AGRIS
Encyclopedia
AGRIS is a global public domain Database with 2.6 million structured bibliographical records on agricultural science and technology. The Database is maintained by FAO, and its content is provided by more than 150 participating institutions from 65 countries. The AGRIS Search system, accessible at http://agris.fao.org, allows scientists, researchers and students to perform sophisticated searches using keywords from the AGROVOC
thesaurus, specific journal titles or names of countries, institutions, and authors.
flourished in the 1970s, the AGRIS metadata
corpus
was developed to allow its users to have free access to knowledge available in agricultural science and technology. AGRIS was developed to be an international cooperative system to serve both developed and developing countries.
With the advent of the Internet, along with the promises offered by open access publishing, there was growing awareness that the management of agricultural science and technology information, would have various facets: standards and methodologies for interoperability
and facilitation of knowledge exchange; tools to enable information management specialists to process data; information and knowledge exchange across countries. Common interoperability
criteria were thus adopted in its implementation, and the AGRIS AP metadata
was accordingly created in order to allow exchange and retrieval of Agricultural information Resources.
Access to the AGRIS Repository is provided through the AGRIS Search Engine. As such, it:
The AGRIS repository exploits the advantages of both open source search search platform (Solr
), and structured XML
. It facilitates the exchange of information among developing countries and between developing and developed countries. Furthermore, it contains records from national journals - especially from developing countries that are not always represented in commercial indexing services.
The AGRIS partners contributing to the AGRIS Database use several formats for exchanging data, including simple DC, from OAI-PMH systems.
The AGRIS AP format is anyway adopted directly by:
AGRIS aims to ensure that the resources contained in repositories located in several regions be available to the general user, with few restrictions, in accordance with the goals of open access. However, many of these resources run the risk of turning into deep web
or invisible web resources, since they frequently cannot be located by search engine
crawlers. As is the case with some digital libraries, where special pages or sitemaps are created to allow search engines to find all of their resources, AGRIS uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
to retrieve metadata
and "expose" otherwise invisible web resources to the AGRIS search engines. A similar process is adopted for instance by Google Scholar
, Yahoo!
and Scirus
search engines.
Unlike traditional resources that pose storage space limits, digital resources have the widely recognized advantage of making available to users a huge variety of resources of often diverse nature.Project Gutenberg
, Google Book Search
, Windows Live Search Books(shutdown), Internet Archive
, Cornell University
, The Library of Congress World Digital Library
, The Digital Library at the University of Michigan
, and Carnegie Mellon University's Million Book Project
are considered leaders in the field of digital library creation and management.
In traditional libraries, finding works of interest is directly related to how well they are cataloged. However, complex and born-digital works require substantially more effort.
AGROVOC
is a comprehensive multilingual agriculture
thesaurus
that was developed with the cooperation of FAO
member countries. It is used for indexing data in agricultural information systems and it strives for continuous improvement and updating. The first version of AGROVOC
was produced in 1982 and distributed to all AGRIS centres.
Vocabulary updating is done by FAO
in collaboration with national AGRIS centres. Staff at the centres propose new terms for the database to FAO
subject specialists for consideration. The terms selected by the experts are added into AGROVOC
. In the past, an AGROVOC
supplement was then published and provided to the centres. Now the updated AGROVOC
is available online. The proposing of new terms and corrections also can be done through the FAO
/AGROVOC
web site.
As the AGRIS system aims to decentralise data processing and to prioritise national capacity building, enhancing autonomous management of national agricultural information. a new strategic vision has been developed.
, etc.) committed to working to increase the public benefits deriving from investment in agricultural research and innovation for development.
The underlying principle shared by CIARD's stakeholders, which FAO
is contributing to with its AGRIS portal, is that, information is to be made publicly "available", "accessible" and, "applicable". At the same time, all of CIARD stakeholders equally recognize the need to respect the roles of national, regional and international institutions, whilst aligning their efforts to develop better interlinked information
collections and services.
Currently, AGRIS continues its research into improving access to science technology and agricultural information globally available on the web, under the CIARD umbrella.
According to the new vision, the AGRIS search engine
should be able to retrieve and interpret a wealth of diverse information sources including full-text documents, threads from discussion fora, blog
entries, news
articles, and organizational, regional, national, international information
(re)sources. Partnerships with established search engine
technology leaders such as Google
, Yahoo or Scirus
will be explored in order to provide customized search capabilities.
, the new AGRIS aims to promote the sharing and management of agricultural science and technology information through the use of common standards and methodologies. These will incorporate Web 2.0
features, in order to make the search experience as comprehensive, intuitive and far-reaching as possible for users of the new AGRIS.
Furthermore, the new AGRIS will also leverage the data and infrastructure of one of CIARD's projects: the CIARD RING. An acronym standing for Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING), the CIARD RING project is led by GFAR
and it aims to:
A directory of ARD (Agricultural Research for Development) information services will allow the monitoring, describing and classifying of existing services, whilst benchmarking them against interoperability
criteria, to ensure for maximum outreach and global availability.
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
thesaurus, specific journal titles or names of countries, institutions, and authors.
