Background – About Sakia.org
History
Sakia.org – Historic website (2005)
Fig. 1: Sakia.org – Historic website, 2005
Sakia.org was first established in 1997 at the University of Kassel, within the Department of Rural Engineering and Natural Resource Protection. It was designed as an overarching search service covering all other services hosted and provided by the department, as well as relevant external resources.
These services included the e-mail archives of the IRRIGATION-L discussion list (established 1994), the WWW Virtual Library Irrigation (established 1995), the IRRISOFT database (established 1995), and additional related services and information.
Following the retirement of Prof. Dr Peter Wolff in 1998, the department was closed and the service could no longer be maintained or updated. Subsequent changes to university servers and IT services, combined with time and financial constraints, caused an initial interruption. Despite several attempts to revive the service, Sakia.org and its related services eventually entered a prolonged period of hibernation.
In 2001 and 2002, initial preparations were undertaken, and in 2003 a renewed attempt was made to reactivate the services. Significant time and funding were invested in rebuilding Sakia.org. A dedicated, stand-alone server was established, allowing the independent continuation of services for the agricultural water and irrigation community. In October 2003, the first Sakia.org modules were launched and released to the public.
Over time, additional services were added, including land and water open-access e-publishing and online applications in irrigation and drainage. All services within the Sakia.org system were provided free of charge to end users.
Some background information (as of 2004) is documented in: Sakia.org - An on-line knowledge exchange and communication initiative in the area of ’land and water’.- The Society of Engineering in Agriculture Biennial Conference “To Bourke & Back”, 14–16 September 2004.
Reference
- Stein, T.-M. (2004): Sakia.org – An online knowledge exchange and communication initiative in the area of land and water. The Society of Engineering in Agriculture Biennial Conference “To Bourke & Back”, 14–16 September 2004.
- Stein, T.-M. (1996): IRRISOFT – A World Wide Web database on irrigation and hydrology software. Journal of Applied Irrigation Science (Zeitschrift für Bewässerungswirtschaft), 31 (1), 51–63.