What is schema.org?

Monthly Spotlight

Set of extensible schemas that enables webmasters to embed structured data on their web pages for use by search engines and other applications.

About schema.org

schema.org

Schema blog

Dan Brickley on schema.org

Upcoming Events

Online. Schema.org and Linked Data: Complementary Approaches to Publishing Data

France. 1st International Workshop on Open Data

Trinidad & Tobago. Web 2.0 Learning Opportunity

Thailand. 2nd International Conference on Digital Information and Communication Technology

USA. Semantic Tech & Business Conference

Kenya. XXth Standing Conference of Eastern, Central and South Africa Library and Information Associations (SCECSAL) 2012

Turkey. 3rd International Symposium on Information Management in a Changing World (IMCW2012)

More at Events Service

Establishing "Meaningful Bibliographic Metadata" recommendations

The "Meaningful Bibliographic Metadata" (M2B) recommendations are intended to assist content providers in selecting appropriate metadata properties for the creation, management and exchange of meaningful bibliographic information in open repositories. Its objectives include:

• to provide a set of common metadata properties;
• to encourage the use of authority data, controlled vocabularies, and syntax encoding standards;
• to recommend the use of URIs as names for things, especially for data values, when they are available.

The AIMS team seeks comments on the BETA version of M2B. Please go to the M2B page and leave your comments before April 30th. Once all comments have been collected version 1.0. will be published on AIMS. Help us to establish helpful recommendations for bibliographic content providers in the agricultural community.

News

New information services registered on the CIARD Ring

Currently the CIARD Routemap to Information Nodes and Gateways (RING) contains 278 services/sources and 141 providers that share information related to agricultural research and innovation for development (ARD). Since the end of March, six new resources have been added. You can take a look at these newly added resources at the CIARD RING updates page. If you are responsible or authorized by a responsible person for an information service not yet present in the RING, please register.

FAO Glossary of Biotechnology integrated into AGROVOC LOD

The FAO Glossary of Biotechnology for Food and Agriculture has been integrated into the AGROVOC Linked Open Data (LOD) set, with the addition of 791 triples. The Biotechnology Glossary tries to provide a consolidated, comprehensive and yet accessible list of terms and acronyms that are used regularly in biotechnology for food and agriculture and that represent a convenient reference source for researchers, students and technicians. It now contains 3,196 terms and related definitions.

Publishing interoperable and re-usable metadata about agricultural research information

The FAO AIMS team has created a table in which the functionalities and customization features of AgriOcean DSpace, AgriDrupal and AgriMetamaker are displayed next to each other. The purpose is not to compare the three customized open source document management tools, but to provide data providers with information on what the customizations are intended for in order the facilitate the decision-process as to which tool to use.

Automatic indexing using AGROVOC

AgroTagger is a keyword extractor that uses the AGROVOC thesaurus as its set of allowable keywords. It can extract from Microsoft Office documents, PDF files and web pages. It is used for indexing information resources. On the AgroTagger page on AIMS you can find links to currently available services and background information on the project.

Linked Data initiatives within the AIMS Community

In the OpenAGRIS beta version, the bibliographic dataset of the AGRIS repository is connected to other datasets, like: DBPedia, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, FAO Geopolitical Ontology, FAO Fishery Statistical Collections. AGROVOC is used as the backbone for interlinking these various information resources. The methodology applied is based on the Linked Data principles - OpenAGRIS contains currently more than 60 million triples. To get an idea of how OpenAGRIS aggregates information from different web sources go to this example.

More news at Of Interest

5 Questions in 5 Minutes with Jean Fairbairn

Who are the users of AIMS and what do they think about agricultural information management standards? In this section AIMS users from all around the world answer five questions on the benefits and use of the AIMS website.

Tell us something about yourself... what is your background and role in the organization you are working for?

My background is in communication for development, working with small organizations - radio stations and libraries - that disseminate information and encourage community participation in content. Currently, I work for EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) doing communication for the EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme (EIFL-PLIP).

How did you get in contact with AIMS?

My director, Ms Rima Kupryte, pointed me to AIMS as a rich resource for public libraries in developing and transition countries working in the field of agriculture.

What is your opinion on AIMS?

I like it - sometimes the information is a bit dense, but that is perhaps because I am not a specialist in its core topics (agricultural, scientific). I like the diversity of information - news, announcements, papers. It is a good knowledge-sharing vehicle. Sometimes, though, it is hard to keep up with the flow of information! It is a great opportunity for others wanting to communicate (like EIFL-PLIP).

According to you, what is the most important benefit that AIMS provides to the agricultural information management community?

Information and ideas for small organizations, connection to a broader community. It brings sense to a vast world of sometimes confusing information resources and tools.

How do you think that information management standards can contribute to agricultural research for development?

I would not be an expert in this - but many of the libraries we work with speak about a desperate need for local information - information that farmers who are marginalized by factors like poverty, distance, lack of technology, language and many others, can trust. This means - straightforward language, focused on local issues, communicated in local languages. Communicating in this way would encourage feedback about the issues farmers face, and their information needs.

The scope of the AIMS Newsletter is to bring under the attention of the AIMS community recent news, events and achievements in the field of agricultural information management. If you have any contribution, suggestion, or need assistance with the newsletter, please contact us at [email protected]