Context
DANIS – Information System on Human resources – was defined in the
Environmental Programme for the Danube River Basin and Strategic Action
Plan for the Danube River Basin (SAP). The SAP was adopted during the
meeting of Danube Environment Ministers and the European Commissioner
responsible for the Environment on 6 December 1994 in Bucharest, Romania.
Since April 1995 DANIS was designed and managed by Danube countries within
Data Management Task Force Sub-Group (DMSG) and DANIS System Manager (CEIT
Bratislava).
Objectives
The objectives of DANIS are: to provide an access to available primary
information systems and databases developed (directly or indirectly) for
the needs of the Danube region to act as an information sources to assist
the PCU, the country programme co-ordinators, the International
Secretariat and the International Commission for the Danube River
Convention in their daily tasks to provide relevant and updated
information to the NGO community, to the general public and interested
parties in an efficient way.
Results
The DANIS database provides reference information about environmental
professionals, organisations, events, projects, programmes, terminological
standards, bilateral and multilateral treaties, working groups and
documents related to the Danube Environmental Programme.
The DANIS database is divided in
sub-databases such as:
- databases on persons (lists of
professional involved in the activity related to the Danube River
Environmental Programme and other related environmental problems)
- database on organisations (lists of
governmental bodies, professional organisations, institutes, NGO's,
participating directly or professional involved in activities related
to the Danube River Environmental Programme and other related
environmental problems)
- database on events (lists of the Danube
River Environmental Programme meetings, such as all task force
meetings, subgroup meetings and other related events)
- database legislation (lists on bilateral
and multilateral treaties related to the environmental issues)
- database standards (lists on reference
information on terminological standards related to the environment
issues based on data collected at Austrian Standards Institute,
Vienna)
- database on REC –Regional
Environmental Centre, Szentendre, Hungary - library catalogue
containing records on books, reports, leaflets collected at REC
- database documents containing
bibliographical records on report or other documents collected in the
library of the Danube Programme Coordination Unit, Vienna
- database on working groups, including
professionals, experts and governmental representatives in the Danube
River Environmental Programme
- Database on projects and programmes on
environmental issues in the Danube regions. DANIS is on Internet since
1995. The number of users grew from 200 to current 15000 accesses per
month.
The system acts as an information source
DANIS, as tool of decision-make r s , is used daily by environmentalists,
water specialists, ecologists, NGOs and general public not only from the
Danube countries but also from any part of the world. The system has
incorporated on-line questionnaires for environmental experts,
institutions and events to be entered electronically into DANIS databases.
This tool gives larger potential to encourage environmental co-operation
of environmental and water experts and institutions in the Danube River
Basin.
DANIS is also a perfect tool for supporting
growth of public awareness in the Danube River region. The initial
objectives of DANIS defined in 1995 were overtaken in many aspects, but
mainly in the field of the information technology incorporated into DANIS.
WEBIS-NT software (Client-Server Module for presentation of Micro CDS/ISIS
data on Internet/Intranet) was recognised by IFLA and is recommended for
application in the libraries of the IFLA member states.
Technical characteristics
The DANIS system supports decentralised data entry, and centralised DANIS
data management on PC. Production of DANIS data on CD-ROM has been
achieved as well as the presentation of DANIS data on Internet/Intranet.
Specification of equipment used,
hardware/software requirements:
- PC Pentium,32 MB RAM, WINDOWS-NT 4.0;
- ADEM PLUS (Data Entry Manager)
- IRIS (Search Module for Integrated
retrieval)
- WEBIS-NT (Client Sever Module for
presentation of Micro CDS/ISIS data on Internet/Intranet).
Transferability
DANIS system can be transferred to any UN organizations (UNEP, UNESCO, FAO,
WHO).
DANIS know-how is already applied at UNESCO
for management of International Hydrological Programme and FAO AGRO CATALOGUE
(Slovak input to AGRIS/FAO). DANIS know-how was also
successfully applied in the design of ENWAP Home Page and it is applied in
design the Infoterm Home Page, used for data management on standards and
terminology.
DANIS know-how is applied in ISKO
(International Society of Knowledge Organization) Home Page and could
applicable for libraries and information centres with reference
information.
The system is flexible to accomplish any
specific user requirements.
The complete software package with adoption
of specific user requirements is available for 4350 ECU.
The system is tested for more than two
years within the DANIS project and several other applications accessible
on URLs.: http: www.ceit.sk see
"Internet applications".
DANIS will be further expanded to meet the
increasing needs of the International Commission for the Protection of the
Danube River (ICPDR) in a new database system called DANUBIUS.
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