Agricultural Information Management Standards

The Agricultural Information Management Standards, abbreviated to AIMS, is a web portal managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Food and Agriculture Organization

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...

(FAO). It disseminates standards and good practices in information management for the support of the right to food, sustainable agriculture and rural development. AIMS underpins CIARD (Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development), international initiative which seeks to improve information access and coherence in and between organizations. AIMS is facilitated by FAO’s Office of Knowledge, Exchange, Research and Extension, in cooperation with a community of practitioners.

Objectives

AIMS supports the implementation of structured and linked information and knowledge by fostering a community of practice centered on the themes of interoperability, reusability and cooperation. It shares vocabularies, methodologies, tools and services in order to promote coherence in agricultural information.

Organization

AIMS comprises a web-based platform whose global community helps make agricultural information increasingly accessible. Discussion and development of community outputs lead to good practices designed to be widely applicable and easy to implement. The products adopted, created and publicized by AIMS enable stakeholders to build open and interoperable information systems. As a core technique to achieve this goal, AIMS adheres to the W3C vision of the semantic web; a world in which markup declares not just style but also meaning.

Users

AIMS is primarily intended for information workers -- librarians, information managers, software developers -- but are also of interest to those who are simply passionate about knowledge and information sharing. The success of AIMS depends upon its communities reaching a critical mass to show that the investment in interoperability standards has a return.

Community

AIMS supports collaboration through wikis, forums and blogs amongst institutions and individuals that wish to share expertise on how to use tools, standards and methodologies. Moreover, news and events are published on AIMS as part of its ‘one-stop” access to interoperability and reusability of information resources. The AIMS groups are aimed at the global agricultural community, including information providers, from research institutes, academic institutions, educational and extension institutions and also the private sector.

Standards

AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...

is a comprehensive multilingual vocabulary that contains close to 40,000 concepts in over 20 languages covering subject fields in agriculture, forestry and fisheries together with cross-cutting themes such as land use, rural livelihoods and food security. It standardizes data description to enable a set of core integration goals: interoperability, reusability and cooperation. In this spirit of collaboration, AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...

also works with other organizations that are using Linked Open Data
Linked Data
In computing, linked data describes a method of publishing structured data so that it can be interlinked and become more useful. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP and URIs, but rather than using them to serve web pages for human readers, it extends them to share information in a...

techniques to connect vocabularies and build the backbone of the next generation of internet data; data that is marked up not just for style but for meaning. It is maintained by a global community of librarians, terminologists, information managers and software developers using VocBench, a multilingual, web-based vocabulary editor and workflow management tool that allows for simultaneous, distributed editing.

In addition to AGROVOC, AIMS provides access to other vocabularies like the Geopolitical ontology
Geopolitical ontology
A geopolitical ontology is a mechanism to describe, manage and exchange data related to geopolitical entities such as countries, territories, regions and other similar areas.-Definitions and examples:...

and Fisheries Ontologies. The Geopolitical ontology
Geopolitical ontology
A geopolitical ontology is a mechanism to describe, manage and exchange data related to geopolitical entities such as countries, territories, regions and other similar areas.-Definitions and examples:...

is used to facilitate data exchange and sharing in a standardized manner among systems managing information about countries and/or regions. The network of fisheries ontologies was created as a part of the NeOn Project and it covers the following areas: Water areas: for statistical reporting, jurisdictional (EEZ), environmental (LME), Species: taxonomic classification, ISSCAAP commercial classification, Aquatic resources, Land areas, Fisheries commodities, Vessel types and size, Gear types, AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...

, ASFA.

AgMES
AgMES
The AgMES initiative was developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and aims to encompass issues of semantic standards in the domain of agriculture with respect to description, resource discovery, interoperability and data exchange for different types of information...

is as a namespace designed to include agriculture specific extensions for terms and refinements from established standard metadata namespaces like Dublin Core
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata terms are a set of vocabulary terms which can be used to describe resources for the purposes of discovery. The terms can be used to describe a full range of web resources: video, images, web pages etc and physical resources such as books and objects like artworks...

or AGLS
Australian Government Locator Service
Australian Government Locator Service metadata standard was created by the National Archives of Australia as a standard to describe government resources. It has also been endorsed by Standards Australia as AS 5044:2002...

, used for Document-like Information Objects, for example like publications, articles, books, web sites, papers, etc.

Linked Open Data (LOD) - Enabled Bibliographic Data (LODE-BD) Recommendations are a reference tool that assists bibliographic data providers in selecting appropriate encoding strategies according to their needs in order to facilitate metadata exchange by, for example, constructing crosswalks between their local data formats and widely-used formats or even with a Linked Data
Linked Data
In computing, linked data describes a method of publishing structured data so that it can be interlinked and become more useful. It builds upon standard Web technologies such as HTTP and URIs, but rather than using them to serve web pages for human readers, it extends them to share information in a...

representation

Tools

AgriDrupal is both a suite of solutions for agricultural information management and a community of practice around these solutions. The AgriDrupal community is made up of people who work in the community of agricultural information management specialists and have been experimenting with IM solutions in Drupal
Drupal
Drupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...

