Faye Anderson and Greg A. Wade , Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

Historical Background

The idea for a water resources information server on the Internet was spearheaded by Gen. Gerald G. Galloway and the Board of Directors of the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR). In 1992, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) sponsored the project as part of its then proposed National Water Information Clearinghouse. The USGS provided annual funding and some basic hardware to establish the Universities Water Information Network (UWIN). UWIN is housed at the UCOWR Headquarters on the campus of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Two half-time staff are employed to administer the network.
An Advisory Council was created incorporating USGS personnel, UCOWR delegates, and others with interests in water resources and information technology. UWIN's mission was envisioned as helping to bring water resources to the information superhighway and the superhighway to water resource professionals. UWIN has been designed to complement the on-line efforts of the USGS, the other federal agencies, the state water institutes, and other groups on the Internet with water related interests. UWIN seeks to undertake projects that these other groups will not or cannot implement.
UWIN went on-line in August of 1993. In the interest of providing the widest possible service, UWIN was made available both over the Internet and by modem. At that time, Internet access was available by using gopher or telnet. Over the course of the first eight months on-line, several users suggested the need for a bulletin board system (bbs) as some existed at the time but were typically available only via modem. UWIN's bbs, WaterTalk, went on-line in April of 1994.
1994 also saw many innovations in Internet discovery software. Most notably, Mosaic (and now Netscape) made surfing the World Wide Web (WWW) extremely easy. The UWIN staff created a Web server in response to this change in technology. UWIN is currently maintaining its gopher and Web servers, as well as modem access. While we plan to continue supporting gopher and dial-in access for the immediate future, the Web server is quickly becoming our dominant focus. The World Wide Web is extremely easy for users to navigate and offers many exciting features such as graphics, sound, and full motion video.
Approximately 3,000 connections are made monthly to the UWIN gopher server with 35,000 files being opened. Well over 120,000 hits are made monthly on the UWIN WWW server and this figure has been rising quite rapidly as the WWW grows in popularity.

UWIN's Information Bases
Since UWIN went on-line in 1993, its databases and the types of information available have grown and evolved. UWIN's resources currently include:
Water Resources on the Internet. This directory is a listing of all water related information available on-line. The Web listing contains hotlinks to all the sites plus the ability to perform keyword searches over their descriptions. Users who know of a water related site not currently listed in this UWIN directory can use a WWW fill-out form to add it to this listing.

USGS WRSIC Research Abstracts.
The USGS provided their WRSIC database for inclusion on UWIN. This database contains abstracts of water resources research published in journals (English language) since 1967. UWIN staff indexed this database making it fully searchable using user-provided keywords.

Expert Directory.
UCOWR had historically maintained a small listing of water resource experts for its own use. The UWIN staff has updated and expanded this directory to include several thousand water professionals. The memberships of most major professional organizations were surveyed for voluntary inclusion in the Expert Directory. Each expert listing includes contact information, including some e-mail addresses, and an individual's areas of expertise. In 1995 a fill-out form was created so that water resources professionals could add their information to the database via the WWW. A copy of this form is then forwarded to the originator for verification, as well as to a UWIN staff member. If no corrections are received by the UWIN staff from the submitter, the entry is added to the database within a week or two.

Water Organizations.
This file incorporates organizational information (purpose, membership, etc.) of various water groups. Any water-related organization can submit their information for inclusion. For example, the National Institutes for Water Resources (NIWR) listing includes their publication directory, public information directory, and state institute expert listings. UCOWR also maintains its information on-line, including its delegate listing, annual meeting announcements, graduate education directory, Water Resources Update, etc.

Calendar of Water Events.
The Calendar maintains information on water related conferences, workshops, short courses, etc. This database has an on-line fill-out form so that Web users can add information on their organization's activities to the Calendar. Unlike Expert Directory inclusion, events are added to the database immediately. This allows for timely posting of your events. Events may by viewed by month or order of submission, or searched by keyword. Gopher and modem users can view events submitted on the WWW, but they are unable to electronically make submissions.

Employment Opportunities.
This directory is divided into academic, non-academic, and graduate student opportunities. Water related jobs, internships, fellowships, etc. are listed to help centralize the exchange of information related to career development opportunities.

Press Releases.
Any group can send their water-related press releases and other timely announcements to UWIN for posting.

Conclusion

We hope that this gives you a good overview of the UWIN system and its development. Given the inherent nature of the Internet, any information server is in a perpetual state of change. This evolution is essentially user driven, with the rapidly changing technologies providing new opportunities to serve user needs. The meeting of users' and potential users' needs will ultimately determine the success of any particular network and the Internet as a whole. This is especially true in light of the phenomenal proliferation of WWW sites.
UWIN strives to provide useful information to water professionals. We are currently working with several of the water professional organizations to coordinate our on-line information efforts. We welcome any and all comments about the UWIN system. Your comments, suggestions, ideas, and criticisms are needed to maximize the potential that this exciting technology holds for understanding, managing and sustaining our water resources. Water resource professionals must help influence how this tool will be used in light of our many goals.

Reference

Anderson, Faye and Greg A. Wade. 1995. Developing an Information Server: UWIN. Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers Water Resources Planning and Management Division.
Faye Anderson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography and Environmental Planning at Southern Illinois University. She worked for UCOWR and UWIN as a Water Information Specialist from 1993 till 2000.
Greg A. Wade has a Master's Degree in computer science and was the Computer Information Specialist for UWIN from 1993 till 1999.

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