New Features in COMET's Environmental Satellite Resource Center V2.0

In 2008 the COMET® Program launched an Environmental Satellite Resource Center (known as the ESRC). The website is a searchable, database-driven portal that provides easy access to a wide range of useful information and training materials on environmental satellites. Primarily sponsored by NOAA's geostationary and polar-orbiting satellite programs, the ESRC is a tool for users seeking reliable sources of satellite information, training, and data. Since its initial publication the site has been enhanced annually including a significant update in 2010 to version 2.0 which includes full functionality in Spanish as well as the capability to easily add additional languages. The site is freely available at: http://www.meted.ucar.edu/esrc. Additional contributions to the ESRC in support of all environmental satellites are sought and made on an ongoing basis.

The COMET Program initially developed the site to consolidate and simplify access to reliable, current, and diverse information, training materials, and data associated with environmental satellites. The ESRC currently includes over 500 resources from NRL, CIMSS, CIRA, NASA, VISIT, NESDIS, EUMETSAT, and the WMO, and improves access to the numerous satellite resources available from COMET's MetEd Website. The ESRC is a community site where organizations and individuals around the globe can easily submit their resources via online forms by providing a small set of metadata. The ESRC has always supported submissions in languages other than English, but now the core site pages have also been made available in Spanish. Other major improvements with version 2.0 include database enhancements to make additional translation of the site easier, refining the basic search functionality to search across multiple languages, and adding sort-ability based on language of the resource. The ESRC has now been endorsed as a significant resource for the WMO-CGMS Virtual Laboratory for Training and Education in Satellite Meteorology (VLab) and thus we anticipate international usage, submissions, and resources to expand.

COMET's role in the site continues to be threefold: 1) maintain and improve the site, 2) populate it with our own materials, including smaller, focused learning objects derived from our larger training modules, and 3) provide the necessary quality assurance and monitoring to ensure that all resources are appropriate and well described before being made available.

Our presentation will focus on the new features of version 2.0 as well as demonstrating how to search for and submit resources. For the site to reach its fullest potential, submissions representing diverse interests and intended for diverse audiences continue to be strongly encouraged.