The World Agricultural Information Centre of FAO

WAICENT - World Agricultural Information Centre - has been operating since the beginning of this year under the auspices of the Information and Documentation Systems Division (GIL) in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The AGRIS Application Profile for the International Information System on Agricultural Sciences and Technology

The first COAIM (Consultation on Agricultural information Management), held in June 2000 recognized that AGRIS should become “a key enabler and catalyst to establish a new model of agricultural information management”. Furthermore, it was agreed that FAO [1] should develop AGRIS into a capacity building initiative as well as an information system. The AGRIS network now has 201 Resource Centres, which vary in their resources and level of participation in the network, and opportunities exist to improve the effectiveness of the initiative through enhanced collaboration. A proposal for a new metadata standard for AGRIS reference was presented at COAIM 2002. This paper is a result of the evaluations made during COAIM 2002. It defines a set of high quality metadata on scientific and technical papers, and is directed at improving accessibility of materials on the Web. The standard also covers the necessary metadata for retrieving publications that are available only in paper format or that have restricted access

The New Direction for FAO`S Information Services. The world Information Centre (WAICENT)

The specific components which make up the World Agricultural Information Centre at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), are described in this paper. WAICENT comprises three principal components which are interactive and complementary: FAOSTAT, for the storage and dissemination of statistical information, FAOINFO, which covers hypermedia information, and FAOSIS which covers very specialized information systems. WAICENT has brought a new strategic information approach to the Organization vis-a-vis information production and delivery, along with two fundamental paradigm shifts - paper versus electronic distribution and distribution versus central storage. In this paper particular emphasis is given to the public information initiatives under WAICENT; the specialized information services provided by the various departments and delivered through WAICENT; the full-text document storage and retrieval system study that is part of the initiative; and the Virtual Library Project

WAICENT, World Agricultural Information Centre: FAO's information gateway

The specific components which make up the World Agricultural Information Centre at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), are described in this paper. WAICENT comprises three principal elements which are interactive and complementary: FAOSTAT, for the storage and dissemination of statistical information, FAOINFO, which covers hypermedia information, and FAOSIS which covers very specialised information systems

Information technologies and standards for agricultural information resources management: AGRIS Application Profile, AGROVOC and LISAGR

The new AGRIS initiative, which was launched at the Expert Consultation in October 2005, has defined three main areas of intervention to improve international information systems in agricultural science and technology: Advocacy, Capacity Building and Content Management. Content management, the management of agricultural science and technology information, has various needs: standards and methodologies for interoperability and facilitation of knowledge exchange; tools to enable information management specialists to process data; information and knowledge. This paper describes some of the efforts that have been made in this area over recent years

Metadata Framework for Resource Discovery of Agricultural Information

Network technologies have helped to lower many of the geographical barriers that impede access to information resources, but other obstacles have appeared in their place: one is the heterogeneous use of resource descriptions; another, more serious, is the lack of resource description at all. Resource description varies depending on the structure, type and content of resources; it also varies with the interests of the information keepers responsible for the management of these resources. A further consideration in resource discovery is the cross-domain information needs of users who require access to information about relevant resources irrespective of where they are located, how they have been stored or by whom. With the current enabling technology, the more complex needs of users nowadays can be met: querying more than one domain-specific information system in parallel while information managers seek to have a system that enables access to separately managed collections in-house. Example of initiatives that have been developed to encourage timely dissemination of scholarly information is the Open Archive Initiative (OAI)

The New Direction for FAO`S Information Services. The world Information Centre (WAICENT)

The specific components which make up the World Agricultural Information Centre at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), are described in this paper. WAICENT comprises three principal components which are interactive and complementary: FAOSTAT, for the storage and dissemination of statistical information, FAOINFO, which covers hypermedia information, and FAOSIS which covers very specialized information systems. WAICENT has brought a new strategic information approach to the Organization vis-a-vis information production and delivery, along with two fundamental paradigm shifts - paper versus electronic distribution and distribution versus central storage. In this paper particular emphasis is given to the public information initiatives under WAICENT; the specialized information services provided by the various departments and delivered through WAICENT; the full-text document storage and retrieval system study that is part of the initiative; and the Virtual Library Project

WP7 User requirements for the fisheries stock depletion alert system

This document describes the user requirements for the fisheries ontologies lifecycle, related knowledge tools and fisheries stock depletion alert system. The document provides an overview of the Work package 7 (Chapter 1), and of the fisheries domain and data (Chapter 2). It introduces the Ontology-based Fisheries Stock Depletion Alert System components (Chapter 3), and the user requirements for: (a) the fisheries ontologies lifecycle (Chapter 4), and (b) the ontology driven Fisheries Stock Depletion Alert System (FSDAS) (Chapter 5)

Agricultural information management standards website: an initiative to facilitate interoperability and improve coherence

Over the past few years, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been working on the development of semantic standards in metadata and controlled vocabularies in the agricultural domain. At present, there are a number of parallel and dispersed developments in standards, tools and systems for managing agricultural information. The First Consultation on Agricultural Information Management (COAIM), held in 2000, recommended that FAO assume a leading role as a clearinghouse for internationally used information management standards in the agricultural sector

Agricultural Information Worldwide, vol. 1, no. 1, 2008

Agricultural Information Worldwide, Volume 1, Number 1, 2008In this issue: FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK (2). INTRODUCTORY ESSY: Emerging Issues, Priorities and Commitments in e-Agriculture / Anton Mangstl (5); Questions nouvelles, priorités et engagements dans le secteur de l’e-Agriculture (7); Aspectos Nuevos, Prioridades y Compromisos Necesarios en la Agricultura Transmitida por Medios Electrónicos (9). ARTICLES: Analysis of Global e-Agriculture Survey / Charlotte Masiello-Riome, Nathaniel Heller, Stephen Rudgard, and Roberto Schneider; L’étude mondiale sur la cyberagriculture Encuesta Global sobre la Agricultura Electrónica (11); Seeing the Wood for the e-Trees: Ensuring Comparability in Forest-related Data on the Web, Voir la forêt des arbres numériques et permettre la comparaison grâce aux données forestières sur le web, Viendo la Madera para los Árboles Electrónicos: Asegurar la Comparabilidad de Datos Forestales en la Web / Roger Mills (19). AgINFO DISPATCHES - Reports, News, and Updates from the Agricultural Information Community: Agricultural Information Management Standards Web Site: An Initiative to Facilitate Interoperability and Improve Coherence / Gauri Salokhe, Margherita Sini, Boris Lauser, Fynvola Le Hunte Ward, Johannes Keizer, and Stephen Katz (24); e-Agriculture and e-Government in Hungary: Electronic Claim Submission Service to Facilitate EU Farm Subsidy Payments / László G. Papócsi (27); AgEcon Search: Expanding the Distribution of Current Literature in One Subdiscipline of Agriculture / Louise Letnes and Julie Kelly (29); ICT Tools in Action / Ednah Karamagi (30); Focus on e-Agriculture: e-Agriculture Week and Beyond (31); Emerging Issues in e-Agriculture: Policy Brief (35). NEWS FROM IAALD: Japan World Congress Program Update; Highlights of the IAALD Executive Committee Meeting – Rome, Italy, September 27, 2007; Notice of General Membership Meeting (37); INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS (40