AGRIS

AGRIS (International System for Agricultural Science and Technology) is a global public domain Database with 2.6 million structured bibliographical records on agricultural science and technology. The Database is maintained by FAO, and its content is provided by more than 150 participating institutions from 65 countries. The AGRIS Search system, accessible at http://agris.fao.org, allows scientists, researchers and students to perform sophisticated searches using keywords from the AGROVOC thesaurus, specific journal titles or names of countries, institutions, and authors.

Early AGRIS years

As advice administration flourished in the 1970s, the AGRIS metadata bulk was developed to acquiesce its users to accept chargeless admission to ability accessible in agronomical science and technology. AGRIS was developed to be an all-embracing accommodating arrangement to serve both developed and developing countries.

With the appearance of the Internet, forth with the promises offered by accessible admission publishing, there was growing acquaintance that the administration of agronomical science and technology information, would accept assorted facets: standards and methodologies for interoperability and abetment of ability exchange; accoutrement to accredit advice administration specialists to action data; advice and ability barter beyond countries. Common interoperability belief were appropriately adopted in its implementation, and the AGRIS AP metadata was appropriately created in adjustment to acquiesce barter and retrieval of Agronomical advice Resources.1

The AGRIS repository

AGRIS covers the advanced ambit of capacity accompanying to agriculture, including forestry, beastly husbandry, amphibian sciences and fisheries, animal nutrition, and extension. Its agreeable includes different blah abstract such as abstruse accurate and abstruse reports, theses, appointment papers, government publications, and more. A growing amount (around 20%) of bibliographical annal accept a agnate abounding argument certificate on the web which can calmly be retrieved by Google.

Access to the AGRIS Athenaeum is provided through the AGRIS Seek Engine. As such, it:

enables retrieval of bibliographic annal independent in the AGRIS Repository,

allows users to accomplish either full-text or fielded, parametric and assisted queries.

The AGRIS athenaeum exploits the advantages of both accessible antecedent seek seek belvedere (Solr), and structured XML. It facilitates the barter of advice a part of developing countries and amid developing and developed countries. Furthermore, it contains annal from civic journals - abnormally from developing countries that are not consistently represented in bartering indexing services.

The AGRIS ally accidental to the AGRIS Database use several formats for exchanging data, including simple DC, from OAI-PMH systems. The AGRIS AP architecture is anyhow adopted anon by:

Open Archive Initiative (OAI) partners: Scielo, Viikki Science Library

BIBSYS, Norway, Civic Library of Portugal, Prod-Inra France, Wageningen UR Library.

National networks: NARIMS in Egypt, PhilAgriNet in Philippines, KAINet in Kenya, Thailand NAC, GAINS in Ghana.

National institutional repositories: Russia, Belarus, Uruguay, Spain, Iran.

Information account providers: Wolters Kluwer, NISC, CGIAR, AgNIC, GFIS.

Database systems/tools: AgriOceanDspace, NewGenlib, WebAGRIS, NERAKIN, AgriDrupal.

editSearching for agenda resources

For added advice on this topic, see: Agenda library

AGRIS aims to ensure that the assets independent in repositories amid in several regions be accessible to the accepted user, with few restrictions, in accordance with the goals of accessible access. However, abounding of these assets run the accident of axis into abysmal web or airy web resources, back they frequently cannot be amid by seek engine crawlers.2 As is the case with some agenda libraries, area appropriate pages or sitemaps are created to acquiesce seek engines to acquisition all of their resources, AGRIS uses the Accessible Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting to retrieve metadata and "expose" contrarily airy web assets to the AGRIS seek engines. A agnate action is adopted for instance by Google Scholar, Yahoo! and Scirus seek engines.

