Global Partnerships for Sharing Forest-Related Information

through the GFIS gateway at http://www.gfis.net/

Web2ForDev 2007September 25-27, 2007

Rome, Italy

Juha Hautakangas GFIS Developer IUFRO c/o Metla

Contents

• GFIS in general

• Technical description

• On-line demonstration

What is GFIS?• Information service that stores metadata on forestry ”under the same roof”

• GFIS provides:• Accurate search results • Reliable information-> Efficient information retrieval

• GFIS is an initiative of the CPF led by IUFRO• Core partners:

• CIFOR, FAO, NBII, UNFF

Mission

To enhance access to diverse types of forest information

Vision

• GFIS is the most well-known and used service that provides access to forest-related information

• Generate forest community of practice

Web

GFIS Search Index

DB

User

Search the Index

Get Query

Information Provider

Display Search Results

Index Metadata

Fetch Metadata

GFIS.net

RSS 2.0

Get Informationon Feeds

Store Feeds inthe Database

Add Feeds

NBII Metadata Clearinghouse

FAO AGRIS Information System

Search results

How information reaches users

• Defines a standard interface for search engines

• RSS with Open Search extension as a standard format for search results:<channel>

…<opensearch:totalResults>31300</opensearch:totalResults><opensearch:startIndex>31</opensearch:startIndex><opensearch:itemsPerPage>10</opensearch:itemsPerPage>

</channel>

More information on Open Search at: http://www.a9.com/ http://www.opensearch.org/

Open Search specification

Overview• Multilingual search aggregator

• Metadata on forest-related web resources

• Searching / browsing functionalities

• Metadata fetched from RSS feeds

• Access to other metadata storages• Search-related communication between separate storages in RSS format

Financial contribution

http://www.kfri.go.kr/

Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft (BMLFUW) http://www.lebensministerium.at/en/