The need for a network

It has been asserted many times over by speakers at the symposium that there is an urgent need for the ongoing exchange of information and for a repository of relevant data. We believe that the proposed Special Interest Network will satisfy that need.

This paper is based on various discussions held in San Francisco and provides a structured approach to initiate and stimulate discussion on future transnational co-operation and information exchange. The occurrence of diasters ignores state and international boundaries, and the magnitude of most disasters stretches resources beyond limits of self-reliance.

Responsible management is based on informed decisions - the better the information available, the better the decisions are likely to be. To achieve this, the relevant managers commonly draw on three sources:

1. well-structured training,
2. readily accessible information, and
3. personal or team experience.

The need for up-to-date information on management options, conservation teatments, case studies and the like cannot be satisfied in a rush by traditional means once a disaster has struck. However, it can be satisfied if an information network has been established which serves all involved and which is fed by a wide range of contributors.

The target audience

The proposed SIN is not intended to replace the skills of professionals, such as building code inspectors or historic architects. On the contrary, it is intended to provide a conceptual framework within which these professionals can share their experiences and access a vast amount of relevant information.

The structure of a Special Interest Network

There is a growing trend in many areas of research towards large-scale projects and studies that involve contributions from many sources (Green 1993a). Also, there is no need for a "publication" to be stored all in one place. For instance, acting independently, many Web sites have put together national or regional guides. Many of these documents, such as the Guide to Australia integrate information from many different sources. In turn, these documents are now themselves being merged to form encyclopaedic information bases, such as the Virtual Tourist.

There are also great advantages in publishing raw data, as well as the conclusions of scientific studies. In many cases, data that are gathered for one purpose can be "recycled" and, combined with other data, add value to related studies.

A Special Interest Network (SIN) is a group of people and/or institutions who collaborate to provide information about a particular subject. The main functions of a SIN fall into the following four headings:

Publication

the SIN publishes information on the specialist topic. Besides articles and books in the traditional sense, publications can also include datasets, images, audio and software. SINs adopt the fundamental principle that the supplier of a piece of information is also the publisher; that is, rather than take (say) data from many different sites and place it all on a single server, each site runs its own server and publishes its own data. The logical endpoint of this trend would be a server on every computer, with every individual user being his/her own publisher!

Virtual Library

the SIN provides users with access to information on the specialist topic. Besides information stored on-site, there are links to relevant information elsewhere.

On-line Services

the SIN might provide relevant services, such as analysing data, to its users.

Communications

the SIN provides a means for people in the field to keep in touch. This might include mailing lists, newsgroups, newsletters and conferences.

SINs consist of a series of participating "nodes" that each contribute to the network's functions. More specifically, the nodes carry one or more of the following:

For research activity, SINs are the modern equivalent of learned societies. Some may even be the communications medium for societies (for example Burdet, 1992). We can also consider SINs as a logical extension of newsgroups and bulletin boards; namely, they aim to provide a complete working environment for their members and users. SINs differ from SIGs ("special interest groups") in two important ways. Firstly, SIGs are usually part of larger organisations. The second, and greater, distinction lies in the use of networks. Whereas a group usually has a focus, SINs are explicitly decentralised.

A good example of a SIN is the European Molecular Biology Network. EMBNet is a special interest network that serves the European molecular biology and biotechnology research community. It consists of nodes operated by biologically oriented centers in different European countries. It features a number of services and activities, especially genomic databases such as EMBL (Cameron, 1988).

The following features characterise most large special interest networks. They also provide guidelines for setting one up.

Need

The SIN serves a need that is not being met by other means, or provides a better (more comprehensive, accurate or reliable) set of data than is available from other sources.

Co-ordination

a co-ordinating centre or syndicate organises the network, receives and processes new entries and communicates relevant news to its users.

Support

There is a body of users who are willing and able to help to establish and manage the network's information activities (managing databases, editing publications, moderating newsgroups, mailing lists, etc.).

Participation

Anyone may contribute items to the information base. Major SINs announce new entries via special newsgroups or mailing lists. Contributors carry out all editing of their entries, including formatting, correcting and updating them.

Access

Anyone may access, copy or use the information at any time. Normally access is via a computing network using a standard protocol.