Unlike acceptable assets that affectation accumulator amplitude limits, agenda assets accept the broadly accustomed advantage of authoritative accessible to users a huge array of assets of generally assorted nature.Project Gutenberg, Google Book Search, Windows Live Seek Books(shutdown), Internet Archive, Cornell University, The Library of Congress World Agenda Library, The Agenda Library at the University of Michigan, and Carnegie Mellon University's Million Book Project are advised leaders in the acreage of agenda library conception and management.

editData indexing in AGRIS: the AGROVOC thesaurus

For added advice on this topic, see: AGROVOC

In acceptable libraries, award works of absorption is anon accompanying to how able-bodied they are cataloged. However, circuitous and born-digital works crave essentially added effort.3

AGROVOC is a absolute multilingual agronomics thesaurus4 that was developed with the cooperation of FAO affiliate countries. It is acclimated for indexing abstracts in agronomical advice systems and it strives for connected advance and updating. The aboriginal adaptation of AGROVOC was produced in 1982 and broadcast to all AGRIS centres.3

Vocabulary afterlight is done by FAO in accord with civic AGRIS centres.5 Staff at the centres adduce new agreement for the database to FAO accountable specialists for consideration. The agreement called by the experts are added into AGROVOC. In the past, an AGROVOC supplement was again appear and provided to the centres. Now the adapted AGROVOC is accessible online. The proposing of new agreement and corrections aswell can be done through the FAO/AGROVOC web site.6

Limitations in AGRIS

In the endure years, several affiliation initiatives accept been developed globally by assorted all-embracing organizations generally complex in development, in adjustment to affected the abridgement of articular and accommodating approaches to advice arrangement architecture.7 Against this background, an appraisal of AGRIS was conducted in 2000. It was acclaimed that the arrangement had alone been partially acknowledged in accomplishing its goals. Limitations in AGRIS were articular in four areas: 1) difficult admission to the aboriginal documents, 2) abridged coverage, 3) absolute systems and 4) structural and institutional constraints.

As the AGRIS arrangement aims to decentralise abstracts processing and to prioritise civic accommodation building, acceptable free administration of civic agronomical information.8 a new cardinal eyes has been developed.9

The new vision

In adjustment to abode those limitations, a “new eyes for AGRIS” has been beneath plan back 2000. In 2009, AGRIS adhered to Coherence in Advice for Agronomical Analysis for Development (CIARD), a all-around action of all-embracing accomplice organizations (such as, DFID, CIARD, GFAR, etc.)10 committed to alive to admission the accessible allowances anticipation from investment in agronomical analysis and addition for development.11

The basal assumption aggregate by CIARD's stakeholders,12 which FAO is accidental to with its AGRIS portal, is that, advice is to be fabricated about "available", "accessible" and, "applicable".13 At the aforementioned time, all of CIARD stakeholders appropriately admit the charge to account the roles of national, bounded and all-embracing institutions, whilst adjustment their efforts to advance bigger interlinked advice collections and services.14

Currently, AGRIS continues its analysis into convalescent admission to science technology and agronomical advice globally accessible on the web, beneath the CIARD umbrella.

editAccessibility of the new AGRIS

While AGRIS is appetite to accumulate beside of the technology available, added ability accessibility may be articular as one of the amount objectives of the new AGRIS.

According to the new vision, the AGRIS seek engine should be able to retrieve and adapt a abundance of assorted advice sources including full-text documents, accoutrement from altercation fora, blog entries, account articles, and organizational, regional, national, all-embracing advice (re)sources. Partnerships with accustomed seek engine technology leaders such as Google, Yahoo or Scirus will be explored in adjustment to accommodate customized seek capabilities.

editThe new AGRIS beneath the CIARD umbrella

Falling beneath the awning of CIARD,15 a collective action co-led by the CGIAR,16 GFAR17 and FAO, the new AGRIS aims to advance the administration and administration of agronomical science and technology advice through the use of accepted standards and methodologies. These will absorb Web 2.0 features, in adjustment to accomplish the seek acquaintance as comprehensive, automatic and extensive as accessible for users of the new AGRIS.

Furthermore, the new AGRIS will aswell advantage the abstracts and basement of one of CIARD's projects: the CIARD RING. An acronym continuing for Routemap to Advice Nodes and Gateways (RING), the CIARD RING activity is led by GFAR and it aims to:

give an overview of the accepted action of advice casework in ARD; as able-bodied as

support those who wish to apparatus new services.

A agenda of ARD (Agricultural Analysis for Development) advice casework will acquiesce the monitoring, anecdotic and classifying of absolute services, whilst benchmarking them adjoin interoperability criteria, to ensure for best beat and all-around availability.