Global Agricultural Concept Scheme (GACS)

Johannes Keizer, Simon Liu, Martin ParrGlobal GODAN/CIARD Consultation on Open Agricultural Knowledge for Development

22-24 April 2014Rome, Italy

Global Agricultural Content Scheme(GACS)

• Who?

• Why?

• What?

• How?

• Johannes Keizer

• Simon Liu

• Martin Parr

Who?

Swine? Pig?

Porcine? Hog?

Sus scrofa domestica?

What words describe this picture?

• Acronyms - ABA vs. abscisic acid- DHBV vs. Duck hepatitis B virus- WHO vs. World Health Organization

• Plural / Singular- pigs vs. pig- renal calculi vs. renal calculus

• Spelling variants- Sugar beet vs. Sugarbeet- Buddleja vs. Buddleia

• Usage variants- Aubergines vs. Eggplants - Palta vs. Aguacate vs. Avocado

• Quasi-synonyms…

Synonyms

Turkey

Pieris

Homographs

● Heliothis zea

● Helicoverpa zea

● Tomato fruitworm

● Corn earworm

● Bollworm

Scientific vs. Common Names

• Share common understanding of the structure of information - Among people- Among systems/databases- Among people & systems/databases

• Provide consistency & reduce variability• Enable reuse of domain knowledge• Avoid re-inventing the wheel• Enable interoperability

Needs a Thesaurus

Existing Thesauri

We have some common beliefs

● We serve consumers of agricultural scientific knowledge

● We want to help them better navigate to and understand content

● We recognise the concept of global public goods and the value of open access & open data

● We have identified the need for a unified agricultural language system to support describing open data

Why GACS?

● G8 Conference on Open Data in Agriculture & Nutrition● In the age of open data we need common semantics to

describe data thus enabling linking different types of information & data

● We each manage an agricultural thesaurus: AGROVOC, NAL Thesaurus, CAB Thesaurus

● These three thesauri meet the needs of their parent organizations, but they have differences

We have some common challenges

Why GACS?

Why GACS?

We share some common knowledge

• Information description & structuring

• Spelling aid

• Natural language processing

• Information retrieval

• Information mapping & integration

• Automated indexing

GACS Uses

What?

Global Agriculture Concept Scheme GACS …

● A global unified agricultural language system● Address the differences and builds alignments between

AGROVOC, CABT and NALT● Public● Open (and moving to Open Data)● Collaborative (CABI, NAL, FAO)● Extensible (scope and partners)● An integrated offering● A working model (a bit more than a Proof of Concept?)

What?

GACS aspires to …

● Be owned and maintained by a consortium?● Bring economies of scale to partners and users● Avoid duplication of effort in new organisations moving

to open data environments● Improve efficiency of information and data management

in the long term● Improve the discoverability of information and data to

the benefit of farmers, researchers and policy makers

How?● Signed agreement between CABI, FAO, NAL to work together

to develop GACS, covering● Options for alignment● Technical Approach● Governance● Resources & Milestones

● Commission independent consultants to review existing thesauri and host organisation workflows and business needs

● Host and participate in workshops, working closely with policy makers

● This is what we hope to help start to answer here

How?Potential for alignment

.

Meeting Outcomes

Building common understanding

Fact finding for consultants Part 1 report

Communicate the need for GACS in an open data environment?

Support for GACS

Thank You

Questions?

● We are proposing an approach to address a need for a unified agricultural language system. Is this a real need? Will this workshop validate the need?Is this a useful approach? Is this an important development?

● At the moment there are three organisations involved and three thesauri. Which organisations are missing? Which vocabularies/thesauri are missing? Is it important that they are included in this ‘proof of concept’ stage. What would the nature of their participation be?

● Who would be the main users of GACS? Do we have enough ‘use cases’ to help people understand the utility of GACS?

● We will need to address the governance of GACS. What sort of models would work? What innovative solutions for governance would be possible?

● Have we missed anything? Are there alternatives?

Conclusions of the meeting?

● There is a need for GACS, this approach is important/essential, and although there may be other partners at this moment we want to scope out and implement a first phase.