Wednesday 23 April 2008

New version of the SciDev.Net website

A new version of the SciDev.Net website has been launched. The site has been completely rebuilt to present material in different ways. In addition to grouping material geographically into six separate regional gateways, material is brought together into six new topic gateways on agriculture and environment, climate change and energy, health, new technology, science and innovation policy, and science communication. Topics are divided into subtopics, each bringing together news, features, opinion and analysis relevant to a specific issue. Content is also available as regular targeted alerts.

The site is also more accessible to non-English speakers, appearing in four different language versions (English, Spanish, French and Chinese), where headlines and summaries of all new material (and sometimes the full text) is available in the different languages. Search functions are also improved as is optimisation for bandwidth and interaction with social networking tools, such as Del.icio.us, Digg and Facebook. Registered readers can now post comments on all articles, an innovation aimed at stimulating debate about the issues covered.

SciDev.net is supported by three main core donors, including DFID, and redevelopment costs have also been supported by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Swiss Development Agency (SDC).

More information:
See a full press release on the SciDev.Net site here