Brown, M.

Nieuwenhuysen, P.

Pikula, L.

Pissierssens, P.

Reed, G.

Rommens, W.

Open Marine Archive

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 282
remote sensing, with emphasis on high impact weather, climate and 
hydrometeorology. Taking into account evolving user requirements, the 
focus of VLab activities could be widened to support training related to 
ocean applications, hydrology and water management. 
 
OCEANTEACHER: A VERSATILE TOOL FOR OCEAN DATA 
AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT TRAINING 
Peter Pissierssens, W. Rommens, M. Brown, G. Reed, L. Pikula, P. 
Nieuwenhuysen 
IOC Project Office for IODE, Intergovernmental Oceanographic 
Commission (of UNESCO), Belgium 
E-mail: 34p.pissierssens@unesco.org 
 
OCEANTEACHER: МНОГОСТОРОННЕЕ СРЕДСТВО ДЛЯ 
ПОДГОТОВКИ КАДРОВ В ОБЛАСТИ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ 
ДАННЫМИ И ИНФОРМАЦИЕЙ ОБ ОКЕАНЕ 
Петер Писсерссенс, У. Ромменс, М.Броун, Г.Рид, Л.Пикула, 
П.Ниёвенхузен 
Офис МОК проекта МООД, Межправительственной 
океанографической комиссии (ЮНЕСКО), Бельгия 
The International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange 
(IODE) Programme of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic 
Commission (IOC) has a long tradition of providing technical training to 
data centres and marine libraries in Member States. As there are no 
formal academic curricula that focus on oceanographic data 
management, such training has been mainly passed on “from generation 
to generation” within the data centres. Through IODE, this national 
expertise has been shared internationally through ad hoc training courses 
or internships, resulting in a global network of 80 National 
Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). A technological “explosion” 
started with the Internet and World Wide Web in the early 1990s and 
has totally changed the operational processes of data centres and marine 
libraries. The combination of spectacular reductions in the cost of 
computer hardware -- combined with the availability of the Internet -- 
has offered many opportunities but also created many challenges, one 
being the need to re-train staff. A challenge to the IODE programme and 
to the NODCs has been the capacity to train and maintain a sufficient 
number of staff in each Member State. Experience during the past 20 
years has shown that retention of staff is a major problem, especially in 
developing countries as competent and trained staff are often 
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“headhunted” by the private sector or they move to higher positions in 
their institutional hierarchy. It was thus found that within a few years 
staff at NODCs had changed completely and training had to be 
organized again. To face this challenge, as well as to address the 
continuing evolution in technologies, the IODE programme embarked 
on applying new technologies in its training programme. This started in 
2000 with the “IODE ResourceKit” and has led to the OceanTeacher 
project, which started in 2003. The core concept of OceanTeacher is to 
develop an “encyclopedia” of knowledge related to ocean data and 
information management, as well as course outlines. This combination is 
used first and foremost during classroom-based courses but can also be 
used for distance learning. The success of the approach has led to the 
OceanTeacher Academy (OTA). This project, funded by the 
Government of Flanders (Kingdom of Belgium) provides an annual 
teaching programme including up to 10 courses, taught at the IOC 
Project Office for IODE in Oostende, Belgium, and sometimes also at 
regional sites. The regular cycle of standardized courses on 
oceanographic data and information management has a global 
geographic focus in terms of audience and provides the most up-to-date 
expertise to students. The courses are aimed at NODC staff but 
increasingly also at University students who otherwise would never be 
exposed to the importance of professional data and information 
management. Such courses are now also taught at Universities or 
Postgraduate courses. In order to address the long-term impact of the 
training effort, emphasis is increasingly placed on train-the-trainer and 
distance learning. In this regard it is worthnoting that all lectures are 
now (starting March 2010) video-recorded and made available through 
the OceanTeacher web site. Experiments with live videocasting (and 
allowing interaction through chat-type technology) are also planned. It is 
expected that the use of these advanced multimedia techniques will 
substantially increase the student audience and therefore contribute to a 
more sustained impact of IODE’s training efforts. 


OceanTeacher: a versatile tool for ocean data and information management training

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