Glossary

A

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Accession Number:

a number assigned to an item when it is added to a database, such as a periodical index or library catalog; it indicates only the chronological order in which materials were added to the database.

AgMES:

The acronym for "Agricultural Metadata Element Set ". The Agricultural Metadata Elements Project was set up to promote the use of metadata in description of all agricultural information resource types. Using carefully chosen metadata, which adopts standardized agricultural terms, will make it much easier to find and share information about those resources. In addition, the AgMES project is working to improve interoperability (e.g. capable of being implemented on multiple operating systems and in multiple programming languages) between, and among, uniquely and richly described agricultural information resources. The principal scope of the AgMES project is the successful integration and exchange of information for the benefit of everyone working in the agricultural domain. For more information, see: AgMES Homepage

AGLS:

Australian Government Locator Service. For more information, see: AGLS Documentation

AGRIS AP:

AGRIS Application Profile. The AGRIS AP contains specifications about the meta data that should be exchanged and disseminated through the AGRIS system. An XML DTD for encoding of these metadata is included. These new guidelines can be used by AGRIS partners to contribute to AGRIS. Any XML document submitted following these specifications can be published through the AGRIS database on the Web and CDs. The specifications and the DTD should be stable for the entire year 2003. During the year we will collect feedback for the further improvement of the specifications; we will also be publishing an XML Schema and RDF schema for encoding of the records. For more information, see: PDF User Guide

AGROVOC:

Multilingual agricultural thesaurus produced by FAO, and used for indexing and cataloguing. For more information, see: AGROVOC Website

Application Profile:

Application profiles are defined as schemas which consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespaces, combined together by implementers, and optimized for a particular local application. Application profiles follow the following four characteristics:

• Draw upon existing pool of metadata definition standards to extract suitable and application or requirement oriented elements.
• An application profile can not create new elements.
• Application profiles specify the application specific details such as the schemes or controlled vocabularies. An application profile also contains information such as the format for element value, cardinality or data type.
• Lastly, an application profile can refine standardized definitions as long as it is "semantically narrower or more specific". This capability of application profiles caters to situations wherein domain specific terminology is needed to replace a more general one.

AN:

Accession Number.

AGS

AGRIS Subject Categories. For more information, see: AGRIS Subject Categories

ASFAT:

Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts Thesaurus For more information, see: ASFA Thesaurus

B

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C

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

CABC

CABI Codes. For more information, see: CABI Publishing Homepage

CABT

CABI Thesaurus. For more information, see: CABI Publishing Homepage

CN

Call Number

COAIM

Consultation on Agricultural Information Management. For more inforamtion, see: COAIM Homepage

CODEN

Quite literally, CODEN stands for "Code Number."

DEFINITION: "A system of alphanumeric codes developed by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM ) to uniquely and permanently identify sci-tech serial and monographic publications. Responsibility for administering the system was transferred to Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS ) in 1975. The CODEN is used in electronic information systems to process bibliographic data because it is more concise than the full title and less ambiguous than an abbreviated title."

Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. "The CSD System Documentation". Available Online (6 June 2003)

"The coden is a number, assigned at the CCDC, and each coden corresponds to a single journal or part-journal, for example :

**Biochim.Biophys.Acta has coden 113

**J.Chem.Soc.,Perkin Trans.1 has coden 207

**J.Chem.Soc.,Perkin Trans.2 has coden 188

Codens are used to avoid inconsistencies in the spelling and abbreviation of journal names; also to save space in the database. Some users may be familiar with the International Coden system where, for example, Biochim.Biophys.Acta has international coden BBACAQ."

This explanation was given by Stuart Sutton, Professor in the Information School.

D

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DC

Dublin Core.

DCMES

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is made up of 16 core descriptive elements: the metadata element set, intended to facilitate discovery of electronic resources. The basic elements are: Title, Creator, Subject, Description, Publisher, Contributor, Date, Type, Format, Identifier, Source, Language, Relation, Coverage, Rights, and the newly added Audience. For more information, see: Dublin Core Homepage

DCMI

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. DCMI's activities include consensus-driven working groups, global workshops, conferences, standards liaison, and educational efforts to promote widespread acceptance of metadata standards and practices.

Dewey Decimal
Classification (DDC)

Dewey Decimal Classification.

