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13 July 2006

Re-organized sites: AidWorkers.net and ECOI.net

Two sites have recently undergone significant re-structuring and re-organization:

Aidworkers Network is a "comprehensive resource for busy field workers needing practical advice and proven resources to help with their current work." The refreshed site retains most of the same sections as the original incarnation, including the "Forum" where practitioners can post or answer questions, the "Aid Workers Exchange" which is an email bulletin with short, practical articles, and the "Advice pages" with guidance, links and references to key support materials. A new feature is the "Journals" section, which appears to be a news service that aggregates relevant stories from various blogs. Hopefully, the site creators will add more information about how to navigate around and what users can expect to find where.

ecoi.net is a gateway for locating country of origin information. The site "gathers, structures and processes publicly available country of origin information with a focus on the needs of asylum lawyers, refugee counsels and persons deciding on claims for asylum and other forms of international protection." Not all changes have been fully implemented as of this writing. For example, some sub-sections under the "Sorted Research Resources" have not yet been populated with links. I haven't had a chance to fully explore the site to determine what's new and different. The newest features and design changes have not been fully described at this point. This will be helpful, once it becomes available. Upon first glance, though, it would appear that the site is more search-driven than it was previously, so several trial searches would be worth undertaking. Next week's task!

Posted in Web Sites/Tools.

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