THE ORION NETWORK The present ORION network has created a Virtual Learning Environment which links 4 European Universities, all centres of excellence in different fields of marine science, in a 'Virtual'  Marine Science Department which delivers Open and Distance Learning (ODL) courses in the partnership languages (English, Portuguese, Swedish and Greek). This innovative network allows courses run in one corner of Europe to be accessed to students on the other side of Europe , thus enabling students who are on mobility exchanges to follow courses at their home university with the minimum of disturbance. It also allows students preparing for such exchanges to familiarise themselves with course content in a language that they understand, before reaching the host university, with its unfamiliar language and new course modules. The website has several important features designed to maximise support to students: very basic language learning courses based on the marine sciences; a comprehensive glossary giving 1200 instantly accessible terms and definitions in English, Greek, Portuguese and Swedish; a reference file in English, Greek and Norwegian for fish, shellfish and crustacean meristics; a bibliography of 8000 aquaculture/environment references. See below for further details. ORION WEBSITE The website operates on two levels. You have entered the first level which contains all the publicly available material concerning the project, the partners, the basic language learning modules, some of the freely available resource materials, and the electronic newsletters. The second level is restricted to registered users and students registered within the ORION network partnership. The second levels contains the course materials for those courses in active use (since autumn 2003). ORION LANGUAGE LEARNING The ORION online Pilot courses in Marine Environmental Science play an active and innovative role in promoting language learning. Click here to see details of the ORION Language Learning Policy. The Language courses section includes the basic self-tuition modules in English, Greek, Portuguese and Swedish. These modules are based on marine environmental science subject areas, and are intended to help students from the partner universities to access course materials in all partner languages. The aim is to help promote linguistic diversity in language learning. To further facilitate language learning, the website contains the AQUALEX glossary which gives instant access to definitions of marine science/aquaculture terms, in 6 European languages, as well as the ORION marine science glossary in English, Greek, Portuguese and Swedish (available to all users). ORION ACADEMIC ONLINE COURSES There are at present 12 modules, designed on a share and re-use basis which allows course tutors complete freedom to update materials as and when necessary. ORION RESOURCES The Reference Resource Centre houses the varied resources utilised by the project but also functions as an online Library with bibliographic and reference facilities provided by the partnership. These include the AQUALEX E-learning Glossary in 6 languages, English, French, German, Spanish, Norwegian and Italian. The AQUALEX glossary is freely available online in one language, and its instantaneous translation facility can be sampled online. ORION Resources also contain a specialised bibliography, concerning aquaculture and the environment (formerly BIMAQUE), which includes more than 800 new references to chemical pollutants. The Meristics unit is a valuable work of reference with detailed descriptions of fish, shellfish and crustacean body parts in English, Greek and Norwegian.   The information on this site is subject to a disclaimer and a copyright notice