developing agricultural research information systems. the experience of the global forum on...
DESCRIPTION
Presented by Ajit Maru at the WCCA Congress 2010 held in Reno, US. The role of the Global Forum has been that of fostering and supporting the development of agricultural research information systems at national, regional and global levels. This cross-stakeholder vision has allowed GFAR to have a privileged perspective on the evolution of the approach to building ARD information systems.TRANSCRIPT
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WCCA 2009
Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
The experience of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research
Ajit Maru
Mark Holderness
Valeria Pesce
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
About GFAR The Global Forum on Agricultural Research
(GFAR) is a platform at the global level for dialogue and action of all stakeholders of agricultural research and innovation for development
One of the Global Forum’s strategic objectives is to “boost knowledge and improve communication in relation to agricultural research and innovation”
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
GFAR’s role in ICM GFAR’s mission consists in mobilizing all stakeholders,
GFAR is not an implementing body
the role of the Global Forum has been that of fostering and supporting the development of agricultural research information systems at national, regional and global levels
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Building ARD information systemsThe cross-stakeholder vision has allowed
GFAR to have a privileged perspective on the evolution of the approach to building ARD information systems
evolution of the approach representative projects over the years technologies adopted
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Before 1999
Focus on Scientific and Technical Information (STI) as document-like information objects (DLIOs)
Idea of ONE global information system
Major project: AGRIS (FAO), started in 1975 Type of data: bibliographical records Technology: XML exports from several centers
imported into a central database
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
1999 : ICT Consultation in RomeOutcomes:
a bottom-up approach should be followed: new systems should build upon existing structures; the idea of decentralized, but co-ordinated and
interlinked databases, is the most effective and efficient approach;
it is important to develop capacities to manage data and knowledge, besides documents.
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
2000 - 2005
More attention to Research Management Information Systems (MIS): data on projects, institutions, experts
Development of Regional Agricultural Information Systems (RAIS)
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Management Information Systems (1) CARIS database of projects (FAO) (started in 1975)
Technological approach: XML exports from several centers imported into a central database
Since 2000:
ISNAR: agricultural research Management Information System (MIS) created by
Technological approach: manual centralized input in a database
AiDA database of projects Technological approach: XML exports from different databases and
subsequent import into a central database
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Management Information Systems (2) TECA, the FAO database of agricultural technologies
WISARD: database of institutions, projects and experts
Infosys+: database of institutions, projects and experts
Technological approach: decentralized data entry into a central database
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Management Information Systems (3) Between 2002 and 2005, greater attention to
integration between systems
Example: the sharing of information between WISARD, AiDA and Infosys+
but exchange of information was on a case-by-case basis and did not involve the adoption of international standards
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Regional Information Systems (RAIS) GFAR’s Global.RAIS initiative (2003-2005)
Objective: to support a wide consultation process by the Regional Forums and their stakeholders to identify needs and priorities to improve ICM for ARD globally starting from the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS)
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
2005 : Expert Consultation in Rome Organized jointly by GFAR, CTA, CGIAR, FAO and
INASP Representation of more than 50 stakeholder
organizations across the world
This expert consultation endorsed the ICM agenda that emerged from the GlobAL.RAIS consultations
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
2005 Expert Consultation: outcomes Need to strengthen the capacity of NARS leaders to advocate
greater investment for further development of ICT enabled NAIS
Need to develop capacities for creating, managing, sharing and using: scientific and technical information, research and research management information, extension, outreach and market information etc.
Need for greater integration of national and regional agricultural information systems
Need to establish appropriate governance structures such as task forces and steering committees for global, regional and sub-regional AIS
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
2005-2007: the ICM4ARD GPP The GFAR’s ICM4ARD Global Partnership Programme
(GPP) covered activities to strengthen ICM under the four main areas of: advocacy capacity development greater integration and coherence of agricultural
information systems improved governance of agricultural information
systems at regional and global levels
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
ICM4ARD: RAIS and NAIS
RAIS: two approaches to improving access to national information:
central regional databases with decentralized data entry (e.g. FORAGRO, FARA)
development or adoption of advanced tools for managing information at the national level and exchanging it at the regional level (e.g. AARINENA)
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
RAIS: access to national information (1) AARINENA (West Asia and North Africa)
NERAKIN and NARIMS: regional and national modules exchanging data leverage on metadata standards help manage and exchange information on research management
(organizations, projects, experts and project outputs)
FARA (Sub-Saharan Africa) Regional Agricultural Information and Learning System (RAILS) FARA Infosys+
database of institutions, projects and experts, by country: centralized database with online data entry
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
RAIS: access to national information (2) FORAGRO (Latin America and the Caribbeans)
INFOTEC: databases of institutions and experts (by country), documents, news,
technologies centralized database with online data entry
APAARI (Asia and the Pacific) directory of institutions in the region, by country
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
ICM4ARD: greater coherence
GFAR’s participation in the IISAST activities 2007: 2nd Expert Consultation
Endorsement and promotion of international standards endorsement of metadata specifications (FAO, AiDA) and
vocabularies (FAO, NAL) adoption of international standards in the e-GFAR website and
promotion of their adoption to the RAIS and NAIS
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
2007 – now: interoperability
IISAST CIARDCoherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Developmentinitiative, founded in 2008 by FAO, GFAR, CGIAR, IAALD, CABI Objective: to make agricultural research information publicly available and accessible to all
New technologies, Web 2.0 approach recognition that a distributed approach is more efficient and that the accent should be on interoperability, standards, protocols for communication, tools and applications
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Evolution of the approach
Centralized databases / repositories with import of data from contributing centers (AGRIS, CARIS)
Centralized databases with decentralized data entry (WISARD, Infosys+, Infotec...)
Distributed sources with interoperable services (web services, XML, RDF...)
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Interoperable sources / services RSS feeds in general
ARD: AgriFeeds (harvesting + dynamic custom feed generation), SIST (RSS-based), Euforic
XML exports ARD: XML output of FAO document repository
OAI repositories AGRIS is evolving towards an OAI architecture
Web services Google APIs ARD: Agrovoc web services
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
True interoperability
Producer and consumer services don't need to coordinate, they are “loosely coupled”
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=4
“Think syndication, not coordination”“Support lightweight programming modelsthat allow for loosely coupled systems”Tim O'Reilly
“Design for ‘hackability’ and remixability”Tim O'Reilly
Sources must be designed to be as accessible and re-usable as possible
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Where we are (1) For traditional information types (documents) and for
information produced with the newest technologies (news, blogs), the process towards interoperability and advanced services is well advanced, while for other types of information that are vital to the management of agriculture (institutional information, projects, experts) there is a lot of work to do
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Where we are (2)
The existing sources of information must become really interoperable and allow for easy automatic retrieval of information
Work on mapping between vocabularies or advanced natural language processing must be done for improving the semantic accessibility of information
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Where we are: the ARD R.I.N.G.Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING):
a view on interoperable services
to give an overview of the current offer of information services in ARD and support those who want to implement new services
a directory of information services in ARD with the specific objective of monitoring, describing and classifying the existing services, making them known and benchmarking them against interoperability criteria
a CIARD project, led by GFAR
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WCCA 2009Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
Challenges
Building capacities in information management
Advocating for increased but also improved investment
Issues related to intellectual property rights and information systems security
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WCCA 2009
Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems
The experience of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research
Ajit Maru
Mark Holderness
Valeria Pesce
Thank youfor your attention