Standards

(see later) - Contributors must use standard fields and attributes in submissions (for example Croft, 1989). These standards must be well defined and should be publicised as widely as possible. For data, they are often expressed as a submission form (electronic, printed, or both) that is filled in by contributors.

Format

Textual data (including bibliographies, mailing lists, etc.) are normally submitted as ASCII files with embedded tags. The Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) provides a flexible medium for "marking up" information for a variety of purposes. The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is an SGML application, is used for formatting documents for distribution via the World Wide Web. However, there are many advantages in marking up documents using structural tags, rather than HTML's predominantly formatting tags. This practice allows great flexibility in the way servers access information. For instance, equivalent sections (for example, bibliographies) can be automatically extracted from many different files, combined, reformatted and delivered as a Web document. On any particular node, databases can be stored using any database software, provided that a suitable network gateway can be provided. Utilities for SQL/HTML conversion are now widely available, for instance. Images should be in one of the common formats in use, such as GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) or JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group).

Quality control

(see later) - Users need some guarantee that data provided in a database are both valid and accurate. Quality control checks can be applied by database contributors, co-ordinators, and users (see later).

Attribution

Every item of information should include an indication of its contributor. This is essential to the notion that contributions are a form of publication.

Agreements

There is an explicit list of terms and conditions. Typically, users agree to acknowledge the sources and to waive liability for any use they make of the data. Contributors agree to place their data in the public domain. The organisers agree to abide by the usual conditions for publications, such as referring corrections or changes to the contributors. Everyone agrees not to sell or charge for the data.

Automation

as many operations as possible (for example, logging and acknowledging submissions) should be automated (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Stages in the publication of information on a node of a SIN. As many steps as possible should be automated.

Further, more detailed information on Special Interest Networks can be found in Green 1994.

Nodes

The Americas

Given the involvement of the US National Park Service, and the development of the Historic Preservation Training Center at Natchitoches, Lousiana in the management of disaster mitigation measures, it would be appropriate to locate one node at this facility.

The commitment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the preservation of cultural heritage in the face of natural disasters may necessitate the establishment of another node at FEMA in Washington, DC.

Australasia and Oceania

Charles Sturt University (http://www.csu.edu.au/) is implementing SINs to support a wide range of interests, especially in education and research. The University has established a disaster management course and has an active research interest in the implication of natural hazards on cultural as well as environmental resources through The Johnstone Centre

Europe/Africa

To be decided.

Management responsibilities

For instance, an international natural hazard mitigation database project might consist of agreements on the above points by a set or participating sites ("nodes"). Contributors could submit their entries to any node and each node would either "mirror" the others or else provide on-line links to them.

A viable option?

Examples of SINS

Many organisations are adopting the de facto SINs approach as suggested here. For example:

The Biodiversity Information Network (BIN21), which is located at http://www.ftpt.br/bin21/bin21.html

FireNet, with CSU's node at http://www.csu.edu.au/firenet/

Charles Sturt University (http://www.csu.edu.au/) is implementing SINs to support a wide range of interests, especially in education and research.

References:

Burdet, H. M. (1992)

"What is IOPI?" Taxon, 41: 390-392.

Cameron, G. N. (1988)

"The EMBL data library", Nucl. Acids Res., 16: 1865-1867.

Croft, J. R. (1989)

Herbarium information standards and protocols for interchange of data. Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.

Green, D. G. (1993)

"Databasing the world", INQUA - Commission for the Study of the Holocene, Working Group on Data-Handling Methods, 9: 12-17.
[URL. http://life.anu.edu.au/landscape_ecology/inqua.html]

Green, D. G.(1994).

"A Web of SINs - the nature and organization of Special Interest Networks".
[URL http://www.csu.edu.au/links/sin/sin.html]

Spennemann, Dirk H. R. (1995)

"Natural Disaster Mitigation and Cultural Heritage: a course proposal", Presented at Management of disaster mitigation and response programs for historic sites: a dialogue, San Francisco, CA, June 27-29.
[URL. SFO_Course.html]

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Document version:1.0.6
Document created: August 9, 1995
Document last updated: October 23, 1997
Maintained by: © Dirk H. R. Spennemann , e-mail, dspennemann@csu.edu.au