Winter 2005 Newsletter
One of ERF's newest endeavors, undertaken to help coastal managers keep up with cutting edge science that might be applicable to solving their problems, is the publication of the web-based Coastal and Estuarine Science News (CESN). Supported by funding from EPA's Coastal Management Branch, CESN summarizes a selection of articles with potential coastal management applications from each issue of Estuaries; the summaries are published on ERF's web site (www.erf.org/cesn). The papers to be summarized are chosen by the CESN team (consisting of current and former Governing Board members and the managing editor of Estuaries and Coasts) and the summaries are prepared by Nancy Steinberg, a science writer and outreach specialist based in Newport, OR. Just as an estuary serves as the meeting place for waters of rivers and oceans, ERF undertook the CESN project to provide an intersection point for coastal management and current science. Based on results from a recent survey of CESN readers, it seems that CESN has hit its target, and it will be continued for the foreseeable future.
After a year of publication, the survey was developed by the CESN team and distributed via the list serve that announces the availability of each issue of CESN. Results indicate that CESN is reaching its target audience: respondents listed their primary duties as resource management (27% of responses), mainly research (31%) and environmental policy (27%). CESN is reaching beyond the ERF community itself, as indicated by the fact that most respondents (64%) are not ERF members. Respondents are finding the information provided by CESN useful (74%) or interesting (an additional 26%).
The format and content appear to be appropriate for the target audience, as 80% of the respondents find CESN to be about the right length and content, and 66% believe the articles are useful for coastal management. Uses of CESN by its readers vary: more than half of the respondents (53%) use CESN to keep up with management-related research findings, and the second most-cited use was for reports for government or elected officials. Several respondents also mentioned using CESN as a teaching tool.
CESN may also be enhancing the readership of Estuaries and Coasts: 50% of the survey respondents said that after reading CESN summaries, they accessed articles that they would not have otherwise read, and an additional 42% said that they had not yet done so but may in the future.
Based on the survey results, the CESN team will be addressing new challenges as the project moves forward. Most of the respondents (68%) found out about CESN from the ERF website or newsletter. To broaden awareness of CESN, the team will evaluate additional ways to get the word out. In addition, several respondents suggested that a hotlink to the actual Estuaries and Coasts articles would be useful.
The CESN team welcomes further comments about this project - please send your comments or suggestions to Holly Greening at hgreening@ tbep.org. If you or your colleagues would like to be added to the list serve that announces the publication of new issues of CESN, please sign up at the CESN page on the ERF website. It is not necessary to be a member of ERF to receive and view CESN.
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