Agro-Know seminar in NCSR-D summer school 2012

1. networking content repositories
to provide meaningful services
to users
experiences from the agricultural &
biodiversity domains
Nikos Manouselis, Giannis Stoitsis
Agro-Know Technologies
http://wiki.agroknow.gr

2. networking content repositories
Opening Up Digital
to provide meaningful services
Collections to (real?)
to users
experiences from the agricultural &
Users
biodiversity domains
Nikos Manouselis, Giannis Stoitsis
Agro-Know Technologies
http://wiki.agroknow.gr

4. our team
• 16 people on a full-time basis
– ~10 more on a part-time basis
• 50% PhD holders (1 candidate)
– 50% MSc holders (2 candidate)
• Computer Engineers, Agronomists,
Information Scientists, Financial
Engineers, other

5. our team
• 16 people on a full-time basis
– ~10 more on a part-time basis
• 50% PhD holders (1 candidate)
– 50% MSc holders (2 candidate)
• Computer Engineers, Agronomists,
Information Scientists, Financial
Engineers, other

6. what we do
• research-oriented small enterprise (SME)
– knowledge-intensive technology innovation
for agriculture and rural development
– systems and services for agricultural
knowledge organization and delivery
• deployment and testing
– in education & training, commerce, public
administration settings

7. data & information we work with

8. often distributed, unorganised
• stats
• gene banks
• GIS data
• blogs
• journals
• open archives
• raw data
• learning objects
• …

9. at the end, its still like this…

10. two case studies
• agricultural research & innovation
domain
– experience from agINFRA
• biodiversity & natural history
education
– experience from Natural Europe

12. “We will promote research for food and
agriculture, including research to adapt to,
and mitigate climate change, and access to
research results and technologies at
national, regional and international levels.
We will reinvigorate national research
systems and will share information and
best practices.
We will improve access to knowledge.”
Heads of State and Government, World Summit on Food Security, Rome,
November 2009

14. key issues
a) aggregating data
b) finding relevant knowledge
c) providing more storage & computing
power

15. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals
• open archives
• raw data
information
• technologies
officer view
• learning objects
• ………..

16. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals organic
• open archives educator
• raw data view
• technologies
• learning objects
• ………..

17. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals
hydroponic
• open archives
farmer view
• raw data
• technologies
• learning objects
• ………..

18. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals
• open archives
• raw data
• technologies
• learning objects
• ………..

19. content base

20. content base

21. isolated access through portals

23. simplified version of problem
• interfaces to search/browse through metadata
descriptions of agricultural learning resources
• backend: periodical harvesting of metadata from
various providers
– through OAI-PMH protocol/targets, as well as
human-facilitated ingestion/import
– different metadata schemas/specs combined
– indexing metadata element values to use for faceted
search/browse
23

24. example: educational content
But what’s behind
this

25. metadata aggregation infrastructure
More than a harvester:
 Validation Service
 Repository Software
 Registry Service
 Harvester
Powered by
25

26. a validation service
• Tool to provide automatic validation of metadata instances against
predefined application profiles, e.g. IEEE LOM
• Combines different sorts of validation techniques:
 XSD Schema is used for structural validation of xml metadata
 Schematron Rules are used for checking elements,
e.g. checking the presence of empty attribute fields
http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/validationService/
26

27. a metadata repository service
• Management of metadata records in an open and
scalable architecture
• Open Standards & Specifications support
 SQI , SPI, OAI-PMH, RSS
• Metadata schema support
– IEEE LTSC LOM (by default)
– Any schema with an XML binding
• Indexing with open source Apache Lucene
framework
• Open source license
27

28. a collection registry service
• A catalogue service:
– Manages up-to-date information on metadata providers
– Supports open standards & specifications (IEEE LOM, SQI , SPI,
OAI-PMH, RSS,…)
– Facilitates interconnection of numerous providers
– (Automatic discovery of new repositories)
28

29. a harvester service
• Incremental, scheduled harvesting
• Supports SPI specification for publishing metadata into:
i. a specified component of the ARIADNE storage layer,
ii. any other repository that has an SPI target on top of its
repository
Integrated with other services in the infrastructure:
1. Validation Service
29
2. Registry Service

30. exposing metadata to front-end
30

31. towards a common workflow
Harvesting Validating Transforming
OAI target -
XMLs
Storing Indexing
XMLs
Automatic
De - duplication
metadata Triplification
service
generation

32. content growth

33. semantic evolution

35. next challenges

36. 1. Social Research Networking
• Connecting peers & visualising social
networks, connecting researchers with
publications, recommending relevant research
– Mendeley (www.mendeley.com), ResearchGate (
http://www.researchgate.net), Academia.edu (
http://academia.edu), ArnetMiner (
http://arnetminer.org), …
– Social research components in popular CMSs
(JomSocial, Drupal’s Buddylist, Elgg…)
– Social research components in institutional CMSs
(VIVO, openAGRIS, …)

37. connect peers/publications (+APIs)
http://dev.mendeley.com/

38. extending social CMS components
http://voa3r.cc.uah.es

39. extend institutional CMS & services
http://agris.fao.org/openagris/search.do?recordID=JP2010001379

40. 2. Enriched research objects
• Complex, linked research objects
– executable scientific workflows, e.g. MyExperiment
(http://www.myexperiment.org), Kepler (https://kepler-
project.org)
– data sets e.g. PLoS (http://www.plos.org), FigShare
(http://figshare.com)
– processing web services e.g. BioCatalogue
(http://www.biocatalogue.org)
– Scientist generated classifications/taxonomies e.g. Scratchpads
(http://scratchpads.eu)
– thematic networks/catalogues e.g. TELeurope
(http://www.teleurope.eu), VOA3R (http://voa3r.cc.uah.es)

