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
In the effort to translate research results for the smallholder end user, perhaps we should consider the limitation of agronomy and other bio-technical research developed from small plot analysis, particularly those with a high manual labor component such as land preparation and weeding. The agronomic research does an excellent job of determining the phyiscal potential of a given environment, BAS!!! What it can not do is measure the drag on this potential resulting from the limited operational resources available to extend the research from the small plot to the whole farm, particular for smallholder who may only have sufficeint calories to work 3 or 4 hrs per day, if lucky.
The problem is that this whole idea has fallen through the cracks into what appears as an administrative void in the research/development process. Who is responsible for determing the amount of labor and other operational resouces needed and available to manage the land either at the farm level or the community level. The latter when involving hired casual labor that migrates through a community. Historically the default has to be concider it infinite or at least unlimited. This is doubtful.
Thus who is or should be responsible to determine if the farmers can effectively use the technology promoted for their benefit? Or conversely given the labor available how long will it take to complete various activities and how will that impact on the yields, quality or other factors. Is it the agronomist, but they are poorly trained for this analysis? Is it the economist, they can tell what is needed but usually fall short of the amount available? Is it the sociologist? who. I think there is a whole set of information that needs to be evaluated in integrating the research results to the smallholders' limited capacity to utilize the data.
Thank you,
Dick Tinsley
Continusing on the previous contribution and effort to relate research results to smallholder agriculture it might be useful to make a distingtion between the science and art of farming. In this case:
Science vs. Art
The science of farming is the result of the research effort that as mentioned previously is largely defining the physical potential of the environment and represent the maximum yield potential. This is all well documented and effectively shared among the agriculture scientists including extension officers. As mentioned before it does not factor in the drag imposed by the limited resources available to manage land and assume the are no restriction.
The art of farming is the manner individual farmers, smallholder or large, optimize the science of farming to the limited resources they have to manage their land and the different enterprises they are involved to maximize their total returns to all farm enterprises, deliberating reducing the returns to some enterprises to optimize the returns to others. This may not be as well documented and may actually be difficult to generalize, but needs to be appreciated. But as mentioned previously this is the drag the limited resources places on the physical potential.
Research/Extension vs. Development
In this case the role of the research/extension officers working from experiment stations or relying on the result of experiment station work is broad base mandate to develop and promote the maximum yield potential of area. Basically a top down technology transfer activity.
The development officer, usually working through some NGO and in a more confined area of a beneficiary community is mandated to take a closer look at the research information and work with the farmers to optimize their use of the technology with the limted resources available. It also includes facilitate access to such additional operational resources as contract tractors for basic land preparation that will expedite activities and allow better use of the research information. This also needs to be fed back up, but that link tends to be considerable weaker than the downward flow. However, the research/extension programs need to be much more aware of the limited resources farmers have to accept the research results, and not simply write off the lack of use to lack of interest or limited knowledge, etc. This is where some additional information needs to be developed and distributed.
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/Adoptors.htm
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/Integration.htm
I hope this makes some sense,
Thank you,
Dick Tinsley
I work with the Grameen Foundation which is currently implementing a Community Knowledge Worker Project in Uganda funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We are deploying a network of Community Knowledge Workers, equiped with phones, to provide actionable agricultural information to their communities. We would like to be in a position to more easily share that information coming from research institutions with small holder farmers.
There are a few obstacles to that sharing including:
We would like to see a common format for sharing agricultural information that makes it easy for small holder farmer service providers like ourselves to push that info to small holder farmers. In our early thinking we envision this format would use tags both subject and geographic coupled with a standard simple language, and a standard format for the length of the agricultural tip. It would be good to know how others would tackle this problem.
Best,
Jason
Jason,
This is really a challenge and tends to be more difficult than it appear. The problem is that the research can be highly compartmetalized with the variety improvement doing one thing, the fertility another, the plant protection a third, water management a forth, all concentrating on their individual effort and making recommendations as if there area of interest was the most critical. Thus you would be better off looking for the extension recommendations that attempt to pull it all together into a single crop defined package.
