These comments and recommendations derive from discussions held during the workshop of LA community of users in Lima, and my work with users of WB in Iquitos and LIma. 

Distributed maintenance of AGROVOC: copyrights and credits

As the WB allows for wider collaboration around AGROVOC, people ask how copyright and credits will be handled. In particular:

• What happens in case somebody wants to contribute a set of terms that they already have published under a Creative Commons license? This is the case of inst. Humboldt, Colombia.

1. Make clear statements about copyright policy for language versions maintained by FAO and for those maintained by others - or consortium of others, people/institutions.
2. Exploit the possibility of attaching metadata to about any piece of data in AGROVOC, by appropriately specifying personal and institutional editorship. For example:
   
   1. Make a public list of editors/validators, including affiliation, competences/short bio, etc. and their login used in the AGROVOC "history".
   2. Assign logins that clearly reflect the identity of the person or institution (eg. caterina.caracciolo for Caterina Caracciolo).

Users and uses of AGROVOC and the WB

Distinguish these uses and user groups of AGROVOC and the WB. This should enable priorization of development work. 

1. Arguably, the majority of AGROVOC users
2. Librarians in their daily work, casual visitors, anybody else. 
3. Need to cccess the latest published version of AGROVOC
4. No need to see draft content, or to have access to editing actions
5. They may have low internet connection -> Content should be available online in the lightest way possible, eg. simple HTML visualization, provided with search.
6. They are usually more oriented and used to looking at content then exploring software -> interaction should be as easy and smooth as possible, again need for simple/neat HTML version.
   
   

Edit AGROVOC with the WB

1. A few in number, motivated by agrements with FAO
2. Often with low/irregular internet connection (as in the case of IIAP in Peru) 
   
   1. Need to have some sort of local installation with regular sync with “master copy” of AGROVOC. include this in future work on WB.  

3. Needed: documentation, training material, usability

Train on AGROVOC/WB

1. AGROVOC team in FAO, or other parties (eg. LA community of users)
2. May need to demo/train on WB in situation with low/irregular internet connectiity
   
   
   1. Develop a local installation for demonstrations

Role of FAO wrt AGROVOC and community of editors

What is the role of FAO when third parties are granted rights to edit AGROVOC?

FAO could play the role of a secretariat which:

• provides policies about who can be editor/validator, and how content to AGROVOC should be added (ie. which thematic areas to develop, and how to do it)
• coordinates actions to ensure that policies are shared and implemented
• grants user accounts on WB and assign/approve editing roles
• provides/coordinates development of support material for training
• coordinates technical development and support to users of the WB
• liase with regional coordination of editors, when in place

Documentation for AGROVOC and the WB

Documentation of AGROVOC content. URGENT. This document describes how content is organized in AGROVOC depending on thematic areas, including:

• account for the difference between hierarchies of scientific taxonomies and common-sense hierarchies for food
• criteria for choosing preferred terms in various thematic areas
• criteria for defining subvocabularies of terms/concepts
• and criteria for assigning associative relations between concepts.
  
  

This document will be the basis for a good “clean up” of AGROVOC content (note that some parallel work is possible): Eg.

• remove relations never or seldom used
• remove relations left over from previous work with OWL (istranslationof, and the like)
• get rid of very redundant choices that are no longer needed (eg. duplicated language labels for scientific names).

Editors form LA commented they need guidelines about how to bind local names (for plants and animals) to the area (mainly countries) where the name is used.

• Define how to deal with this issue, include in guidelines, publish as appropriate. URGENT, as the lack of this guidelines blocks diting work. 

User manual for WB

• What we have now is a user manual made during past development of WB.
• This document needs to: verified, updated, published also in other formats than HTML (especially PDF for printing and off line consultation), and translated at least in Spanish.

Guidelines for editing AGROVOC. This document provides editors with a practical guide to edit AGROVOC through the WB. It will refer to both the content documentation and the user manual.

I started a “Guideline” document that currently contains a mixture of HOWTO use the WB and description of AGROVOC content and model. This document should be completed, verified by the AGROVOC team in FAO and external users, translated into Spanish and published online as HTML and PDF.

As the number of users increases and their physical location spreads out, appropriate training material should be available both for download and for use in on-site training sessions. 

• Training "package" for on-site training inlcude:
  • slides with theory, HOWTO, excercises
    
    
  • locall installed software on laptop to overcome possible connectivity problems.
• Training "package" for distance training: 
  • slides with theory, HOWTO, excercises
  • short videos (streaming and dowload) explaining various aspects of working with AGROVOC and the WB
  • smooth access to WB demo/sandbox version 
• Refine/update/integrate currently available ppt I produced for the LA case, and make them available also in English.
• make sure slides are cross referenced slides with available documentation
• align training material with current software development (functionalities)
• keep excercises updated
  
  Define policy about how often the Sandbox should be “cleaned up” (currently all changes are kept, as if it was the “real” version, which may be confusing for new users) 

Editorial workflow and accounts on WB

Who can be an editors? Who can be a validator?

• Define clear indications about needed skills to appoint editors and validators. I drafted such a list in the Guidelines document mentioned above. TODO: verify list with AGROVOC team in FAO, update it as needed, publish it appropriately, at least in EN and ES.
• AGROVOC team in FAO grants accounts and approves roles in workflow. I started a short text to use as reference when dealing with accounts. TODO: verify list with AGROVOC team in FAO, update it as needed, publish it appropriately, at least in EN and ES.
• Note that policy should cover both the demo (sandbox) version and the "real" one. It should also cover accounts given for tests (eg. during trainings or to allow for practice before starting real editing).
  
  

WB and network connections

Iquitos, where the pilot project is being carried on, suffers from serious network limitations. This makes interaction with WB difficult and laborious, especially in pick hours.

1. Develop a version of WB that can be deployed locally, with regular sync with “master copy” (see above)
2. GUI: reduce the number of clicks needed to get somewhere - each click may correspond to several seconds, sometimes minutes of waiting time. Optimize space in screen.
3. Content: there is a number of repetition in data set that could be removed, so that load on memory is reduced. Eg. language labeling for scientific names

Recommendations:

1. Update plan for distribution of CD ROM versions of AGROVOC
2. Send out latest paper versions as appropriate
3. This needs some carefull thinking about how to contact users

Recommendations about usability of the WB 

1. Publish WB version under better (more mnemonic)  URLs
2. Make release/version very clear in GUI (now they all look the same)
   
   
3. Include role of users in GUI in all versions (now only on Demo)
   
   
4. Harmonize search functionalities across different GUI for AGROVOC (eg html publication, WB)
   
   Provide option to enlarge GUI font - for usability and to make GUI visible when s  hown with beamer
5. Align GUI labels with AGROVOC content, get rid of labels originating from OWL terminology/model

WB and other content

Editors in ITACAB have the need to digitize content related to latinamerican "promisories species". They are currently integrating a relevant fragment of this content into AGROVOC. Question: could the WB be used to create a maintain an electronic version of their information about promisories species?

• Clarify technical limits of WB (especially wrt future developments)