Vassilis Protonotarios

Organization	NEUROPUBLIC S.A.
Organization type	Private Sector (Commercial Companies)
Organization role	Outreach & Networking Manager
Country	Greece
Area of Expertise	information & knowledge management communication open access open data social media digital repositories

I am combining my educational/academic background in agricultural biotechnology (BSc, MSc and PhD) with my personal interest & experience in agri-food information & knowledge management, data & metadata management workflows, knowledge organization systems (KOS) and linking agricultural data sources. I am interested (and actively supporting) Open Access and Open Data in the agri-food sector, through my participation in projects and contracts. I am flexible and like to have an overview of the processes that are related to my work.

I have provided my services to various organizations as a consultant and/or contractor, including but not limited to Agroknow (GR), UN FAO (IT), the Open Data Institute (ODI, UK), IFOAM EU (BE), ICARDA (Jordan), the Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET, GR), the University of Alcala (ES) and the Agricultural University of Athens (GR).

I have experience in metadata management workflows through my involvement in several EU-funded projects, such as agINFRA (www.aginfra.eu), Organic.Lingua (www.organic-lingua.eu) and VOA3R (Virtual Open Access Agriculture & Aquaculture Repository; www.voa3r.eu), where I was involved in the data integration and linking processes involving several heterogeneous agricultural data sources as well as the design / development of metadata aggregation workflows and methodologies, focusing on the metadata harvesting processes as well as on multilingual aspects (In the case of Organic.Lingua).

I have also worked on courses about the use of modern ICT tools and blended learning methods in various EU projects dealing with vocational education/training in organic agriculture, such as Organic.Edunet, Organic.Balkanet & CerOrganic.

Specialties: agricultural information & knowledge management, data & metadata management workflows, semantics, Open Access, Open Data, digital repositories, social media, use of ICT tools in agriculture, communication and networking.

This member participated in the following Forums

Forum Phase I

TOPIC 2

Submitted by Vassilis Protonotarios on Tue, 10/12/2010 - 11:14

Q1. Have you described in the past, your learning resources using metadata (description, title, keywords, tags, etc)? Which are the metadata elements that you mainly use? I have already described quite a few learning resources by using metadata. In the repository tool that we use for the specific purpose the metadata fields mentioned (title, description and keywords) are obligatory. In addition, we use metadata for describing areas such as copyright status, educational context, target age range, classification of the resource, contribution information etc. Q2. Do you feel that providing metadata for resources is useful? What are the incentives that drive you, to provide the metadata? Describing resources with metadata is a dirty, time-consuming job... but it pays well! I mean that it's a hard task but it surely helps at a later step, for indexing and retrieving the resources. It's much easier this way! Q3. What constitutes high quality metadata for a resource? Is it completeness for all metadata elements? Is it the clarity and correctness of the language used? Other aspects? I find all the aforementioned aspects equally important. I believe that a partially-described resource can only be partially helpful. If improper language is used, then the resource will also suffer... there should be some general guidelines that should be followed, that should contain both the completeness of the metadata as well as the quality of the used metadata. This guidelines could be implemented in the form of a quality assurance schema. Q4. What are the benefits you see in providing metadata for learning resources in practice? As I mentioned in my reply to Q2, the description of the resources with metadata elements really benefits the indexing and retrieval of the resources, especially when we are talking about a large number of resources found in the same repository!

TOPIC 1

Submitted by Vassilis Protonotarios on Mon, 10/11/2010 - 14:10

Some more answers to the questions set by NikosPalavitsinis: Q2. I have developed a more-or-less standard process for creating learning material, even though I mostly use already existing material. This process mostly covers a quality control of the produced resources, in order to avoid mistakes in both content and format. Steps: 1. Make a draft of the text with bullets, notes, sketches etc. This helps me clear things and follow a specific pathway. 2. Find the appropriate multmedia resources (such as photos, videos etc) that will support and enrich my learning material. 3. Combine draft text with multimedia and build a strong frame. 4. Fill this frame with full text and create the learning resource. Q3. I already mention the quality control process of the resources I produce myself. When using educational resources created by others, I try to cross-check the provided information by using supplementary material from different sources or compare specific points with some reference sources. Q4. I have already created a list of available online repositories and portals that provide copyright-free content on my research areas. This list includes Organic.Edunet web portal, TrAgLor, Bio@gro portal, FAO's document repositories, OrgEprints etc. I prefer these sources over the simple Google search because in this way I can get more accurate and in-topic results. So the answer to this question is YES, I find it easy to retrieve educational resources online. Q5. I share my resources online and I use Creative Commons licences, corresponding to each specific case.

Submitted by Vassilis Protonotarios on Wed, 10/06/2010 - 16:32

[quote="nikospalavitsinis"] To facilitate the discussion, we would like to ask you to start replying by indicating the question number addressed (i.e. Q1), so that our colleagues that read you answers can easily identify the question you refer to. 1. What is a learning resource for you? Which is the definition that describes your perception of learning resources? [/quote] Dear all, thank you for setting up this interesting topic. Even though I haven't been involved in the educational process for a long time, I will provide a quick reply to Q1 and the rest will follow. Q1. For me educational resource in any material that can be used for educational purposes. It can be of digital or analog format, a simple image or a multimedia presentation with video, audio and text, a set of slides comprising a presentation on a specific topic etc. It may be an electronic article found in a blog or a hard copy of a scientific article. I believe that it's not the mean of the resource that matters, but how one is going to facilitate this resource and implement it in his educational process.

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