41. composite/networked research
http://education.natural-
europe.eu/green/exhibits/show/grape-
cultivars/to-begin-with

42. 3. End-user interfaces and access
• Facilitating and monitoring usage and access
– Visualising social bookmarks (Klerx & Duval)
– TinyArm (http://atinyarm.appspot.com)
– MACE (http://portal.mace-project.eu) and maeve
interactive installation at Venice Biennale
(http://vimeo.com/1738770)

43. research visualisations & analytics

44. interactive navigation interfaces

48. biodiversity used to support
education

49. this is NOT an educational resource

50. alt: this is NOT a learning object

51. …but may become one

52. how could museums and
cultural centers connect
their digital collections
with their educational
activities?

54. 1. need to go to the users
• …cannot bring them where
we assume that they are

55. probably not here...

56. ...but here

57. 2. find their practices
• …and mimic in the tools to
make it easier for them to
connect/integrate

58. teachers think activities

59. …lets help them create/find

60. (formal) inquiry-based educational
pathways…
School community
Pre-structured Pathway
Pattern
From Teachers &
Museum Educators

61. …and non-formal pathways
Lifelong Learners
Open Pathway Pattern
From
Museum Educators

62. …in the museum….
…across the
museums…

63. …open to the educational community
http://education.natural-europe.eu/natural_europe/

64. Ing
Field trip to the
Exposes legacy data e st
Apostolis and photos to Manolis
Caribbean in 2006
MULTIMEDIA
AUTHORING
TOOL
Manolis
ate
Field trip to a lake
Kournas in Crete t
no
Provide raw data
An
Iasmi and photos to Manolis
Manolis
Data collection

65. I have to ingest
and enrich!
Manolis Ingests the data & content &
enriches metadata
MULTIMEDIA
AUTHORING
TOOL
Uploads content & provides
metadata from scratch
I have to upload
and annotate!
Multimedia Content
Multimedia Authoring
Uploader
Manolis Environment

66. Apostolis
Data are published on ARIADNE Harvester
the Natural Europe
Federation
Dimitris
Data are published on Catherina
the Natural Europe
Federation
I want to teach
my pupils about
In NHMC we researchwater pollution
environmental issues
like water pollution
Iasmi
Manolis

67. Dimitris
Pathway Editor
Pathway Template Editor
Learning Models
PATHWAY
AUTHORING
TOOL
Collections of
Educational & Cultural
Resources

68. Catherina
Pathway accessible Teachers
through NHM website Visitors
Dimitris Families
PATHWAY
AUTHORING
TOOL
Pathway accessible Europeana
through ARIADNE Objects findable
through pathways in
museum’s web site

69. families
EDUCATIONAL
pupils TOOLS
teachers
METADATA
INFRASTRUCTURE
COLLECTION educators
TOOLS
curators

71. CHO Authoring & Annotation
CHO Harvesting
ESE Output
Cultural Material
Search service
ESE-CHO Application Profile

72. Organising/managing digital
collections

73. Pathway
Authoring &
Annotation
ARIADNE Validation
Service
IEEE LOM Application Profile Pathway Template
73
Authoring Specs & Prototype

74. next challenges

75. 1. Enhancing existing educational
activities
• Introduce concept of educational pathways
over collections & exhibitions through
museum web sites (http://education.natural-
europe.eu) for more museum visitors
• Cross-collection pathways for pan-European
themes/topics of interest
– e.g. World War I, Theory of Evolution

76. content for teacher activities

77. parents don’t (?) think activities

78. content for family activities

79. 2. New technology services
• Mobile, smartphone & tablet apps connected
dynamically with digital collections/Europeana
API
• Enriching technology platforms & tools used
to develop educational applications around
cultural collections/exhibitions
– educational platforms such as Learning
Management Systems (e.g. Blackboard), Course
Management Systems (e.g. Moodle)
– cultural platforms such as virtual exhibition tools
(e.g. Omeka)

80. mobile apps enhancement
http://www.museums2go.com
http://cs.wellesley.edu/~davistui/iPhone/prototype.html

81. learning systems enhancement
http://www.eummena.org/index.php/labs

82. virtual exhibition systems
http://wiki.agroknow.gr/agroknow/index.php/Green_Hackathon

83. 3. Creativity campaigns
• Connect school activities/contests with
themes of interest
– eTwinning networks, Open Discovery Space
campaigns
– Thematic Europeana activities/projects
• Enrich existing educational activities with
cultural content (e.g. digital storytelling
platforms/tools)
• Citizen science campaigns

84. EU school projects/contests
http://www.etwinning.net

85. enhanced digital storytelling
http://learningaboutpolitics.eu/more-stories/
http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en/explore

86. wrap up

87. targeted domain
• rich in data-oriented problems and
cases
• focused on “real” users
• inter-disciplinary work
• results related to societal
goals/challenges

88. increase use & reuse
• digital sources and collections
material to be used (and
potentially re-used) in several
contexts
– even different than originally
expected/thought of

89. our work
• at the forefront of such
activities
• collaboration with international
stakeholders
• (usually ) appreciated by users
• …we grow fast
– (and need new people!)

90. thank you!
info@agroknow.gr
http://wiki.agroknow.gr