Question 1: What are we sharing and what needs to be shared?
The landscape of information and data flows and repositories is multifaceted. Peer reviewed journals and scientific conferences are still the basis of scholarly communication, but science blogs and social community platforms become increasingly important. Research data are now increasingly managed using advanced technologies and sharing of raw data has become an important issue.
This topic thread will address and discuss details about the types of information that need to be shared in our domain, e.g.:
Information residing in communications between individuals, such as in blogs and
community platforms supported by sources such as directories of people and
institutions;
Formal scientific data collections as published data sets and their associated
metadata and quality indicators, peer-reviewed scholarly journals or document
repositories;
Knowledge „derivatives‟ such as collections of descriptions of agricultural
technologies, learning object repositories, expertise databases, etc.; And surely more...
There are several interesting examples of successful data exchange between distributed datasets, and some of them in the area of agricultural research and innovation. There are also ambitious attempts that still have to live up to expectations. A common characteristic of most examples is that they are based on specific ad-hoc solutions more than on a general principle or architecture, thus requiring coordination between "tightly coupled" components and limiting the possibilities of re-using the datasets anywhere and of replicating the experiment.
In some areas there are global platforms for sharing and interoperability. Some of these address the need to access scholarly publications, mostly those organized by the publishers, and others address the interfacing of open archives. With regard to standards and services in support of interoperability, there are several very successful initiatives, each dealing with different data domains. Among document repositories, the most successful initiative is surely the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting used by a global network of open archives. The strength of this movement is changing the face of scholarly publishing. Geospatial and remote sensing data have strong communities that have developed a number of wildly successful standards such as OGC that have in turn spurred important open source projects such as GeoServer. Finally, in relation to statistics from surveys, censuses and time-series, there has been considerable global cooperation among international organizations leading to initiatives such as SDMX and DDI, embraced by the World Bank, IMF, UNSD, OECD and others.
Singer System1, GeoNetwork2, and GeneOntology Consortium3 are examples of successful initiatives to create mechanisms for data exchange within scientific communities. The SDMX4 initiative aims to create a global exchange standard for statistical data.
There are more examples, but these advanced systems cannot have a strong impact on the average (smaller, less capacitated) agricultural information systems, because overall there are no easy mechanisms and tools for information systems developers to access, collect and mash up data from distributed sources. An infrastructure of standards, web sevices and tools needs to be created.
1 Singer System http://singer.cgiar.org/ Last accessed March 2011
2 GeoNetwork http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home Last accessed March 2011
3 GeneOntology Consortium http://www.geneontology.org/ Last accessed March 2011
4 SDMX http://sdmx.org/ Last accessed March 201
Key questions addressed in the SADC AICKMS matrix for the development of a regional AICKMS:
Current Status of Communication and Knowledge Management:
1. Current status of knowledge on AR&D (what do they know)
2. Contribution: What knowledge can the stakeholder contribute on (AR&D)
3. Current attitude towards AR&D
4. Current practices: Channels/mode/of comm. & KM on AR&D
Definition of information needs and appropriate packaging:
5. What are their information needs on AR&D
6. Why do they need that information on AR&D
7. Who could provide this information on AR&D
8. What channels of communication to use to provide info on AR&D
Challenges and proposed action plan
9. Challenges faced to access the information
10. Challenges faced to make the information available
11. Proposed actions/activities to overcome constraints
Now, the similarities with the tasks on this forum is striking. So since Krishan is on this forum, may be I would invite him to take this matrix concept applicability w.r.t our current task forward.
Thanks for introducing this topic Sanjay. Just to provide some clarifications: the SADC Network of ARD Information Managers coined the term Agricultural Information, Communication & Knowledge Management (AICKM) Strategy development as a result of studying various documents about Information Management Strategies, Communications Strategies and Knoweldge Management Strategies and realising that they are all part of a contimuum of processes we are engaged in, and could not be treated separately. Thus, if you are staring from scratch, you may find a quick win with the development of a Communications Strategy, but very soon, as you start implementing your strategy, you will quickly find the need to work on the others too.
The matrix Sanjay mentions above consists of 13 questions (in columns) that we try to answer for each category of stakeholder (listed in rows). This matrix is used in the context of a workshop where all the stakeholders of ARD are present and in the end, as each stakeholder fills in their row, we end up with a rich picture of what is known, what is required and in what format and through which preferred channel, as well as who is expected to provide such information. At the same time, the challenges of making the information available are addressed, as well as challenges faced to access the information. Together with the stakeholders, the information providers can therfore discuss specific information requirements (at the intersection of rows and columns). This approach has been useful during face-to-face workshops with up to 30 stakeholder representatives in a room and helps define exactly what information should be exchanged and among whom. The matrix is then kept (as a large display in the hallway of some institutions) as a platform for further definition and refinement of the information needs of the stakeholders.
The result of the matrix-based information needs assessment then becomes the basis of the development of the AICKM strategy. This approach is being tried out in the Southern African region, but we are still at the stage of drafts of the AICKM strategies at national level.
More information about the development and application of the approach at:
http://www.sadc.int/fanr/agricresearch/icart/meetings/ICARTREGIONALWORKS...
and
http://www.sadc.int/fanr/agricresearch/icart/inforesources/SADCNetARDInf...
So I was wondering whether we could in fact share with our friends over here what popped up in the matrix regarding: What are we sharing and what needs to be shared?
In one of our meetings with farmer organisations I can recall them being very demanding on what THEY wanted US - NARS to SHARE.
Apart from coventional claims, here are a few that they mentioned:
1. Meteorological forecasts - They wanted to know how the weather will be so that they can plan field establishment, cultural practices and harvest
2. Irrigation forecasts - They want NARS to interprete 1 above and tell them whether they should irrigate their fields, and if yes, how much.
3. Market prices (local)- They want to send their produce to markets where prices were higher
4. Crop production evolution - They want to plan production and be reassured that their crops will fetch better prices
5. Centralised repository for basic info - They want to access a one stop shop repository where they can get useful informaion on pesticides (including mode of action, msds etc), seeds, varities, crop production recommendations, hydroponics... and so forth..
6. Pests alerts - They want to be notified whenever there is an outbreak of insect pests / diseases
7. Sharing - They want NARS to communicate with them not only in forums, prints or on websites but also in multimedia (videos).
Now to the best part:
8. They wanted NARS to:
a. Publish research they intend to do - They said they might help in some cases (e.g farm trials) while at the same time it will allow them to challenge the chaneling of resources in unwarranted research
b. Publish status of research / development projects ongoing
c. Publish papers of all research done - This is not the case for the time being, such that they are accessible for reference - here: website
d. To focus work on sustainable agriculture on themes such as natural enemies, biopesticdes, organic agriculture ...
In my opinion "Target" is a key word for answering this question.
What kind of information we share depends first of all on the overaal goal of information sharing - should it facilitate the work of scientists or should relevant infirmation/ the information platform also rais the interest of other stakeholders like policy makers etc
If the latter, the information base has to address certain target groups which will easily loose their interest in the djungle of research papers, directly, has to index less scientific-like sources and has on long-term to provide meta-data, in that sense that research results are summarized for non-scientists.
Furthermore, target-oriented search, is crucial for scienists as well - compared to the internet, the data base has to provide a guide through the landscape of information potentially available. - If the information base only meets the challenge to register the links of all Libraries with specific ARD relevance, 95% of internationally published journals in this field and further open sources, a considerable step has been done and technical refinements, which may indeed be relevant like indexing may follow.
Such an initial situation could be an incentive (beside those already mentioned by other participants in this forum) not only to use the data base but also to contribute to the data base, keep their interest and to care it.
Another will be as already mentioned in another context to make tacit knowledge from stakeholders who should benefit from ARD, accessable, which is particularly relevant for socio-, politically, and economically research. From personal experience, I would say for this an additional data base on experts ordered to region and topics might be most helpful.
I totally agree
Last year, during a regional workshop, a colleague was reminding us of the guidelines of writing news articles as we discussed RSS feeds. He reminded us of the 5Ws that we need to address when we write an article (What happened, When, Where, To/By Who, Why). Then he added that we also now add the H (How)...
The audience was in a good mood and started to add a few of their own and we ended up with:
Who did What with Whom, How, Where, When and Why? (WWWHWWW)
Then someone added another W:
What will it take to do the same? (not just cost, but also other resources)
and finally another RSS-savvy person added another W:
Weblink?
So sharing news in the age of RSS feeds may now be summarised as :
WWWWHWWWW!
Who? did What? with Whom? When? How? Where? Why? What did it require? Weblink?
Does this principle improve the way we now want to share information? I can see some people itching to add a few more alphabets to this list...
"Data" is maybe too general. Maybe we ca distinguish
statistics
data from research
catalogues of things (e.g. germplasms)
........
Assume that be resources you mean links to information sources?
If "data" is too general (I agree that it is), so is "resources". Is information about a person, their professional affiliation, subject areas of expertice, links to publications, or other pieces of information related to people "data" or "resources"?
I have been reading the responses so far to Q1 and many of them of have talked about the audience for shared information. We've seen discussions about African researchers, the needs of small holder farmers, those with a specific interest that are addressed with projects like the Borlaug Wheat Rust project, etc.
However, I'd like to suggest that in the context of "what kind of information is shared" that the audience is not the end user of the information. Granted, the information being shared is not really useful unless it provides end users get a tangible benefit, but when discussing about what kind of information can/should be shared, aren't we really talking about the sharing of information between systems? To me, in order satisify the desires of users like Johanness with the description of a customizable "smart" desktop, or researchers in the field, that interaction is between the end users of information and some sort of delivery platform.
Technologies such as RSS, OAI-PMH, LOD, etc. are just tools for encapsulating information, perhaps structuring that information and including linkages to related information but they don't try to dictate how that information is formatted or how it should be delivered to end users.
To me, when we talk about the "audience" for information that is going to be shared, the audience is other systems. In order to be successful, the interoperability between systems providing (sharing) information and other systems consuming that information, is the crux of what we should be discussing here. That means identifying and agreeing upon useful standards like OAI-PHM, LOD as RDF, and ensuring that the systems that are sharing information support those techonolgies sufficiently. Once a system is able to consume shared information, it's really up to the system (and those that develop it) as to how it's delivered.
I do think that "discovery" of the type of information that is being shared is an important piece here. For example, a site which is delivering content related to Aquaculture is going to want to be able to discover and consume information from other systems providing information about Aquaculture. This is where systems like the CIARD RING come in.
In any case, as we move forward in the questions in the consultion I think we'll find more clarity between information sharing and information delivery.
Thanks John for clarification on the question of "audience."
Thinking of the audience as other systems helps me frame this discussion.
And while it might be outside the purview of this discussion I do think it's helpful to at least keep the end-user (a person) in mind. Perhaps there are too many types or categories of data but it would be helpful I think to have some kind of standardization when it comes to how each system delivers its data to the end-user.