AgInfo News

ISO 25964-2 Published

2013-03-13T10:35:00.000+00:00

ISO 25964-2 deals with interoperability between thesauri and other vocabularies, especially the principles and practice of mapping between them. Interoperability is defined as the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information, and to use the information that has been exchanged. The overall focus of ISO 25964 is on thesauri, and with the exception of terminologies, comparable standards do not exist for the other vocabulary types. Rather than try to standardize them, Part 2 deals only with interoperability between these and thesauri. You can read the entire press release at: http://nkos.slis.kent.edu/PressReleaseISO25964-2.pdf

Early Registration Open for the IVth IAALD World Congress

2013-03-04T11:28:00.000+00:00

Early registration is now open for the IAALD IVth World Congress. Join in the conversation about "Emerging Priorities for Scientific and Technical Information" in a three day conference in beautiful upstate New York in the USA. The conference will run from July 21-24, 2013 and is hosted by Cornell University. Register now and save money. Early registration ends April 15th.

Open Access Week@AIMS

2012-10-12T10:14:00.000+00:00

As part of the CIARD Movement, AIMS is organizing a series of webinars on the theme Making Agricultural Research Information Publicly Available and Accessible during Open Access Week 2012 . Seven webinars will be held from Tuesday, October 23 until Friday, October 26 and will include Jean-Claude Guédon and Alma Swan who will focus on the status of Open Access in the agricultural domain and Open Access policy developments. Wouter Gerritsma will talk about value-added services for the Wageningen Institutional Repository and Enrica Porcari will highlight the experience of CGIAR. The event will close with 3 webinars consisting each of 3 short presentations talking about respectively "Promotion of Open Access", "Search Engines for Open Access Web Resources" and "Digital Repository Development Use Cases". You can find the complete scedule at: at the program website. The event is being co-sponsored by FAO, GFAR, IAALD, and IICA.

Call for Proposals: 14th World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD)

2012-10-01T18:38:00.001+00:00

The 14th IAALD World Congress programming committee is seeking proposals for papers, posters and interactive workshops. This year’s conference, Emerging Priorities for Scientific and Agricultural Information," will be held July 22-24, 2013 at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Submissions are due by December 1st, 2012.

Papers and Posters: Those wishing to present a paper or a poster should submit an abstract in English (maximum 300 words) online at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iaald13 (new users of the EasyChair software program will need to sign up for a free account).

Proposals should be tagged with at least two and up to five keywords from the provided tags. At least three additional author keywords are also required.

Interactive Workshops: The programming committee is also interested in hearing proposals for 2 hour hands-on workshops to be given at the conference. If you have expertise on a topic you think would benefit conference attendees and would like to lead a workshop, please submit a description in English (maximum 300 words) online at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iaald13 (new users of the EasyChair software program will need to sign up for a free account).

Authors will be informed of decisions on their proposals by January 15, 2013. All authors will be expected to give their papers, posters, and workshops in person at the IAALD World Congress. Scholarship information will be forthcoming.

Questions? Please email Jim Morris-Knower at iaald@cornell.edu

IAALD 14th World Congress Seeking Reviewers

2012-09-25T09:46:00.000+00:00

The 14th IAALD World Congress programming committee is seeking proposal reviewers! This year’s conference is Emerging Priorities for Scientific and Agricultural Information.

Each reviewer will be expected to participate in the blind-submission process by reading submissions and provide a recommendation for acceptance. The review process will begin on December 1, 2012 and conclude on January 5, 2013.

If you are interested, please e-mail Jim Morris-Knower at iaald@cornell.edu.

US National Agricultural Library Changes its Collection Policies

2012-09-17T10:52:00.001+00:00

The US National Agricultural Library (NAL) announced it is changing how it develops its collection by shifting its emphasis to creating and acquiring digital items.

Library customers’ desire for fast online access to content and NAL’s goal of serving more customers nation-wide, coupled with declining use of print items, is charting a path toward digital items and away from print. Continued belt-tightening is also requiring the library to critically consider how best to spend its budget.

The complete story can be found at the NAL website.

D-Lib magazine features effective use of scientific publications

2012-07-20T10:47:00.000+00:00

The July/August 2012 issue of D-Lib Magazine is devoted to a single topic: making more effective use of traditional scientific publications. The topics range from automatic metadata extraction for individual articles to automatically characterizing collections to automatic browsing hierarchy creation to innovative visualization techniques for navigating collections.