Early AGRIS years
As information managementInformation management
Information management is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information...
flourished in the 1970s, the AGRIS metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
corpus
Text corpus
In linguistics, a corpus or text corpus is a large and structured set of texts...
was developed to allow its users to have free access to knowledge available in agricultural science and technology. AGRIS was developed to be an international cooperative system to serve both developed and developing countries.
With the advent of the Internet, along with the promises offered by open access publishing, there was growing awareness that the management of agricultural science and technology information, would have various facets: standards and methodologies for interoperability
Interoperability
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together . The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to...
and facilitation of knowledge exchange; tools to enable information management specialists to process data; information and knowledge exchange across countries. Common interoperability
Interoperability
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together . The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to...
criteria were thus adopted in its implementation, and the AGRIS AP metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
was accordingly created in order to allow exchange and retrieval of Agricultural information Resources.
The AGRIS repository
AGRIS covers the wide range of subjects related to agriculture, including forestry, animal husbandry, aquatic sciences and fisheries, human nutrition, and extension. Its content includes unique grey literature such as unpublished scientific and technical reports, theses, conference papers, government publications, and more. A growing number (around 20%) of bibliographical records have a corresponding full text document on the web which can easily be retrieved by Google.Access to the AGRIS Repository is provided through the AGRIS Search Engine. As such, it:
- enables retrieval of bibliographic records contained in the AGRIS Repository,
- allows users to perform either full-text or fielded, parametric and assisted queries.
The AGRIS repository exploits the advantages of both open source search search platform (Solr
Solr
Solr is an open source enterprise search platform from the Apache Lucene project. Its major features include powerful full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, dynamic clustering, database integration, and rich document handling...
), and structured XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
. It facilitates the exchange of information among developing countries and between developing and developed countries. Furthermore, it contains records from national journals - especially from developing countries that are not always represented in commercial indexing services.
The AGRIS partners contributing to the AGRIS Database use several formats for exchanging data, including simple DC, from OAI-PMH systems.
The AGRIS AP format is anyway adopted directly by:
- Open Archive Initiative (OAI) partners: Scielo, Viikki Science Library
- BIBSYS, Norway, National Library of Portugal, Prod-Inra France, Wageningen UR Library.
- National networks: NARIMS in Egypt, PhilAgriNet in Philippines, KAINet in Kenya, Thailand NAC, GAINS in Ghana.
- National institutional repositories: Russia, Belarus, Uruguay, Spain, Iran.
- Information service providers: Wolters Kluwer, NISC, CGIAR, AgNIC, GFIS.
- Database systems/tools: AgriOceanDspace, NewGenlib, WebAGRIS, NERAKIN, AgriDrupal.
Searching for digital resources
For more information on this topic, see: Digital libraryDigital library
A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...
AGRIS aims to ensure that the resources contained in repositories located in several regions be available to the general user, with few restrictions, in accordance with the goals of open access. However, many of these resources run the risk of turning into deep web
Deep web
The Deep Web refers to World Wide Web content that is not part of the Surface Web, which is indexed by standard search engines....
or invisible web resources, since they frequently cannot be located by search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
crawlers. As is the case with some digital libraries, where special pages or sitemaps are created to allow search engines to find all of their resources, AGRIS uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
OAI-PMH is a protocol developed by the Open Archives Initiative. It is used to harvest the metadata descriptions of the records in an archive so that services can be built using metadata from many archives...
to retrieve metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
and "expose" otherwise invisible web resources to the AGRIS search engines. A similar process is adopted for instance by Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest...
, Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
and Scirus
Scirus
Scirus is a comprehensive science-specific search engine. Like CiteSeerX and Google Scholar, it is focused on scientific information. Unlike CiteSeerX, Scirus is not only for computer sciences and IT and not all of the results include full text. It also sends its scientific search results to...
search engines.
Unlike traditional resources that pose storage space limits, digital resources have the widely recognized advantage of making available to users a huge variety of resources of often diverse nature.Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
, Google Book Search
Google Book Search
Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...
, Windows Live Search Books(shutdown), Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
, Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, The Library of Congress World Digital Library
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress.The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet, provide...
, The Digital Library at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, and Carnegie Mellon University's Million Book Project
Million Book Project
The Million Book Project , is a book digitization project, led by Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and University Libraries...
are considered leaders in the field of digital library creation and management.
Data indexing in AGRIS: the AGROVOC thesaurus
For more information on this topic, see: AGROVOCAGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
In traditional libraries, finding works of interest is directly related to how well they are cataloged. However, complex and born-digital works require substantially more effort.
AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
is a comprehensive multilingual agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
thesaurus
Thesaurus
A thesaurus is a reference work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning , in contrast to a dictionary, which contains definitions and pronunciations...
that was developed with the cooperation of FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
member countries. It is used for indexing data in agricultural information systems and it strives for continuous improvement and updating. The first version of AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
was produced in 1982 and distributed to all AGRIS centres.
Vocabulary updating is done by FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
in collaboration with national AGRIS centres. Staff at the centres propose new terms for the database to FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
subject specialists for consideration. The terms selected by the experts are added into AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
. In the past, an AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
supplement was then published and provided to the centres. Now the updated AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
is available online. The proposing of new terms and corrections also can be done through the FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
/AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
web site.
