS limit their searches to certain services and are unaware of the plethora of information accessible through the CORDIS gateway. 'The new approach makes it more transparent: Even for new users', says Bernd Niessen, a member of the CORDIS management team. 'Both expert and novice users will find it easier to find things of relevance', he continued. CORDIS was launched in November 1990, after a Commission Decision to establish a service to disseminate the results coming from EU-funded research projects. It operated through a database system, which took some skill for its few hundred users to navigate. But the advent of the World Wide Web and the subsequent launch of CORDIS on it in May 1994, opened up new possibilities for the dissemination of information on EU research and innovation to a wider public. The revamped CORDIS format is now quite different to the original. Where once users had to understand how to manipulate computer language if they needed to fetch some information from the database, the expert user, says Bernd Niessen, can find most information in one or two clicks of their mouse. From the new home page, users can now gain a more comprehensive and structured view of just what is available from CORDIS, Bernd Niessen says. 'Expert users will have a much broader view of what's available and novice users now have a chance to understand what EU research and policy is all about', he adds. For example, from the 'Explore' button on the new home page, users have access to guided tours of the Framework programme, success stories and articles about other research and results, as well as the Council Presidency web service, the Member States web service and further useful information for innovators. 'This set up means it is not too difficult to go from being a novice user of CORDIS to an expert', Mr Niessen says proudly. While the new design has made many of the services on CORDIS more easily accessible, it has also provided the CORDIS development team with an opportunity to add new features. CORDIS now includes an A-Z and thematic index of its contents as well as a glossary of the jargon commonly used by the European Commission in documentation on the RTD Framework Programmes. A global search also allows users to search the entire service (databases, web pages and full text documents) for the mention of a topic or key word of their choice. 'While access to the CORDIS services is free of charge, users do need to register for some of them for technical purposes', Mr Niessen advises. But this has benefits, he continues, because it allows users to set up their own personal search profile for the databases and to use the Rapidus electronic service to alert them of any updates to the pages that interest them. And in addition to all this, anyone interested in keeping up to date with what's going on in the EU RTD arena might also find it useful to see that the latest headlines from CORDIS news scroll away on the new CORDIS home page. Meanwhile, CORDIS news itself has also had a major face lift and now has its very own magazine-style front page, where the most recent and important stories of the day are highlighted, saving users valuable time searching the news database (which also, rest assured, remains intact). And there is also now a specialised press service - separate to the CORDIS news service - provided to help the media report on specialised issues in the EU RTD arena. The further development of CORDIS now seems set to continue: 'We have to think about our future', says Bernd Niessen. 'The structure of the new home page allows us to structure everything in CORDIS on a generic basis. Now we don't have to start at a specific level. And on top of this, the 'find', 'explore' and 'today' areas of CORDIS let us bring in new ideas at the gateway to the services on CPRDIS and beyond, without bringing in a whole new structure. 'We are always listening to user feedback, and thinking how we could do better, what is missing and what is still relevant on the service', he continues. In 1999, 900,000 identified users visited the CORDIS service, and the CORDIS team estimates that this is just a fraction of the true number of users. The CORDIS management sincerely hopes that the European research community will continue to flock to CORDIS to find out about EU research and development and that the new-look service takes a step closer to meeting researchers' and innovators' needs and demands.