D-Lib is open access.

New issue of Agricultural Information Worldwide is now available

2012-07-16T10:11:00.000+00:00

The latest issue of Agricultural Information Worldwide, an international journal for information specialists in agriculture, natural resources and the environment,is now available.

The issue contains articles on researchers' publishing habits, information projects in Latin America and the Solomon Islands and use of extension information in Nigeria. The journal is published by IAALD and the contents and abstracts are freely accessible; articles are restricted to IAALD members and require a log in ID.

Information on IAALD membership can be found on the IAALD website.

Plans progressing for next IAALD World Congress to be held in 2013

2012-07-11T10:30:00.001+00:00

The XIVth IAALD World Congress will be held at Cornell University July 22-24, 2013 in Ithaca, New York USA.

Plans are progressing for the conference and registration information will be available by the end of the summer. To follow the development of the conference go the the website . Questions can be directed to the conference committee. Watch this interview with Jaron Porciello, conference chair.

Empowering farmers in India through video: Interview with Rikin Gandhi

2012-07-09T18:57:00.000+00:00

The Agrilinks blog at USAID has an interview with Rikin Gandhi - CEO of Digital Green.

According to the interview, "the unique components of the Digital Green system include:

a participatory process for local video production,
a human-mediated instruction model for video dissemination and training,
a hardware and software technology platform for exchanging data in areas with limited Internet and electrical grid connectivity, and
an iterative model to progressively better address the needs and interests of the community with analytical tools and interactive phone-based feedback channels."

Communicating agricultural biotechnology

2012-07-06T19:13:00.000+00:00

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) has released several interesting reports and news items on crop biotechnology and its communication.

These include:

Science and Popular Media: How Cartoonists Visualize Crop Biotechnology - Blogpost / Download the report

Communicating Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa: What Role for Radio? - Download the brief

Communication Challenges and Convergence in Crop Biotechnology - Download the book

Bridging the Knowledge Divide: Experiences in Communicating Crop Biotechnology - Download the report

Third IAALD Africa conference kicks off in Johannesburg

2012-05-21T10:16:00.002+00:00

Today in Johannesburg, some 90 people participated in the 3rd IAALD Africa conference. Focusing on 'e-Agriculture for Improved Livelihoods and Food Security in Africa', the first sessions looked at uses of mobile phones in agriculture - with presenters reporting on experiences from India, Zambia and South Africa.

The programme is online

With support by CTA and the active involvement of young people participating in the ARDYIS project, the event can be followed live - try it out!

Twitter hashtag: #aginfoafrica

ICTs: Enabling innovation for enhancing rural livelihoods

2012-05-05T10:39:00.000+00:00

December 3-7, 2012 will see India host an international conference on ways to that information and communication technologies are enhancing rural livelihoods.

Further details on the event website

CIARD publishes framework for sharing data and information for global agricultural research

2012-05-04T10:54:00.000+00:00

CIARD (Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development) is a global movement to enhance access to data and information in the public domain to improve development based on agricultural research results.

In 2011, CIARD partners organized international consultations to understand and analyze the features of data and information sharing problems. The major product was the design of a framework and action plan to improve data and information sharing, and enhanced collaboration, worldwide.

The framework (the 'Beijing Agenda' comprises three dimensions, each with specified 'action areas where CIAR partners can take specific concrete actions':

Technical issues and technologiesAction Area 1 - Services, Tools and Infrastructure
Action Area 2 - Standards and Systems Architecture

Institutional and organizational aspectsAction Area 3 - Policies, Strategies and Institutional Structures
Action Area 4 - Development of Skills and Competencies
Action Area 5 - Appropriate Organizational Structures and Work Practices
Action Area 6 - Global Improvement of Data and Information Flows

Championing change in policy and practice
Action Area 7 - Advocacy and Evidence

Download a 'technical issues paper' in support of the Framework for Sharing Data and Information for Global Agricultural Research is available online.

View a presentation on the 'Beijing Agenda':

Les Cahiers Agricultures en Open Access pour tous

2012-02-28T15:56:00.001+00:00

Revue scientifique internationale pluridisciplinaire soutenue par le Cirad, Cahiers agricultures est désormais accessible gratuitement en ligne pour tous. Le numéro en cours ainsi que 20 années d’archives sont en libre accès sur le site de la revue www.cahiersagricultures.fr

Cahiers Agricultures est une revue scientifique internationale, principalement francophone, à comité de lecture et facteur d'impact. Elle publie des travaux pluridisciplinaires de recherche, des synthèses et des réflexions sur les agricultures du monde, leurs évolutions et leur place dans des sociétés de plus en plus urbanisées. La publication est gratuite pour les auteurs. La version imprimée de la revue reste envoyée exclusivement aux abonnés payants.