Limitations in AGRIS
In the last years, several partnership initiatives have been developed globally by diverse international organizations often involved in development, in order to overcome the lack of coherent and coordinated approaches to information system architecture. Against this background, an assessment of AGRIS was conducted in 2000. It was noted that the network had only been partially successful in achieving its goals. Limitations in AGRIS were identified in four areas: 1) difficult access to the original documents, 2) incomplete coverage, 3) independent systems and 4) structural and institutional constraints.As the AGRIS system aims to decentralise data processing and to prioritise national capacity building, enhancing autonomous management of national agricultural information. a new strategic vision has been developed.
The new vision
In order to address those limitations, a “new vision for AGRIS” has been under work since 2000. In 2009, AGRIS adhered to Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD), a global initiative of international partner organizations (such as, DFID, CIARD, GFARGlobal Forum on Agricultural Research
The Global Forum on Agricultural Research is a stakeholder-led initiative that serves as a neutral forum for discussion and action on critical issues related to agricultural research for development...
, etc.) committed to working to increase the public benefits deriving from investment in agricultural research and innovation for development.
The underlying principle shared by CIARD's stakeholders, which FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
is contributing to with its AGRIS portal, is that, information is to be made publicly "available", "accessible" and, "applicable". At the same time, all of CIARD stakeholders equally recognize the need to respect the roles of national, regional and international institutions, whilst aligning their efforts to develop better interlinked information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
collections and services.
Currently, AGRIS continues its research into improving access to science technology and agricultural information globally available on the web, under the CIARD umbrella.
Accessibility of the new AGRIS
While AGRIS is striving to keep abreast of the technology available, enhanced resource accessibility may be identified as one of the core objectives of the new AGRIS.According to the new vision, the AGRIS search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
should be able to retrieve and interpret a wealth of diverse information sources including full-text documents, threads from discussion fora, blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
entries, news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
articles, and organizational, regional, national, international information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
(re)sources. Partnerships with established search engine
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
technology leaders such as Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, Yahoo or Scirus
Scirus
Scirus is a comprehensive science-specific search engine. Like CiteSeerX and Google Scholar, it is focused on scientific information. Unlike CiteSeerX, Scirus is not only for computer sciences and IT and not all of the results include full text. It also sends its scientific search results to...
will be explored in order to provide customized search capabilities.
The new AGRIS under the CIARD umbrella
Falling under the umbrella of CIARD, a joint initiative co-led by the CGIAR, GFAR and FAOFão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
, the new AGRIS aims to promote the sharing and management of agricultural science and technology information through the use of common standards and methodologies. These will incorporate Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
features, in order to make the search experience as comprehensive, intuitive and far-reaching as possible for users of the new AGRIS.
Furthermore, the new AGRIS will also leverage the data and infrastructure of one of CIARD's projects: the CIARD RING. An acronym standing for Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING), the CIARD RING project is led by GFAR
Global Forum on Agricultural Research
The Global Forum on Agricultural Research is a stakeholder-led initiative that serves as a neutral forum for discussion and action on critical issues related to agricultural research for development...
and it aims to:
- give an overview of the current offer of information services in ARD; as well as
- support those who want to implement new services.
A directory of ARD (Agricultural Research for Development) information services will allow the monitoring, describing and classifying of existing services, whilst benchmarking them against interoperability
Interoperability
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together . The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to...
criteria, to ensure for maximum outreach and global availability.
See also
- Agricultural Metadata Element SetAgMESThe AgMES initiative was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and aims to encompass issues of semantic standards in the domain of agriculture with respect to description, resource discovery, interoperability and data exchange for different types of information...
- Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS)Agricultural Information Management StandardsThe Agricultural Information Management Standards, abbreviated to AIMS, is a web portal managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations . It disseminates standards and good practices in information management for the support of the right to food, sustainable agriculture and...
- Agricultural Ontology ServiceAgricultural Ontology ServiceThe Agricultural Ontology Service shall serve as a reference initiative that structures and standardises agricultural terminology in multiple languages for use of any number of systems in the agricultural domain and provide several services. The purpose of the AOS is to achieve more...
- AGROVOCAGROVOCAGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...
- Information managementInformation managementInformation management is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information...
- RepositoryRepository (publishing)A repository in publishing, and especially in academic publishing,is a real or virtual facility for the deposit of academic publications, such as academic journal articles....
- Information Management Resource Kit (IMARK)IMARKThe Information Management Resource Kit is a partnership-based e-learning initiative developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and partner organizations to support individuals, institutions and networks world-wide in the effective management of information and...
Other publications
- Agricultural Information and Knowledge Management Papers
- The AGRIS Application Profile for the International Information System on Agricultural Sciences and Technology Guidelines on Best Practices for Information Object Description
- Consultations on Agricultural Management (COAIM)
- First Consultation on Agricultural Information Management (2000 COAIM Report)
- Report on the Second Consultation on Agricultural Information Management (2002 COAIM Report)
- 1968-1994: Insights and Lessons