FAO and UNESCO-IOC/IODE Combine Efforts in their Support of Open Access Written by Marc Goovaerts, U. Hasselt, BE

International System for Science and Technology International Oceanogra phic Data and Information Exchange  AGRIS FAO  OceanDocs IODE

 FAO  Universiteit Hasselt  IOC, IODE  AIMS Agricultural Information Management Standards

Is a global public domain database with 2.6 million structured bibliographical records on agricultural science and technology  AIM: its aim is to promote free access to information on agriculture and related subjects – such as aquaculture  Background: FAO began AGRIS in the 1970’s to create a worldwide cooperative system for sharing access to agricultural information  Current Community: 150 Institutes in 65 countries

U of Hasselt customized Dspace for the IODE  AIM: Promote free access to information on marine science and oceanography  Background: Initially began to promote marine science literature of African ocean laboratories as OdinPubAfrica. It now includes marine science literature for any IODE member laboratory that wishes to participate  Current Community: 50 Institutes in countries of Latin America, Africa and Caribbean

It is a customization of Dspace 1.7 open source repository software  Features: High standards for metadata, controlled vocabularies, type-based. Has easy to install version for communities with limited IT support  Aims: Promote open access to scientific information in oceanography, marine science, agriculture and related sciences. Enhance scientific communication and increase the impact of scientific information on research

 Agricultural Information Management Standards AIMS is the acronym for Agricultural Information Management Standards and is facilitated by the Office of Knowledge, Exchange, Research and Extension at FAO of the United Nations. AIMS is a platform for the dissemination of international information management standards, tools, services and good practices in the field of agriculture and related sciences. AIMS is lighting the way to a field of agricultural data sown with structured, linked information and knowledge. As these internet- based resources are distributed, AIMS facilitates communities of practice centered on the themes of interoperability, reusability and cooperation. These themes find their expression in vocabularies, methodologies, tools and services that promote coherence in agricultural information.AIMSFAO of the United Nations

 FAO and IODE supported communities with similar needs and subject matter – high quality metadata and controlled vocabularies. Both were working on a customization of Dspace. This collaboration offered the opportunity to integrate in a common tool the best of both worlds

 Metadata Standards AgriOcean Dspace focuses on Dublin Core Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) Agris AP, is a value added service  Semantics New Dspace 1.7 authority functionality isused to control  ASFA  AGROVOC: multilingual agricultural vocabulary  Journal Titles

Layout of possibilities:  Switching between types of documents  Grouping of fields  Definition of field size  Different fields in a row  Language option for a field Objective: To give institutions ability to customize the AgriOceanDSoace submission module to local needs

Type based submission module:  Journal contribution  Book  Book section  Proceedings paper  Conference contribution  Research report  Working paper  Thesis  Other Objective: A submission template for common types of documents

Refined metadata is only relevant if it is possible to expose it through the OAI protocol. AgriOcean Dspace focuses on DC-MODS_ Agris AP Translations are realized using the crosswalks of Dspace which are enhanced to define language and authority attributes (stocked under the language and authority columns of the metadata value table) Objective: To make literature available in open standards (OAI- metadata)

 VOA3R AP = Virtual Open Access Agriculture & Aquaculture Repository (harvester?) The VOA3R platform aims at re-using existing and mature metadata and semantics technology to deploy an advanced, community –focused integrated service for the retrieval of relevant open content and data. AgriOceanDSpace will provide metadata and collaborate in the development of tools Objective: To share scientific research related to oceanography, agriculture and related sciences