JERICO-S3 provides Virtual Access (VA) to 20 European coastal ocean services.
Services include data portals, processing scripts, document repositories, websites, apps and visualisation tools. They provide access to data, software, products and other resources that form part of the Joint European Research Infrastructure for Coastal Observatories (JERICO-RI).
Access to services is free of charge and open to all stakeholders and users.
What is Virtual Access?
Virtual Access (VA) means free access to users provided through communication networks; the available services or resources can be simultaneously used by an unlimited number of users and the users are not selected. VA can have very different formats e.g. a website, an API, a repository on GitHub etc. It can expose very different types of resources e.g. datasets, added-value products, software, documents, training modules, and data-processing capabilities.
The European Commission (LEA), in its effort to support open access, finances Virtual Access that is ‘free of charge at the point of use’.
How does JERICO-S3 support VA?
JERICO-S3 is driven by the major European institutions that work in coastal oceanography. Some of these institutions provide VA to their resources under an open access policy.
Joining forces under JERICO-S3, VA providers benefit from a well-established EU framework specifically designed for accessing Research Infrastructures, as well as a centralised access metrics system (VAMS), the feedback from a VA Expert Panel that reviews each VA, outreach activities carried out for the VA under JERICO-S3, data management expertise, work to identify new users and user categories, and JERICO-CORE.
JERICO-CORE is under development as part of JERICO-S3. JERICO-CORE aims to provide a single access point to all JERICO-RI resources. It will be a unified central hub of the JERICO-RI and will facilitate the discovery, access, management and interoperability of all JERICO-RI resources, including VA.
Through JERICO-S3, institutions providing VA also receive financial support from the EU H2020 program to cover part of the incurred costs to maintain their service(s).
What VAs are included in JERICO?
There are currently 20 VA services under JERICO-S3.