Les Cahiers Agricultures sont édités par John Libbey Eurotext et soutenus par l’AUF, le Cirad, la Faculté universitaire de Gembloux, l’Inra et l’IRD.

CrowdMarketeers - think 'outside our webs' to measure our online audiences

2012-02-25T15:33:00.015+00:00

Chris Addison and Luz Marina Alvare (IFPRI) explain ways to 'think beyond the web', beyond our domains, to measure online audiences.

Web statistical tools have made it easy to measure visits, but it provides the wrong idea as to what is important when working out the audiences that we need to be reached. Perhaps, we need to start thinking further than our organizations Domain URL. We need to think 'outside our- web.' Make sure that other Domains contain the research terms we want to reach. Then a new way to measure audiences opens up.

We all have the roughly identical world maps of our visitors from Google. The United States is colored in the heaviest green, then perhaps Europe followed by Asia. Africa probably has the lightest shades of green on the map. But this view just shows overall numbers of visitors, so no surprise that shows the most visitors come from the most connected countries. We get a very different view when we look at what proportion of the internet audience we reach in each country. This isn’t so hard to do, we have figures for how many people are connected to the internet from the International Telecommunications Union and by dividing the number of visits we have by this number we get a proportional value of the reach we have. For IFPRI the picture immediately changes and our greatest reach appears to be in Ethiopia, while the United States suddenly drops to being below the top 60 countries in term of reach. A new view of what is really happening in terms of the proportion of the audience we are reaching is displayed and which countries are worth investigating more.

Where does our audience come from?

The audience doesn’t arrive directly to the front page of your website, they come through intermediaries and different pathways. These sites and services we have called “crowdmarketeers”. The crowdmarketeers market the website to a crowd on our behalf, but often without our knowledge unless we use the analytical tools to identify them and learn more of our users behavior. An organizations visibility, impact and prestige grow based on these marketeers rather than just our own efforts.

Who are the crowdmarketeers

Even though we crowd market our products through email, we have to acknowledge the key role played by academic directories and search engines such as REPEC, Google Scholar, Google Books and sites such as Wikipedia. Twitter, Facebook and scholarly social media services such as Mendeley and Zotero which are based on people networking are particularly powerful crowdmarketeers.

Different products have different staying power

In looking into the measurement of online use, we find that different products behave differently and have different crowd marketeers. Products like the Global Hunger Index are visited all year round, while other publications have a short shelf life.

Where are the conversations happening?

Different marketeers play different roles depending on the topic. The conversations on a particular issue are found in different places. For example hunger is heavily discussed in the blogosphere, but hardly appears in the search engines. Agriculture is a major proportion of Wikipedia, but hardly appears in the LinkedIn community mentioned.

Different CrowdMarketeers for different types of audiences

Different crowd marketeers bring different types of visitors. If you are looking simply at volume then Wikipedia, Feedburner, Email and Google Books prove to be the most important. If you look at how many pages each visitor vists, then websites are more important. The Washington post, Nestle, World Food Program were the top sites by this criteria. They were followed by directories such as REPEC, ELDIS and Google Books which are more likely to appeal to researchers. Somewhere in the middle are the feed and email subscribers using feedburner services to stay in touch with changes to the IFPRI website. Finally if we look at average time on the site we get a different list with email clearly at the front, Google books, ELDIS and SciDev. The mobile site now is growing and showing that visitors are spending more time on the website.

Different CrowdMarketeers reach different audiences around the world.

Email reaches around the world but social media has more impact in the US India and Europe. Wikipedia brings comparatively more users from Germany. Facebook brings visitors to the website from across Africa but particularly Kenya. Feedburner brings a comparatively large audience from Australia, second only to the United States. In Africa, the number of users of Social Media is growing, most specially Facebook and Twitter.

Learning more about the audience

We can measure different user profiles and assess quality of that audience using some of the advanced Google analytics tools. For example we can track user behavior around two sites which bring traffic to IFPRI.ORG, careers.ifpri.org and bbc.co.uk. The graph right shows the differences in new vs returning visitors. As might be expected a careers sites bring a stream of regular visitors who return looking for recent vacancies, while the BBC Newsbring one off visitors who have little ongoing interest in IFPRI but are attracted by the news story on the BBC News site.

