On Friday morning, May 9, 2014, The Discovery of Sound in the Sea (DOSITS) Team will host a special session, Communicating the Science of Underwater Sound, at the Acoustical Society of America’s (ASA’s) 2014 Spring Conference in Providence, RI. If you are attending the ASA meeting, the DOSITS Team invites you to participate in this forum on techniques and resources for improving the education of underwater sound. The special session will take place from 8:55-11:00am in room 554 A/B of the Rhode Island Convention Center. This session is being co-sponsored by the Education in Acoustics and Animal Bioacoustics ASA Committees.

The DOSITS team is also excited to announce several new features available on the DOSTS website (www.dosits.org):

There is a new look and feel to the DOSITS front page. It was recently redesigned to be faster and more mobile friendly. Other changes have made the whole site a bit more mobile friendly and DOSITS will continue this trend in the coming year.

There are several new features available on the updated DOSITS front page:

An interactive rotator box, which features a variety of DOSITS topics and provides direct access to deeper content with one click (or touch).
A What’s New section, which lists and provides direct links to new and/or recently updated pages available on the DOSITS website.
A Hot Topics section that features interesting and new underwater acoustics developments. As new, peer-reviewed, scientific papers or other materials that represent important, cutting-edge acoustics discoveries are published, a short summary and links to relevant DOSITS pages will be provided in this section.
Other updated navigational components, including direct links (via boxes at the bottom of the front page) to the Audio, Career, Scientist, and Technology Galleries, have been added. Navigation on the left hand side of the DOSITS site has essentially remained the same, although drop down menus no longer appear. Also, new “jump to topic” drop down menus are available on internal pages, and allow a user to see all content pages of a section and easily move to a new content page if necessary.

A new gallery has been added to the DOSITS website: the Career Gallery. This searchable gallery describes over 20 careers related to underwater sound and is designed to help users gain an understanding of the diversity of career options available. Each career description includes details such as educational requirements, suggested knowledge and skills, possible duties and responsibilities, and an estimated salary range taken from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov). An example of a current person in each career is also included to provide real-world context. Links to the DOSITS Technology Gallery and other content pages are listed for each career description.

Information presented on the DOSITS website and its associated educational materials is based solely on current, published scientific research, and all content has undergone a thorough review by a panel of scientific experts. The DOSITS website has been developed and produced by the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography in partnership with Marine Acoustics, Inc., with support from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

To receive more information about the DOSITS project please contact Holly Morin (holly_morin@mail.uri.edu)