Environmental Data Online – Design of a Web Based Environmental Information System for Public Services

Abstract

The article attends the development of a web based environmental information system (EIS) useful for public environmental communication in practice. The motive of this project is to transpose the laws and guidelines for establishing a public access on environmental issues by building an internet portal for environment and health with the name “Umweltdaten online” (UDO) on: www.umweltdaten-online.de. UDO was developed to close knowledge gaps in environmental and hygienic issues between experts, administration and citizens as well. Even commercial users are welcome. UDO is designed to handle interactive communications between users. This includes an intuitional and a target group orientated user interface (front-end and back-end) for different user groups. The construction is based on common development rules for EIS and software development guides. Strategies from different faculties were combined: environmental sciences / -informatics, information technologies (IT), media didactics, media psychology, media design, media producing, and project management. Special environmental focuses are: classical environmental issues with news and articles, environmental law, environmental links, environmental literature, environmental researches, environmental projects, certificated environmental organisations, environmental communications between users, user information about experts, organisations, administrations and all interested people, youth included. The core system for UDO based on ”CPG Dragonfly CMS”, an open source content-management-system (CMS) with a portal character.