DDC, named after its inventor Melvil Dewey, uses decimals for subdivisions. It has the following classifications.

DLIOs

Document-like Information Objects. A DLIO is a unit that is comparable to a paper document. The term is used to indicate resources such as websites, power-point files, photos etc. but may not cover, for example, organizations or projects.

DTD

Document Type Definition. The purpose of a DTD is to define the legal building blocks of an XML document. It defines the document structure with a list of legal elements. The advantages of the DTD are many, viz. each of your XML files can carry a description of its own format with it; independent groups of people can agree to use a common DTD for interchanging data; your application can use a standard DTD to verify that the data you receive from the outside world is valid; and you can also use a DTD to verify your own data.

E

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Exchange format

An exchange format is a set of specifications which define what must be exchanged and the structure and syntax required for that exchange.

Let's take a simple scenario. In your local application you are using keywords from the CABI Thesaurus and the NAL Thesaurus. At the same time, you want to use Dublin Core. Now, there are different levels at which you can become Dublin Core compliant: the internal storage level, the data input format level and the data display level. As it can be expected, the work required for becoming 'compliant' is different at different levels.

Now, the AGRIS Application profile, which is an exchange format, asks that to be compliant you do not need to change at any of the above levels. However, if you want to expose the data for transfer to another system then you must map your local application to the needs of the application profile.

So, revisiting the keywords problem. The exchange format requires that a conversion routine to be created for correctly mapping the local keywords field to the AGRIS 'ags:subjectThesaurus' field with appropriate scheme and language combination. In AGRIS AP compliant XML, this is done by placing the value of the keyword filed in the following XML tag.

<ags:subjectThesaurus xml:lang="eng" scheme="ags:CABT"> ARTIFICIAL LIGHT </ags:subjectThesaurus>

This means that your local application does not need to change anything. All you need is one conversion scrip that will produce an output which is compliant to the AGRIS requirements.

F

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FAO

Food and Agriculture Organization. For more information, see: FAO Homepage

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

FGDC

Federal Geographic Data Committee

Format

The manner in which data is stored and organized. For example, ISO2709, comma-delimited and Tag-Text are three different formats of storing metadata record[s]. They are not 100% compatible with each other, but information can be transferred from one to the other using proper conversion mechanisms or scripts. Computer information can be stored in literally hundreds of different formats, and can represent text, sounds, graphics, animations, etc. Format may be used to determine the software, hardware or other equipment needed to display or operate the resource.

G

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

H

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language. It is the encoding syntax used to write World Wide Web documents, which are then read or viewed by Web browsers.

HTTP

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.

It is the WWW protocol that performs the request and retrieve functions of a server.

Hyperlink

A hypertext link, either a graphic or text string which, when clicked, opens a new web page or jumps to a new location in the current page.

Hypertext

It is the fundamental notion behind the WWW, allowing one resource to be linked to other relevant information elsewhere on the WWW. This results in accessibility to information without a linear sequence as a user can jump from one website to another with only one click. It allows humans to access information in a manner similar to their non-sequential thinking process.

I

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

IEEE

often called "I triple E." The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American professional society for electrical engineers as well as computer engineers.

IMT

Internet Media Types. For more information, see: List of Media Types

IPC

International Patent Classification.

IPR

Intellectual Property Rights.

ISBN

International Standard Book Number. It is a numerical code given to a book which uniquely identifies it.

ISSN

International Standard Serial Number. It is a numerical code given to a serial (periodical) which uniquely identifies it.

J

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

JN

Job Number.

K

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L

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

LCC

Library of Congress Classification. For more information, see: LCC

LCSH

Library of Congress Subject Headings. For more information, see: LCSH

M

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

MeSH

Medical Subject Headings

Metadata

Metadata is information about information - labeling, cataloging and descriptive information structured in such a way that allows Web pages to be searched correctly and efficiently. Metadata is core information about a resource which a machine can understand and thus interpret and seek.

MN

Microfiche Number

N

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NAL

National Agricultural Library of United States. For more information, see: NAL Homepage

NALT

National Agricultural Library   Agricultural Thesaurus. For more information, see: NAL Thesaurus

O

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

P

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Platform

The type of computer operating system being used, some examples are UNIX, MS-DOS, Windows NT.