This FAQ serves to provide the new user
with information about UWIN and provides an introduction to our network.
Please take a few minutes to read over this material.
UWIN is the Universities Water Information Network. UWIN's mission
is envisioned as helping to bring water resources to the information
superhighway and the superhighway to water professionals. UWIN went
on-line with a gopher server (gopher.uwin.siu.edu) in August 1993
and a Web server in 1994. UWIN is located at UCOWR Headquarters at
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Who provides this resource?
UWIN was established by the Universities
Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) under a grant from the U.S.
Geologic Survey. UCOWR maintains a home page on UWIN where you can
learn more about this professional organization. Access to certain
services of UWIN is restricted to members of UCOWR.
What information does UWIN offer?
UWIN offers a wide variety of water related information.
These include:
Announcements
Databases
Conference Listings
Employment Listings
This information is continually being updated and expanded, so
access UWIN periodically to see what's new.
What is contained in the Announcements Directory?
The Announcements Directory contains information on employment opportunities
in water resources (academic, non-academic, and student), a calendar
of water events (conferences, calls for proposals, call for papers)
and press releases from various water related organizations..
What is contained in the UWIN Databases?
Our Databases Directory contains the USGS WRSIC Research Abstracts,
the Expert Directory, the Consulting Firms directory, NIWR Publications
Database, and a list of water and waste-water utilities around the
world. Users can search over some of these databases by keyword.
How can I find the information I need?
As UWIN's information resources grow, so does the task of keeping
track of it all. We have several features to help you locate information
that interests you. First, you can search over UWIN's document titles
by keyword. Secondly, we have a UWIN Table of Contents that serves
as a guide to our system. Thirdly, all of our major databases have
searching indexes to locate information by user provided keyword.
All of these features increase the efficiency of your UWIN visits.
What is the UWIN Notices section for?
The UWIN Notices hyperlink contains announcements and news from the
staff to our users. These will include What's New postings, technical
announcements, on-line conference announcements, etc. Users should
periodically read these notices.
Who are UWIN's users?
UWIN's users are a varied group of water professionals and are increasingly
coming in from around the world. We maintain detailed statistics if
you want to learn more about users and usage of UWIN.
Can I or my organization submit information to
UWIN?
However, note that posting of certain types of
information may be limited to UCOWR members. We have several electronic
fill- out forms that users can submit to add information to our databases.
Other information can be submitted by e-mail, fax, or postal mail.
What if I have comments or suggestions?
We strive to make UWIN both useful and user-friendly. We value your
comments in our endeavor. The home page contains a comments and suggestions
form that you can fill out to let us know how we are doing, what we
can be doing better, and what new things we should think about doing.
Your feedback guides the development of UWIN.
The UWIN staff does not have time to answer specific water resources
questions that you might have so please do not ask us to do your
research for you. We provide this information so that users can
access it. Such informational questions are best placed on the appropriate
WaterTalk discussion forum.
