Octopus Resource Centre: requirements and technical solutions

Abstract

Octopus Project is the result of the idea of creation an on-line resources centre, destined for the environmental education. Its implementation was carried through the resource of diverse technologies, which gave body to the initial idea. Among these we must refer the fact that this Resource Centre would not only keep the register of existing resources in diverse places, but also will store its own resources. The Project is internationalised, and was based in the use and development of several tools and moods that respect this characteristic. During development of the Octopus, a strategy of sharing administration was adopted to allow fast updates of the information, as well as its translation. Several tools were developed that allowed to support this management approach assuring the integrity control of existing information. Among these tools we can refer the menus management system and the document editor. In order to assure the resource construction, oriented to the accomplishment of learning tasks, the document editor was improved according to those needs. The on-line Octopus Resource Centre can be accessed in the Internet address www.octopus-eu.org.