.
AgriOcean DSpace is a joint initiative of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

agencies of FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....

and UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

-IOC/IODE to provide a customized version of DSpace
DSpace
DSpace is an open source software package that provides the tools for management of digital assets, and is commonly used as the basis for an institutional repository. It supports a wide variety of data, including books, theses, 3D digital scans of objects, photographs, film, video, research data...

. It uses standards for metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

, thesauri and other controlled vocabularies for oceanography
Oceanography
Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...

, marine science, food, agriculture, development, fisheries, forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...

, natural resources
Natural Resources
Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...

and other related sciences.
VocBench is a web-based multilingual vocabulary management tool developed by FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....

and hosted by MIMOS Berhad. It transforms thesauri, authority lists and glossaries into SKOS
SKOS
Simple Knowledge Organization System is a family of formal languages designed for representation of thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, subject-heading systems, or any other type of structured controlled vocabulary. SKOS is built upon RDF and RDFS, and its main objective is to enable...

/RDF
Resource Description Framework
The Resource Description Framework is a family of World Wide Web Consortium specifications originally designed as a metadata data model...

concept schemes for use in a linked data environment. VocBench also manages the workflow and editorial processes implied by vocabulary evolution such as user rights/roles, validation and versioning. VocBench supports a growing set of user communities, including the global, distributed group of terminologists who manage AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...

.
WebAGRIS is a multilingual Web-based system for distributed data input, processing and dissemination (through the Internet or on CD-Rom), of agricultural bibliographic information. It is based on common standards of data input and dissemination formats (XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

, HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....

, ISO2709), as well as subject categorization schema and AGROVOC
AGROVOC
AGROVOC was first developed in the 1980s as a multilingual structured thesaurus for all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains . Its main purpose was to standardize the indexing process for the AGRIS database in order to make searching simpler and more...

.

Services

AgriFeeds is a service that allows users to search and filter news and events from several agricultural information sources and to create custom feeds based on the filters applied. AgriFeeds was designed in the context on CIARD (Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development). Within CIARD, the partners who designed and implemented AgriFeeds are FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....

and GFAR
Global Forum on Agricultural Research
The Global Forum on Agricultural Research is a stakeholder-led initiative that serves as a neutral forum for discussion and action on critical issues related to agricultural research for development...

. AgriFeeds is currenty maintained by FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....

.
AGRIS
AGRIS
AGRIS 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...

is a global public domain database with nearly 3 million structured bibliographical records on agricultural science and technology. The database is maintained by FAO
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....

, with the content provided by more than 100 participating institutions from 65 countries.
CIARD Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING) is a project implemented within CIARD and is led by GFAR
Global Forum on Agricultural Research
The Global Forum on Agricultural Research is a stakeholder-led initiative that serves as a neutral forum for discussion and action on critical issues related to agricultural research for development...

. The RING is a global registry of web-based services that give access to any kind of information pertaining to agricultural research for development (ARD). It allows information providers to register their services in various categories and so facilitate the discovery of sources of agriculture-related information across the world.
Since January 2011, AIMS supports E-LIS
E-lis
E-LIS is short for Eprints in Library and Information Science. It is an international open repository for scientific papers in Library and Information Science . Over 12,000 papers have been archived to date...

, the international electronic archive
Open Archives Initiative
The Open Archives Initiative is an attempt to build a "low-barrier interoperability framework" for archives containing digital content . It allows people to harvest metadata...

for library and information science
Library science
Library science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the...

(LIS). E-LIS is established, managed and maintained by an international team of 73 librarians and information scientists from 47 countries and support for 22 languages. It is freely accessible, aligned with the Open Access (OA) movement and is a voluntary enterprise. Currently it is the largest international repository in the LIS field. Searching or browsing E-LIS is a kind of multilingual, multicultural experience, an example of what could be accomplished through open access archives to bring the people of the world together.
VEST Registry is a catalog of controlled vocabularies (such as authority files, classification systems, concept maps, controlled lists, dictionaries, ontologies or subject headings); metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

sets (metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

element sets, namespaces and application profiles); and tools (such as library management software, content management systems or document repository software). It is concerned primarily with collecting and maintaining a consistent set of metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

for each resource. The scope of the VEST Registry is to provide a clearing house for tools, metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

sets and vocabularies used in food, agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, development, fisheries, forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...

and natural resources
Natural Resources
Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...

information management
Information management
Information management is the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more audiences. This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information...

context.