• 1: About
  • 1.1: Location
  • 1.2: People
    • 1.2.1: Advisory Committee
    • 1.2.2: GWRI Staff
    • 1.2.3: Associated Faculty
  • 1.3: Contact Us
  • 1.4: Sitemap
  • 1.5: test
  • 1.6: test2
• 2: Research
  • 2.1: Research at GWRI
  • 2.2: Sponsored by GWRI
  • 2.3: Call for Proposals
  • 2.5: test3
• 3: Publications
  • 3.1: Journal Articles
  • 3.2: Theses
  • 3.3: Technical Reports
• 4: Education
  • 4.1: Water Resources Programs
  • 4.2: Short Courses
  • 4.3: Training Workshops
• 5: Conferences
  • 5.1: Georgia Water Resources Conference
  • 5.2: Previous GWRC Proceedings
    • 5.2.1: GWRC 2007
    • 5.2.2: GWRC 2005
    • 5.2.3: GWRC 2003
    • 5.2.4: GWRC 2001
    • 5.2.5: GWRC 1999
    • 5.2.6: GWRC 1997
    • 5.2.7: GWRC 1995
    • 5.2.8: GWRC 1993
    • 5.2.9: GWRC 1991
    • 5.2.10: GWRC 1989
  • 5.3: Specialty Workshops
• 6: Jobs
  • 6.1: Academic Positions
  • 6.2: Professional Positions
  • 6.3: Post an Academic position
  • 6.4: Post a Professional position
• 9: Discussion Fora
• 10: Downloads
  • 10.1: Software
  • 10.2: Presentations
  • 10.3: Publications
  • 10.4: Login
  • 10.5: Register
  • 10.6: Update Profile / Logout
• 15: test one col

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GWRI Website Upgrade Article

GWRI Website Upgrade

Introduction:

During FY 2002, the GWRI website at www.gwri.org has been re-designed to better inform the academic and professional communities of on-going research activities and technology transfer and educational opportunities.  The website provides comprehensive information on research projects, investigators, publications, software, proceedings of the Georgia Water Resources Conferences, continuing education and employment opportunities, useful links to water related and partner organizations, and a calendar of important water resources events in Georgia.   

Structure and Features:

The GWRI website is organized into the following sections:

1. About – This section holds information on the establishment, location, and contact information for GWRI.  Further, it contains listings of the GWRI Advisory Board, staff, and associated faculty.  Each person associated with GWRI is listed with a short description of his or her research interests and a link to a more in-depth personal web page.  Vitae web pages for GWRI staff members are housed on the site and describe in detail their work at GWRI.

2. Research – The research section describes the research projects conducted by GWRI staff and associated faculty since 1997.  Projects are subcategorized according to whether they were conducted by GWRI staff or were sponsored by GWRI and conducted by associated faculty.  The GWRI staff projects are further sub-categorized according to their geographic focus: Georgia, the United States, or the World.  An archive of all GWRI research projects since 1964 is planned and will be online soon.

3. Publications & Other Research Products – GWRI's research and technology transfer activities produce many different research products including journal articles, conference proceedings, student theses, project technical reports, and software.  This section of the website provides access to all of these products in a concise and dynamic listing format.

4. Short Courses & Training Workshops –This section lists the educational GWRI efforts. Through the Georgia Tech Continuing Education Department, GWRI offers many professional short courses.   Past and proposed courses are listed and described in detail. To help tailor the course offerings, the website hosts a survey that gathers information about which courses are desired in the professional community.   Also described in this section are GWRI’s technology transfer workshops in the US and abroad.

5. Georgia Water Resources Conference - GWRI is a co-sponsor of the Georgia Water Resources Conference, which brings together water resources researchers, professionals, and citizen groups to discuss important water resources issues for Georgia. This section of the website provides news about the upcoming conference as well as archives of past conference proceedings.

6. Employment Opportunities – The Employment opportunities section lists academic and professional employment opportunities in water resources related fields in Georgia.  Those interested in posting a position can do so through an online form. 

7. Calendar – The calendar section lists interesting upcoming water resources events in Georgia, the United States, and the world. 

Online Products – In addition to the sections above, the web site provides online products such as remotely sensed infrared radiation images of the southeastern US collected at the GWRI Satellite Data Acquisition Facility.

Technology:

The GWRI website is based on a comprehensive database that enables the majority of the site’s pages to be dynamically generated at user request. 

MYSQL/PHP Database Driven Design:

The relational database contains information about all of GWRI staff and associated faculty, the projects they have worked on and their research interests.  Further, the database contains a table of all research projects, publications, short courses, training workshops, and employment opportunities.  These items contain attributes such as the associated investigators, geographic focus, and sponsor.  Customized lists of items pertaining to each GWRI activity are automatically generated using the database structure. 

Cross-referenced items can be tied together so the website user can conveniently view all activities associated with the project in which they are interested.  For example, a given research project page will generate a project description, any associated journal articles, technical reports, software, and any other related items. When a project page is generated, the website queries the database and finds all associated entries with the item being viewed.  The resulting web page contains links to all related items.

Standardized Formatting (CSS):

Through standardized formatting (implemented with Cascading Style Sheets), the appearance of the website is both uniform and easily updated.   This uniformity is important as the website is designed to follow the general Georgia Tech format. This technology facilitates future website updates and enhancements.  This is an important feature in light of future and past projects and activities.