Scholarly marketeers

Our researchers serve as marketeers too when they are using scholarly social media resources such as Mendely, Zotero, Google Books.

For the 2020 conference a community on the topic Agriculture Nutrition and Health was built in Mendeley. This community now has 149 members, and each member has its readers followers that gives visibility to other communities we did not know about. The process continues feeding by itself. To achieve this would have required a tremendous effort if it was done by only staff of one organization.

Wikipedia

Special mention needs to be given to Wikipedia as the 'Uber' CrowdMarketeer. We discovered that over 120 wikipedia pages brought traffic to the IFPRI website. Pages in Chinese for IFPRI which we did not know existed were produced by students in Taiwan. The Global Hunger Index Wikipedia page was visited 3000 times in January. We could have not reached that audience with only IFPRI’s website Global Hunger Index page. Particularly now that Wikipedia is embedded in Facebook the combination of the platform and likes leads to an ever increasing audience.

Consequences and effects

As quantitative gains IFPRI and the scholarly marketeer will have more readers, visists, followers, citations, and links.

From the qualitative perspective, the individual marketeer might get e-mail overflow, but gain online presence, prestige and reputation.

Reach

If we look at the effects for one campaign, a combination of classical media with stories on the BBC, in the Guardian and Economist, Le Monde and El Pais together with social media brought the effect below, over 7,000 visits in one day.

How can we differentiate quality from quantity?

Tools such as Google Analytics don’t just allow us to see the impact of campaigns, such as the launch of our own Global Hunger Index leading to three times as much traffic to the website, but also through the motion graph being able to watch the roles of different media outlets in reaching the audience and seeing how this fitted with the role of social media. We could compare stories in the BBC and the Economist with the influence of Facebook and Twitter.

Mobile messages - Ken Banks on mobile phones in rural developnment

2012-01-28T14:30:00.004+00:00

Ken Banks founded kiwanja.net; he applies mobile technology for positive social and environmental change in the developing world. His research resulted in the development of FrontlineSMS, an award-winning text messaging-based field communication system designed to empower grassroots non-profit organisations.

Follow his series of blog posts on National Geographic, including:

From smart phones to smart farming: Indigenous knowledge sharing in Tanzania

Mobile meets farmer: Stories from Kenya

In African agriculture, information is power

IT, internet and extension

2012-01-04T15:01:00.001+00:00

The December 2011 issue of JOE - the Journal of Extension takes a look at information technology and extension.

Content includes:

Extension Is Unpopular—On the Internet

Is Extension Ready to Adopt Technology for Delivering Programs and Reaching New Audiences?

Land-Grant University Employee Perceptions of eXtension: A Baseline Descriptive Study

Leveraging New Media in the Scholarship of Engagement: Opportunities and Incentives

Using Information Technology to Forge Connections in an Extension Service Project

Promoting Healthy Eating and Exercise Through Online Messages: A Pilot Study

Revising an Extension Education Website for Limited Resource Audiences Using Social Marketing Theory

Mapping Extension's Networks: Using Social Network Analysis to Explore Extension's Outreach

An Analysis of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service's Role in Bridging the Digital Divide

Social Media Use of Cooperative Extension Family Economics Educators: Online Survey Results and Implications

An Examination of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Associated with the Adoption of Moodle™ by eXtension

Positive Examples and Lessons Learned from Rural Small Business Adoption of E-Commerce Strategies

Online Nutrition Education: Enhancing Opportunities for Limited-Resource Learners

Social Network Analysis: A Tool to Improve Understanding of Collaborative Management Groups

Virtual Training for Virtual Success: Michigan State University Extension's Virtual Conference

A Successful Multi-Institutional Blog for Transferring Garden and Landscape Information to the Public

Entrepreneurial Extension Conducted via Social Media

Strengthening 4-H Program Communication Through Technology

Working in a Wiki: A Tool for Collaboration Among Virtual Teams

Web-Based Family Life Education: Spotlight on User Experience

An Automated Data Analysis Tool for Livestock Market Data

A State-Specific Online Cover Crop Decision Tool for Midwest Farmers

Recorded version of IAALD NING Webinar

2011-12-02T21:16:00.009+00:00

The webinar presented by Peter Fernandez on December 1 was very well attended with over 20 people participating online and many others inquiring whether they could listen to a recorded version later on. Fortunately, Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate) allows for the recording and sharing of these webinars and Federico Sancho from IICA has kindly provided the link. IAALD's Executive Committee has decided to make these webinars openly accessible for anyone, however we might want start charging non-members later on.

