Scientific Education

through the web:

The
experience
C. Escandón, S. Alonso, E. González
International Technology, Education and Development
Conference 2007 Valencia, Spain
Agenda
 Introduction
 The Astroseti.org model and its
organisation
 Brief history
 Goals
 Internal structure
 Accomplishments so far
 Technological tools
 Conclusions
Introduction
 WWW
 A tool for Science and Technology
communication and education
 Most Internet pages are written in
English
 Astroseti.org provides quality
translations into Spanish
The Astroseti.org model
 History
 2001: personal web page translating
the SETI@home page
 Network of volunteers from different
countries
 2002: non-profit organisation
 New sections and forums included
 2006: more than 4,000 translations,
14 sections and news
The Astroseti.org model
(cont’d)
 Goals
 Provide free access to high quality
translations of Science related web
pages
 Keep readers updated in news and
events
 Answer questions posed by readers
 Continue to increase interest for
scientific knowledge
The Astroseti.org model
(cont’d)
 Structure
 Volunteers take on different roles
o User, super-user, webmaster,
coordinator, translator, editor,
recruiter, proofreader, moderator
 Communication through e-mails,
chat-rooms and forums
The Astroseti.org model
(cont’d)
 Accomplishments
 More than 100 volunteers
 More than 11 million visits since June
2003
o More than 6 million in 2006 alone
 Visitors from all Spanish-speaking
countries
 Technological tools
 Updated constantly
 XHTML
 GNU/Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL
 (000s)

0
100
200
300
400
500
Jan-
0 600
Ma 4
r-04
Ma
y-0
4
Jul-
04
Sep
-04
No
v-0
4
Jan-
0
Ma 5
r-05
Ma
y-0
5
Jul-
05
Sep
-05
No
v-0
5
Jan-
0
Ma 6
r-06
Ma
y-0
6
Jul-
06
Sep
-06
No
v-0
6
Jan-
07
Monthly visits—Home page
 (000s)

Jun

0
200
400
600
800
1,000
-03
Oc
portal

t-03
Feb
-04
Jun
-04
Oc
t-04
Feb
-05
Jun
-05
Oc
t-05
Feb
-06
Jun
-06
Oc
t-06
Feb
-07
Total no. of monthly visits to
 (000s)
As
tro

0
30
0
70

0
100
200
400
500
600
5,000
bi 6,000
ol
o
Ca gy
ss
in

273.1
ni
ES
G

199.7
len Fo A
n rum

80.9
Re
se s
H a
om rch
684.7

e
April 2006

pa
g 77.9
Ke e
pl
er
M
5,834.1

at
59.8

M hs
es
sie
r
607.8

Pl
an N
25.2

et AI
Q
u
Pl est
230.7

an
et
ar
Sc S y
ie
nc ien c
24.235.4

e@ ce
Visits to sections since

SE N
TI AS
A
112.0

I
SE nsti
TI tu
@ te
265.6

H
om
e
115.2
1.7
Number of translators
worldwide
American Continent Europe

No. of translators per country:

1–2
3–5
6–10
11–82
Visits to portal by location
Conclusions
The Internet
Visits from
reaches people
all over the
interested in Science
Spanish-speaking
and Technology
world
worldwide
New technical
Translations by
innovations can be
volunteers have
rapidly
been plentiful
integrated

The Astroseti.org model

can be easily transferred to other
languages
We are Astroseti