However, even than you will have to assist in integrating this to the limited resource base of the smallholders. As I mentioned in other posting, the research and extension recommendation coming from it are the ideal representing the physical potential of the area. This is usually beyond the capacity of the farmers to fully utilize, let alone integrate to their other crops and enterprises. Thus, you still need to work carefully with the farmers as the program unfold and take note of such things as timing, plant density, weeding, etc. These are areas with high labor inputs and compromises need to be made. At that point it is important to go with the flow of the farmers, they have the best understanding. They may have other crops and other fields to consider along with what you are promoting. The research and extension will normally not take these into consideration
Personal point where in Uganda are you working?
You are welcome to visit my website: www.smallholderagriculture.com for some idea of how this all works out and comes together.
I hope this is helpful to you.
Dick Tinsley
The clients for information diversify geographically, economically, socially, from a wide range of literacy, and practice and there are language barriers amongst. Therefore, a unified information system cannot provide an answer to all players. Almost none would be interested to know that the north-east edge of a certain tomato field was infested with Helicoverpa armigera by the end of April. But for the neighbor grower, this information might be indispensable. If integrated pest management is practiced in the region, then the moderators would want to know what pesticide was applied. Crop growers fifty km away would be alerted that there is a changed trend in pest population and might start with prophylactic measures. The target market might be interested to know that crop reduction might be expected and would look for alternative sources.
Everyone in the food chain uses as much information as they can get and digest. The level of details should harmonize with the needs and abilities. The data that is available to the user should match his language, terminology and cultural associations.
A network of distributed information systems allows local centers to manage their information efficiently. They can efficiently ensure data veracity and integrity. These local centers can be located and managed in farms or regional centers. They should be able to provide information services to queries from other centers, and that requires to have adequate thesaurus systems to ensure that differences in terminology would not render the erroneous information.
The fear from sharing information can better be managed locally where culture issues can be handled by natives to the region, yet this is certainly a long process.
<p>So, are we saying that the information we share depends on our perception of who our target users are - if we are catering to a local audience, our information is primarily packaged to satisfy the information needs of that group; and we would be able to show the impact of the information 'service' we provide for our primary target. Now, with the ease of information sharing, through the web-enabled technologies, to a much larger audience, we are faced with the question of how do now integrate our existing information system functionalities into that larger (national, regional, global) system.</p>
<p>Does that mean that we need to look at our information with new 'lenses' and label it with appropriate keywords so they can be 'found'. Does it mean that we have to repackage our information into different modular formats such that they can fit into the the larger information systems; or can the technology do all that for us? As we move into the discussion, the community will be looking to the CIARD initiative for guidance on these issues. Their question will be simple: "Tell me what I have to do next, to (a) share the information others need (b) be integrated?"</p>
<p>The answer to (b) will be dealt with under inter-operability</p>
<p>The answer to (a) seems to be coming down to the fact that there is no standard answer, but a set of generic principles that an information system should be composed of:</p>
<p>(i) information contents stored in as much a granular way as possible that it can be used to construct an information package for the user. (The granularity of the contents may have been determined by a prior assessment of the information requirements of the initial users, and finding an appropriate classification system that most closely matches these needs)</p>
<p>(ii) a set of predefined presentations of information packages that has been based on the perceptions of the needs of the intended users (synthesis reports that combine data and primary information into information and knowledge products, for the intented user)</p>
<p>(iii) a tool that enables the user to search through the granular contents to find those elements of what information package they are looking for, in case the predefined packages are not satisfying their demand (still an inelegant but practical way of providing information as a service, as compared to the predefined packages)</p>
<p>(iv) a mechanism for interaction between the information generator and the information user such that changing information needs can be formulated for new 'predefined presentations of information packages (this may be a facilitated interaction among the data producers, the information generators and the information user and may imply workflow adaptations, new definitions of the granularity of contents and new ways of packaging data into information)</p>
<p>Personally, I feel that today we have been able to move very far on (i) to (iii) mainly through ICT-mediated tools, but we are still stuck on applying these tools to (iv) because it relates to concepts.</p>
<p>Is Open-Linked-Data one of the tools we are developing to facilitate (iv) or is there more we need to be thinking of and be doing along those lines? Is a social-networking tool sufficient to facilitate such negotiations? Do we need a new kind of online collaboration tool to enable the information/data producer and the information user to define the suitable information end-product?</p>
I argue that we have two sides and both should gain from the information. Assuming that the majority of the prospective players are not researchers but rather users who are looking for an answer to a problem, they do not have the time and resources to learn the genre of a new system composed by a remote foreign society. The knowledge should be presented in a way that is easy for them to grasp.
