developing agricultural research information systems. the experience of the global forum on...

WCCA 2009

Developing Agricultural Research Information Systems

The experience of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research

Ajit Maru

Mark Holderness

Valeria Pesce

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”


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


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


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


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.


2000 - 2005

More attention to Research Management Information Systems (MIS): data on projects, institutions, experts

Development of Regional Agricultural Information Systems (RAIS)


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


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


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


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)


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


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


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


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)


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


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


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


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


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...)


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


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


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


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


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


Challenges

Building capacities in information management

Advocating for increased but also improved investment

Issues related to intellectual property rights and information systems security

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