GACS (Global Agricultural Concept Scheme) is a project between FAO, NAL, and CABI to create a common base of agricultural terms by merging and mapping their thesauri. Currently it contains a core of around 13,000 commonly used terms. The goal is for all data repositories to be open and interoperable by linking terms and concepts between different knowledge organization systems using GACS as a common reference point. Ontologies and thesauri can consult GACS when being developed to reuse existing related terms and concepts, and add new terms to GACS if they are commonly needed.

1. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
GACS-Global Agricultural
Concept Scheme
A common concept base for interoperability in Agricultural Information

2. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
What is the vision
All data repositories are open and interoperable

3. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
What is «GACS» at the moment
• Born as a common
project of FAO, NAL and
CABI to merge/map their
thesauri
• A Core of about 13,000
most commonly used
terms have been mapped
and integrated
• A usable proof of concept
is published and already
used
http://browser.agrisemantics.org/gacs/en/

4. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
Plant Ontology
Brasilian Cotton Ontology

5. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
The CACS Cotton
Page

6. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
Better semantics in a system do not
contribute automatically to a semantic web
or to a web of linked open data!

7. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04

8. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
Mapping is not an efficient solution
thes1
Onto1
Onto2
Onto3

9. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
Are there solutions?
(Foundation ontologies or upper ontologies have still not
had much influence)

10. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
More Details on traits..........

11. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04

12. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
http://browser.agrisemantics.org/gacs/en/page/C8813

13. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04

14. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
service
2
GACS
Thes
etc.
thes1
Onto1
Onto2
Onto3
Onto
A naive view of the problem?
Yes, very much
oversimplified

15. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04

16. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
But.....
• The existing GACS module is already able to crosslink different KOS,
• link your concepts and classes to GACS concepts
• add your URIs to GACS

17. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
A vision of the process
• A community needs a new Ontology/Taxonomy/Thesaurus/...........
• It consults GACS vocabularies for an informed decison
• It constructs it’s own KOS
• It checks, where classes/concept/terms have a related instance in
GACS
• If yes, it creates the appropriate semantic relationship
• If no, it evaluates if the new concept is of common interest
• If yes, it adds the concept to GACS

18. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
The problem with the name GACS
• Confederation of Schemes, not one Scheme?

19. Johannes Keizer (Dr.rer.nat), GODAN Secretariat 2017-04
Learning from Others