Click here to listen to the webinar.

A similar seminar in Spanish will be held on December 6, 15:00 GMT-UTC by Miguel Hidalgo, Information Specialist, IICA.

Don't miss the IAALD Webinar on NING!

2011-11-29T16:26:00.010+00:00

Here is the link for the IAALD Webinar on NING, Thursday, December 1, 16:00 UTC-GMT.

Participants are invited to log in at least 15 minutes prior to the start of the webinar, type their name, download Java 6, define connection speed, and check the audio. Once admitted to the Blackboard Collaborate (previously Elluminate) platform, use the CHAT to send us a short message with your name, institution and country.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn and to better connect with like-minded colleagues!

Presenter: Peter Fernandez, Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources Librarian, University of Tenessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

Date: Thursday, December 1, 2011

Time: 11:00 AM EST (16:00 UTC-GMT) check your time zone here

System Requirements
Pc-based attendees
Required: Windnows 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

MacIntosh-based attendees
Required: Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or newer

IAALD Webinar: NING to Connect Information Specialists Worldwide

2011-11-16T18:36:00.012+00:00

In its continuous effort to connect people to people, IAALD is offering yet another webinar on December 1, entitled "NING to Connect Information Specialists Worldwide".

NING is a customizable social media platform used by IAALD - and many other communities - to facilitate communications among agricultural information specialists and their stakeholders.

Presenter: Peter Fernandez, Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources Librarian, University of Tenessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

Date: Thursday, December 1, 2011

Time: 11:00 AM EST (16:00 UTC-GMT) check your time zone here

System Requirements
Pc-based attendees
Required: Windnows 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

MacIntosh-based attendees
Required: Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger) or newer

Up to now all IAALD webinars have been free for everyone, but in the future non-IAALD members will most likely be asked to pay a small fee for attending.

Prospective IAALD member, Jaqueline Nnam, Ghana

2011-11-10T21:10:00.006+00:00

Video Interview: Jaqueline Nnam works at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), based in Accra, Ghana. She is attached to the Africa Adapt project and promotes Knowledge Sharing for climate change adaption. Her work involves the gathering, packaging and dissemination of information, as well as the brokering of relationships among practicioners in the field. She considers that associations like IAALD provide a very useful forum for sharing problems and for discussing strategies and ideas.

Prospective IAALD member Ann Mureithi, Kenya

2011-11-10T20:41:00.008+00:00

Video Interview: Ann Mureithi works at AGRA the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and at the same time is enrolled in a Masters Degree on Agricultural Information and Communication Management (AICM) at University of Nairobi. While attending the Share Fair in Rome she discovered IAALD and decided to sign up as a member. She believes that the Association provides an ideal platform to connect with people around the world and to jointly discuss diverse agriculture related issues. Welcome Ann!

IAALD members working behind the scene

2011-11-09T20:43:00.011+00:00

Video Interview: Marie José Jehl former CTA Information Manager and member of IAALD since 1990, is pleased with the Association's progress. The fact that the Association's journal Agricultural Information Worldwide has been moved to an open access platform four years ago, thus making its content accessible to anyone, and at the same time reducing printing and mailing costs, has been a big accomplishment. Marie José is translating all journal abstracts into French and has done so for the past 11 years. Many thanks Marie José!

Connected agriculture: Mobiles help drive efficiency and sustainability in food and agriculture

2011-10-13T04:38:00.003+00:00

A new report from Vodacom and Accenture argues that mobile communications can help to meet the challenge of feeding an estimated 9.2 billion people by 2050.

The study identifies 12 specific opportunities that could increase agricultural income by around US$138 billion by 2020. These are:

Improving access to financial services

Mobile payment system
Micro-insurance system
Micro-lending platform

Provision of agricultural information

Mobile information platform
Farmer helpline

Improving data visibility for supply chain efficiency

Smart logistics
Traceability and tracking system
Mobile management of supplier networks
Mobile management of distribution networks

Enhancing access to markets

Agricultural trading platform
Agricultural tendering platform
Agricultural bartering platform

The report aims to stimulate engagement between mobile operators, governments, NGOs and businesses to realise these opportunities and explore others.

Press release

Download full report