The LifeWatch Italy Semantic Platform allows to search and access the LifeWatch Italy resources with the help of semantically enriched queries. It is based on a main semantic model that describes different resources and their metadata, as well as meaningful links between controlled vocabularies for Biodiversity and Ecosystems domain and resources of LifeWatch Italy. The platform is powered by a semantic search engine that can be used in two modes: simple or structured.

mregions2 provides access to the data from http://www.marineregions.org in R. It uses both the Marine Regions Gazetteer Web Services and the Marine Regions OGC Web Services in R. mregions2 superseedes the previous mregions R package.

To address the today’s ecological challenges, it is necessary to use data coming from different disciplines and providers. Discovery and integration of data, especially from the ecological domain, is highly labour-intensive and often ambiguous in semantic terms. To improve the location, interpretation and integration of data based on its inherent meaning vocabularies can help in harmonizing and enriching descriptions of data, providing a formal mechanism for the definition of terms and their relationships. To satisfy these emerging needs LifeWatch ERIC developed a Semantic Resources Catalogue (EcoPortal) focused on the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research. This effort will help to support the community in the management and integration/alignment of their semantics and subsequently also of their data. The main goal of the EcoPortal initiative is to provide a unique platform for vocabularies in the ecological and domain for different kinds of stakeholders.

The LifeWatch ERIC Community Platform is a dedicated virtual space where people who share the same goals, interests, or motivations can connect and build relationships, business and scientific opportunities. The Community facilitates the networking activities among registered members, that are able to create and manage working groups adding their peers based on their scientific skills. Working groups also include different tools for supporting networking activities such as calendar, repository, forum, blog, wiki, polls, brainstorming, and conference calls.

The LifeWatch ERIC Training Platform offers courses and tutorials for the whole LifeWatch ERIC community seeking to make better use of the infrastructure resources, tools and services. It is based on Moodle and allows to easily access training resources by means of categories.

The LifeWatch Italy Community Platform is a dedicated virtual space where people who share the same goals, interests, or motivations can connect and build relationships, business and scientific opportunities. The Community facilitates the networking activities among registered members, that are able to create and manage working groups adding their peers based on their scientific skills. Working groups also include different tools for supporting networking activities such as calendar, repository, forum, blog, wiki, polls, brainstorming, and conference calls.

The LifeWatch Italy Help Desk applies a ticket system to address all support requests for the use of LifeWatch Italy platforms and services. A unique number is assigned to each request, and users can refer to it to track its progress. The Help Desk provides a knowledge base that can be checked before opening a new ticket in order to see if the issue users wish to raise has already been addressed.

The LifeWatch Italy Training Platform offers courses and tutorials for the LifeWatch Italy community seeking to make better use of the infrastructure resources, tools and services. It is based on Moodle and allows to easily access training resources by means of categories.

The LifeWatch Italy Data Portal is a national data infrastructure facilitating data sharing for biological and environmental research and making it accessible and reusable.