<p>kbheenick writes:<br />
> Does that mean that we need to look at our information with<br />
> new 'lenses' and label it with appropriate keywords so they<br />
> can be 'found'. Does it mean that we have to repackage our<br />
> information into different modular formats such that they<br />
> can fit into the the larger information systems; or can the<br />
> technology do all that for us?</p>
<p>I once worked at an economic research institute<br />
which found that people in the region found jobs less by<br />
reading classified ads or visiting employment offices than<br />
through the advice of friends or relatives. <br />
<br />
A few years later, a class of mine at the Asian Institute of<br />
Technology in Bangkok found that members of the AIT faculty<br />
each tended to identify with a specialized sub-field consisting<br />
of some 100 colleagues spread over the globe. To remain<br />
current, these faculty members relied less on generalized<br />
literature searches than on recommendations and advice from<br />
their international colleagues.<br />
<br />
The general point is that as we design information systems<br />
to serve different audiences, we also consider that people<br />
like to find things by asking other people or looking to them<br />
for recommendations. Assembling information into coherent<br />
packages for particular target audiences is not just a question<br />
of formats but of enabling people to discover information<br />
through following links from people they know or trust.</p>
Two observations on this a personal and a more institutional although in the latter i don not represent the institutional policy per se.
From a personal perspective you share what you would like to share and usually sharing in a trusted network with peers gives more confidence that the knowledge shared is (hopefully) used and applied. Sharing beyond a trusted network has more things to consider such as for instance speaking at a conference to share findings of a survey or publishing in a journal.
The role of our International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is to act as a regional knowledge learning and enabling centre. In general we consider the generated knowledge within our Centre as a public good and our findings are freely available on our Internetsite. In addition we host visiting scientists from all over the world doing specific redearch on climate change, hydrology, biodiversity and share with them data and information. In reaching out to grassroots level we could do more but face often financial barriers to make our knowledge avaliable in local or regional languages or ensure that our knowledge is disseminated through more appropriatechannels such as radio, drama and the like but within our means we are trying to get the best leverage of our research findings. One of the avenues we are experimenting reaching out is through youth networks, e-discussions and social media.
I have been scanning through messages. It is quite a caleidoscope and I may have overlooked but I miss one dimension: creating new knowledge by combining things from different sources.
Let me take the example of climatic change:
Climatic change affects the environment in which agriculoture operates. But it also causes climatic change, emitting CO2 , methane etc. And it can also mitigate climatic change by absorbing gases like CO2, N2O etc. To get an overview of how all these processes interact one has to combine
- climatic data
- economic / social data at farm level
- spatial information
- crop growth data
and more. An example of an attempt to develop a model combining these things is http://www.seamless-ip.org/
Scientists from different disciplines will have to learn to talk to each other, as they are used to communicate in the very specific language of their specialization. A biomathematician said about working with social scientists: "you really have to be patient and like each other to make it work". But can we make the different types of data talk to each other? That is an issue that we can discuss under question 2 on this forum.