FishBase Lessons Learned Rainer Froese IfM-GEOMAR December 2004

Overview What is FishBase Some statistics on usage Lessons learned Future plans

Some Statistics What is not used is useless With modern web statistic software there is no excuse for not knowning your users

About 10,000 visitors per month

Under The Hood FishBase Structure

Under The Hood FishBase Structure From DataEase to MS Access to MySQL to ??? From HTML to Cold Fusion to PHP to CMS to ??? 5 mirrors around the world for load-balancingwww.ZoneEdit.com

General Principles Keep it simple Yes-Attitude Be opportunistic Give more credit than was expected Deal with errors –Expose data –Invite, accept and act on criticism –Compare data –Use your data

Design Principles Do not over-normalize Avoid (hide) codes Dedicated fields vs free-text fields `Science and Data first´ approach Transparency (reference, entered, modified, date) Strategic decisions about data (comparative advantage, importance, future maintenance)

Future Plans Complete coverage and content Improve mapping Add more analytical tools Move to mobile devices Do FishBase for all aquatic species?

Thanks to the FishBase Team

Thanks to the FishBase Consortium

Thanks to our Donors

Thanks for Listening Questions?