Introducing GRIIDC's New Website! (2015)

GRIIDC is pleased to unveil our updated website, designed with a new look and feel, user-friendly navigation, and updated with new resources to help researchers from all disciplines store and share data. The goal of our website redesign was to increase ease of use to encourage data sharing within the Gulf of Mexico community. By encouraging data sharing, GRIIDC is working to fulfill our mission to ensure a data and information legacy to promote continual scientific discovery and public awareness in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.

The new homepage is designed to welcome visitors, encourage further exploration of the GRIIDC website, and guide users to their desired page. The applications and modules that are at the core of the GRIIDC system, including the GRIIDC Data Discovery portal previously viewed as the homepage, are easily accessed through three large buttons on the homepage. The core features will continue to function as before the redesign, but will be more easily accessed by users. Additionally, a new story section of website is highlighted on the front page. This story section will feature articles about datasets available through the GRIIDC system, commentaries on data management and data sharing issues, and updates on GRIIDC activities. We encourage users to submit ideas for articles and stories to GRIIDC staff.

Using feedback from our users we have improved and simplified the navigation on the website. The focus of the improved navigation is to clarify the dataset submission process. Each step of the submission process is explained and can easily be reached through the "Submit Data" section. GRIIDC will continue to seek feedback from users to improve applications and modules that are used to manage data, in particular the Dataset Submission and Registration form.

In addition to the look and feel of the website we have made sure to update materials and information included with the best available and most accurate information available. This includes an updated description of GRIIDC in the About Us section, revised FAQ, and to find system training and user guides available in the Help Section. Please explore our new site and get to know the new navigation and features!

As always, we know our work is not done and we appreciate any feedback you have on the features of the new website design.