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About the UNOLS Cruise Planning Application

University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) is an organization of 58 academic institutions and National Laboratories involved in oceanographic research and joined for the purpose of coordinating oceanographic ships' schedules and research facilities.

This Cruise Planning Application is intended to connect scientists and students with ship operators as a supplement to the Ship Time Request System. Ship operators and host institutions will create a new cruise plan when they are ready to begin the planning process. The Chief Scientist or Principal Investigator for the project will be notified by the ship operator when the cruise plan is ready for their input.

Cruise Planning Application Project Goals

There is no common roadmap for planning a scientific research cruise once a Ship Time Request has been granted. Each UNOLS participating institution has their own policies and procedures with very little consensus. This project aims to fix this problem in the following ways:

Create a familiar process for planning a research cruise

Scientists and ship operators will know what to expect when working with different institutions
Minimize user account creep

Minimize redundancy

Cruise information is automatically transferred from the Ship Time Request System
Scientist's information is automatically populated for each cruise they are involved with

Begin to standardize the information collected from the science party

UNOLS ship operator's have widely varying planning procedures and forms

Share cruise plan information with those who need it

Scientists, ship's crew, marine technicians, and support personnel on both sides will have common access to the cruise plan

Hide personal and sensitive information from those who don't need it

Personal information entered by the science party is only visible to appropriate ship operator personnel
The Cruise Planning Application was built with information security as a top priority