Introduction to the work that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations undertakes in the context of open access, open data and open science. Primarily, it will be introduced the activities related to the collaboration to provide open access to data with national, regional and international institutions, through international initiatives as CIARD, Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) and Research Data Alliance (RDA). The speaker will also present the work on information provision through the AGORA program which facilitates free or low cost access to knowledge through partnership with major publishers and UN agencies. AGORA enables developing countries to gain access to an outstanding digital library collection in the fields of food, agriculture, environmental science and related social sciences. And thirdly, it will be highlighted the developing capacity activities to enable information management professionals to managed knowledge and data in agriculture, through the Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS) community of practice with more than 2,000 practitioners and information management workers worldwide. AIMS supports standards, technology and good practices for open access and open data in the agricultural domain.
Open Access, Open Data and Open Science in the context of agricultural research
1. Open Access, Open Data and Open
Science in the context of agricultural
research
Imma.Subirats@fao.org
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Colloque international "Libre accès et pays du Sud"
Paris (France) , 12 mars 2015
2. opening agricultural knowledge
why
• develop better solutions to agricultural challenges
• support agricultural development, important driver of economic growth
• increase the impact of knowledge in agricultural and rural development
how
• advocating for improved access to knowledge and provide evidence of
the benefit of this investment
• making knowledge more accessible, through open systems and
international standards
• developing capacities of individuals and institutions
where
• over the world, specially the South
3. STRENGTHEN THE COLLABORATION TO PROVIDE
OPEN ACCESS TO DATA WITH NATIONAL, REGIONAL
AND INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
4. strengthening the collaboration
what we do
advocate for improve access to knowledge and provide
evidence of the benefit of this investment
how we do it
through international initiatives as GODAN, Research Data
Alliance and CIARD
9. information provision
what we do
to apply to principles related to open access, open data
and open science
how we do it
through partnership with major publishers and UN
agencies
harvesting metadata from open repositories over the
world
linking to existing open datasets on the web
14. capacity development
what we do
to empower agricultural information management specialists
all over the world in creating access to agricultural
knowledge
how we do it
facilitating communities of practice
providing good practices on the use of metadata standards,
technologies and vocabularies
advising on how to manage, disseminate, share and exchange
agricultural information
Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition officially launched at the Open Government Partnership Summit on October 31, 2013.
GODAN focuses on building high-level policy, and public and private institutional support for open data.
120 partners
Purpose: encourages collaboration and cooperation among existing agriculture and open data activities, without duplication, and brings together stakeholders to solve long-standing global problems like food and nutritional security.
Launched in 2008, it promotes open access to agricultural knowledge, helping to establish international standards, devising resources and tools that facilitate collaboration and sharing, and amplifying individual partners’ contributions to reducing poverty and hunger.
Institutions apply to CIARD manifesto, which is align to the open access initiative principles. At the moment, 430 Institutions have applied, 60% from the South
CIARD work is developed in three major areas:
Advocacy: actions to secure commitment and participation from critical members of the various stakeholder constituencies in agricultural science and technology (local, national, regional, international).
Capacity building: international and regional actions to support national level capacity building.
Content management: methodologies and tools for open access publishing and interlinking different information types.
Launched in 2003, AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) is managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in partnership with Cornell University and over 70 publishers. Over 2300 institutions have registered for access to AGORA which provides access up to 5,200 journals, up to 4,200 e-books, and up to 20 other information resources.
Per February 2015, there are 1,593 institutions registered in Africa (countries under FAORAF) and 141 in Near East (countries under RNE). In the Africa, the five countries with highest number of active institutions registered with AGORA are
Nigeria (252)
Kenya (141)
Ethiopia (138)
United Republic of Tanzania (101)
Uganda (96)
F1000Research is an Open Science publishing platform for life scientists, offering immediate publication and transparent refereeing, avoiding editorial bias and ensuring the inclusion of all source data.
Since 2014, FAO through CIARD is collaborating with F1000 Research to launch the Open Knowledge in Agricultural Development (OKAD) article collection. OKAD is a space where authors can share their original research findings, initiatives, case studies, perspectives and opinions relating to Open Knowledge initiatives within all areas in the context of agriculture, agri-food and agro-biodiversity.
It will be launched in April 2015.
Discounts & waivers: All articles submitted within 2015 will be free to publish. From 2016, the discount will be applied specially to scientists and authors from low-income countries, following HINARI/AGORA eligibility.
Agriculture Information Management Standards (AIMS) is a portal with information about (and access to) standards, technology and good practices. It is also a forum for connecting information management workers worldwide and for discussing open access and open data.
2,000 information management specialists over the world are currently subscribed to AIMS.
25% from Europe
25% from Asia
20% from South America
20% from Africa
8% from North America
2% from Oceania
Vocabularies
Tools
Services
CIARD addresses priority issues around capacity development of institutions and individuals.
The main areas of work in capacity building are:
Institutional Development – building information-related capacity of national institutions
Training for Individuals – face-to-face and distance learning formats for three main stakeholder groups: (i) information specialists, (ii) managers and decision-makers, (iii) researchers and academics.
Training resources – modular materials available in various languages to support capacity building activities, featuring the Information Management Resource Kit (IMARK)