Global Forest Information Service, GFIS -portaalin ylläpito ja kehittäminen

1. Tausta ja tavoitteet

The Global Forest Information Service (GFIS) is an initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) led by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and maintained by the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) formerly the Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla).

GFIS aims to build a global partnership of information sharing networks across forestry-related sectors and institutions. The GFIS Internet gateway allows the forestry communities of practice, institutions, and individuals to share forest-related information and data through a dedicated web portal at www.gfis.net.

As a distributed network of networks, GFIS aims to be the forestry community of practice’s umbrella network involved in the dissemination and sharing of information and data, standards, technological solutions to information sharing, and information infrastructure development. GFIS accomplishes this by defining elements that are intended to assist contributors in increasing access to their materials.

2. Toteutus
Luke maintains and develops the GFIS gateway and partnership based on the guidance of IUFRO HQ and the IUFRO board.

3. Tuotokset
GFIS gateway at www.gfis.net which inline space where forest organizations and users of their information can meet. Partner’s websites are checked for new content daily.
New information is displayed on the GFIS homepage and searchable after. Forest stakeholders & information seekers visit GFIS to access the industry information quickly and efficiently.

4. Vaikuttavuus ja käytäntöönvienti
24hours use by informartion providers (+350 organizations) and users (around 15 000 uniques users monthly) from all over the world. Information available via the GFIS gateway at www.gfis.net and Twitter http://twitter.com/GFIS_net +4500 followers.

5. Asiakkaat
GFIS users are individuals or institutions that seek forest-related information using the gateway from around the world. In principle, everyone seeking forest-related information is a potential GFIS user.

In 2014, the portal averaged ~20,000 information seekers visiting each month seeing a significant increase in traffic generated organically, through referral and from direct sources, an increase in 121%,123%, 59% over the previous year.

The current number of active partner organizations to 350+. In addition GFIS grew its twitter following, with over 3600 followers, and recognized a growing number of social media accounts, e-newsletters, and websites attributing the content to GFIS.