FishBase Lessons Learned

Rainer FroeseIfM-GEOMAR

rfroese@ifm-geomar.deDecember 2004

Overview

• What is FishBase• Some statistics on usage• Lessons learned• Future plans

Some Statistics

What is not used is useless

With modern web statistic software there is no excuse

for not knowning your users

FishBase Usage over Time

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

A 98 A 99 A 00 A 01 A 02 A 03 A 04 A 05Years (August)

Hits

(mill

ions

)

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

Use

r se

ssio

ns (t

hous

ands

)

Information Downloaded from FishBase

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

A 98 A 99 A 00 A 01 A 02 A 03 A 04 A 05

Years (August)

Ban

dwid

th (G

B)

FishBase Usage by Developing Countries

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Years (July)

DC

Hits

(Mill

ions

)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Per

cent

DC

Hits

Percent of all Hits

DC Hits

FishBase Users by Continent

North America

Europe

Asia

South America

Africa

Australia

Oceania

Based on 2122 entries in the FishBase Guestbook , June 2004

FishBase Usage Compared with Internet Usage by Country, in 2001

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

10

100

0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100

Internet Users (% of all Users)

Fish

Bas

e S

essi

ons

(% o

f all

Ses

sion

s)

USA

Qatar

Fr Polynesia

Brunei

Japan

China

South Korea

Russia

Taiwan

India

Lebanon

Venezuela

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

10

100

0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100Internet usage by country (%)

Fish

Bas

e us

age

by c

ount

ry (%

)(J

uly

2004

)USA

China

Greece

Luxembourg

Saudi Arabia

Peru

Pakistan

Ghana

Belarus

Cuba

South Korea

Russia

BrazilAustralia

JapanGermany

PNG

India

Kenya

FishBase Web Users

Individuals

Private sector

Universities

Governments

NGOs

Museums

Int. Research Centres

Based on 2122 entries in the FishBase Guestbook, June 2004

FishBase Web Usage by Topic May-July 2003

Common Names

Scientific Names

Direct Links

Species Summaries

Photos

Fish Quiz

Specialist Topics

Based on hits by directory on CGNET server

Common names

Scientific names

Direct links

Species summaries

Photos

Fish Quiz

Specialist topics

Based on AW Hits by directory on Kiel server

FishBase Usage by Topic July 2004

Frequency of FishBase Usage by Topic

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Genetics

Diseases

FishQuiz

Reproduction

Maps

FB book

Physiology

Population dynamics

Trophic ecology

Identification

LarvalBase

Scientific Names

Museum collections

Eschmeyer

Glossary

References

Country information

Photos

Common Names

Species Summaries

Percent of total page views (July 2004)

About 10,000 visitors per month

Under The Hood

• FishBase Structure

Under The Hood

• FishBase Structure• From DataEase to MS Access to MySQL

to ???• From HTML to Cold Fusion to PHP to

CMS to ???• 5 mirrors around the world• www.ZoneEdit.com for load-balancing

General Principles• Keep it simple• Yes-Attitude• Be opportunistic• Give more credit than was expected• Deal with errors

– Expose data– Invite, accept and act on criticism– Compare data– Use your data

Design Principles

• Do not over-normalize• Avoid (hide) codes• Dedicated fields vs free-text fields• `Science and Data first´ approach• Transparency (reference, entered, modified, date)

• Strategic decisions about data (comparative advantage, importance, future maintenance)

Future Plans

• Complete coverage and content• Improve mapping• Add more analytical tools• Move to mobile devices• Do FishBase for all aquatic species?

Thanks to the FishBase Team

Thanks to the FishBase Consortium

Thanks to our Donors

Thanks for Listening

Questions?