AIMS Newsletter no. 27, February 2014

Focus on AGRIS 2.0

This AIMS Newsletter focuses on AGRIS 2.0 launched last December. AGRIS 2.0 is a merger of AGRIS system and OpenAGRIS, to a create mash-up Web Application that links bibliographic AGRIS resources on the web using Linked Open Data methodology.

Two webinars in English and Spanish have since been delivered to promote the new AGRIS via the Webinars@AIMS. This newsletter summarises the discussion about AGRIS 2.0 and also has an interview from Mr.Fabrizio Celli of the AGRIS team where he sheds more light on AGRIS current and future developments.

New architecture of AGRIS 2.0 and the Search Functionality

Currently, AGRIS is a Java Web application, deployed in a Tomcat environment. The Java application is the implementation of the Web portal, which gives access to the AGRIS database. The AGRIS database is currently available in two formats necessary for the Java application  (1) a filesystem XML database (in the AGRIS AP format) used to maintain backward compatibility during this ransitional state of the portal and,(2) a triplestore (in the AGRIS RDF format) that gives access to external sources of information.

When the user queries AGRIS, the application queries an Apache Sorl index, which gives fast results to the user. Then, the user can apply filters to the query, or he/she can open one of the results. Opening an AGRIS result will produce the AGRIS mashup page: the AGRIS content - coming from the triplestore - is enriched with some information retrieved by external (and pre-selected) databases available on the Web. The value of the mash-up page is related to the precision of the content: an AGRIS record can have one or more AGROVOC URIs associated, and those URIs are used to query external databases, retrieving information semantically related to the AGRIS record itself. Try out the new search functionality here.

The following are the webinar presentations for AGRIS 2.0

Highlights from the community

  • RDA’s Publishing Data Interest Group proposes 4 new Working Groups. More info
  • An update of VocBench SPARQL developments. More info
  • Muthu Madhan wins the 2013 EPT Award. More info
  • Open invitation: Help us make the Organic.Edunet Web portal even better! More info
  • Job Opportunity CIAT looking for Data and Information Manager. More info

Upcoming Events

Webinars@AIMS

The AIMS team regularly organises online seminars about information management topics in all UN languages. The range of topics includes AIMS specific concepts, for example, Linked Open Data (LOD) or Open Access. Webinars are also available on specific products and recommendations such as, AGRIS 2.0 or LODE-BD)

However, AIMS supports all community members that are interested in presenting their products or  topics that are related to information management via the Webinar@AIMS. We provide the platform to disseminate your event, if you are interested do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].

Forthcoming Webinars@AIMS

Conferences and Workshops

Glossary

What is the Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse & Exchange (OAI-ORE)? OAI-ORE defines standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of Web resources. These aggregations may combine distributed resources with multiple media types including text, images, data, and video (OAI)

More info:

 

 "AGRIS: meeting the global agricultural information need, " an interview with Fabrizio Celli

Fabrizio Celli (Software Engineer) is the technical leader for the AGRIS team and since February 2010 he has been working on the improvement of AGRIS developing the version 2.0 of the AGRIS search engine, and dealing with Linked Open Data technologies. He has been leading the developments towards the AGRIS 2.0 and has been instrumental in development of AGRIS and the systems behind it. We took this opportunity to ask him a few questions on AGRIS and its future developments.

Read the interview "AGRIS: meeting the global agricultural information need" found in the AIMS Interviews section.


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]

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