Message From the Communications Office: Interview With ASLO's First Web Editor, Paul Kemp

Since ASLO began as the Limnological Society of America in 1936, the society has undergone numerous transformations, including in 1948 when Limnological Society of America merged with the Oceanographic Society of the Pacific to form the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and in 2011 when ASLO's named changed to the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography to reflect its growing international membership. Undoubtedly, one major area of constant transformation for ASLO has been its website, www.aslo.org. Websites are so critical to an organization's operations these days that they are easily taken for granted as an end user. However, one of the first things I learned when I started my career at ASLO is just how complex the inner workings of our web platforms are, and the challenges of designing and maintaining functional, accessible, and relevant websites. I also learned that ASLO was an “early adopter” of websites. The website began in 1994 as a few static pages hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By 1996, when www.aslo.org was first accessible to the public, there were only ~257,600 total websites online (compare that to over 1 billion today).

August of 2024 marked another transformation for www.also.org. ASLO's first Web Editor, Paul Kemp, stepped down from the position after nearly 30 years. (Paul told me that the work on the website began in 1994 by himself and then-student Alan Schussman, after the Executive Director Sue Weiler posed to the membership the question, to paraphrase, “Does anyone know how to create a website?”) Paul agreed to sit down for an interview to chat with me about the history and evolution of www.aslo.org, and share his perspectives on this important piece of ASLO's operations.

CO: THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO DISCUSS also.org. IN ADDITION TO ASLO WEB EDITOR, YOU HAVE SERVED AS THE FOUNDING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (EIC) OF LIMNOLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY: METHODS (READERS CAN CATCH HIS INTERVIEW WITH TERESA CURTO, ASLO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ABOUT HIS EIC ROLE IN CURTO 2024) AND HELD FACULTY AND PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS AT BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I AS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE C-MORE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO—BOULDER AS MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE STROBE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED WITH CREATING AND MAINTAINING ASLO'S WEB PRESENCE? WHAT FUNCTIONALITIES WERE IMPORTANT FOR THE WEBSITE TO HAVE AT THAT TIME?

PK: I volunteered to work on ASLO's first website because, at the time, few people knew how. I continued as a volunteer for 3 years, by which time the website had grown so much that it was taking significant time to maintain. I proposed that ASLO ought to offer modest compensation, ASLO agreed, and I continued to work on the website until stepping down this year.

As it often is, ASLO was an early adopter of website services. It started its website at a time when websites were a new phenomenon, generally used to provide basic information about an organization. Many of the website functions we now take for granted did not exist yet. Some basic guidelines and principles for websites were established early and adopted by ASLO, such as well-organized information, intuitive navigation menus, search capability, reliability, and a configurable layout. If you look at a screenshot of the early website, it looks very primitive—but it worked very well (Fig. 1).

CO: THE ASLO WEBSITE HAS GONE THROUGH SEVERAL CHANGES OVER THE YEARS TO ADDRESS EVOLVING NEEDS, WHETHER THOSE ARE VISUAL CHANGES APPARENT TO THE VISITOR OR MORE STRUCTURAL IN NATURE. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MAJOR WAYS THE WEBSITE HAS CHANGED SINCE IT WAS FIRST CREATED?

PK: Although some of the major redesigns were cosmetic, many were associated with adding functions. For example, adding an ability to log in and be recognized allowed ASLO to institute online subscriptions to Limnology and Oceanography and the L&O Bulletin (2000), hold online elections (2001), be one of the first societies to adopt green open access publication (2002), support site-wide subscriptions and single-article “pay per view” access (2002), initiate a very popular job board (2003), publish e-Books (2010), and conduct online Board Meetings (2010) years before business videoconferencing services became popular.

In 2014, ASLO commissioned an intensive review of its operations and concluded that changes in the publishing and conference industries, as well as greatly increased services desired by members, would require an overhaul of its operations. That led to two migrations of the website, from a standalone server to specialized web-enabled platforms. The first migration was completed in 2017 and the second in 2019. Both migrations were transformational in vastly increasing the services that could be provided.

The present “website” is a web-enabled system of about 10 interconnected platforms. Anyone who has published in or read an ASLO journal, or attended an ASLO conference, has probably interacted with most of them—sometimes without noticing!

CO: WHAT HAVE YOU FOUND TO BE THE MOST ENJOYABLE ASPECT(S) OF RUNNING THE ASLO WEBSITE? WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST CHALLENGING?

PK: The most enjoyable and most challenging aspects are often the same. I have particularly enjoyed those times when the ASLO leadership or a committee poses a question that starts with “Would it be possible to …?” Those open-ended questions often lead to an exploration of what is possible, a how-to learning phase, and eventually, creating a new capability that allows ASLO to expand what it can offer and deliver. I find the exploration and learning process very enjoyable.

I have also greatly enjoyed the team-based culture of ASLO's Board, business services, and committees. Most of the individuals that I have had the pleasure to work with are supportive, cooperative, responsible, helpful, and respectful. That working environment makes things happen.

CO: EFFECTIVE SCIENCE COMMUNICATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER. WHAT ROLE DOES THE WEBSITE PLAY IN THE AQUATIC SCIENCE COMMUNICATION ECOSYSTEM, AND WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU THINK ALL OF OUR DIGITAL PLATFORMS FACE GOING IN THE FUTURE?

PK: A website is one of many media platforms that overlap in their audiences and content but differ greatly in how information is delivered. Algorithmic platforms (aka social media) deliver information in an intentionally biased manner that often reinforces the existing biases of the viewer, whereas websites (ASLO.org!) can be intentionally unbiased. In a society that has become accustomed to—I would say conditioned to—infotainment, viewers are more likely to encounter algorithmic platforms than unbiased information sources. A website that “only” delivers factual information is at a disadvantage in building and retaining its audience. Further, in an informational environment experiencing an explosion of mis- and dis-information, I wonder whether ASLO might find itself needing to work harder and more proactively to promote fact over fiction, and at the same time work harder to be more entertaining!

CO: Thank you so much for your insights!