This document discusses conceptual design considerations for TAPipedia, a knowledge sharing system for agricultural and biodiversity sciences. It considers building (1) a wiki-based encyclopedia, (2) a repository for uploading and tagging content, or (3) a search engine or collaboration portal. The author recommends a network of interconnected local and regional knowledge hubs to embrace sharing of local knowledge, and prioritizing helping stakeholders identify capacity development needs and share context-specific knowledge.

1. Introduction to knowledge sharing
systems: considerations for the
conceptual design of TAPipedia
Nikos Manouselis, CEO Agro-Know
nikosm@agroknow.gr

2. background

3. An extraordinary company that captures, organizes
and adds value to the rich information available in
agricultural and biodiversity sciences, in order to
make it universally accessible, useful and meaningful.
http://www.agroknow.gr

4. indicative partners & clients
• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
• Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)
• International Fund for Agricultural Developmen
(IFAD)
• World Bank Group
• UK’s Dept for International Development (DFID)
• Michigan State University (MSU)
• Wageningen University & Research (WUR)
• French Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA)
• International Centre for Research in Organic Food
Systems (ICROFS)

5. advocates of open
• CIARD.net: a global movement dedicated to
open agricultural knowledge
• Global Open Data for Agriculture and
Nutrition (GODAN): make agricultural and
nutritionally relevant data available,
accessible, and usable for unrestricted use
worldwide

6. making different systems work together
• Agricultural Interoperability Interest Group
(IG), Research Data Alliance (RDA)
• Knowledge & Learning Systems Group, Global
Food Safety Partnership (GFSP)

7. my (formal) role in the group
• Provide feedback on review related to web-based
information and knowledge sharing platforms to
the CD in agriculture consultant
• Draft report on the conceptual design of
TAPipedia shared and discussed with wider CD
Expert Group (workshop) and feedback
incorporated in conceptual design of TAPipedia
• Feedback from CD Global Task Force addressed in
the final concept report

8. my (desired) added value
• Help design a system that can use IT &
online channels to scale up awareness
creation, knowledge sharing, knowledge
co-creation

9. key concept & options

10. TAPipedia

11. TAPipedia

12. another “…ipedia”

13. a Wiki-based encyclopedia?
• Collaborative editing
• Multilingual content
• Contextualisation of pages
• Linking of pages to multimedia, data, other
sites
• One, big central system

14. a “repository” (~ a database)

15. a tropical agriculture repository

16. a repository with CD for AIS material?
• Uploading and/or describing (“tagging”)
content
• Management, preservation, cataloguing of
files of a specific type/format (should not mix
e.g. publications with data sets)
• Difficult to manage interactive data types (e.g.
videos)
• Limited collaboration capabilities
• One, big central system

17. a search engine

18. an ag-search engine

19. a search engine for CD on AIS material?
• A very big catalogue (index) of relevant resources
• Fast search functionalities
• Number and quality/relevance of results
depends on coverage
• No collaboration, limited contextualisation
• An information broker
• One, big central system running on top of others

20. A collaboration portal

21. an innovation collaboration portal

22. a collaboration portal for CD on AIS?
• An online space for a community to
communicate, share resources, express opinions
• Interactive, dynamically updated (if used)
• Focus on collaboration, can be customised for
specific languages/communities
• Knowledge resources of relevance to the
particular community
• One big, central system for all vs. many systems
appropriate for each community

23. “so, what should we build?”

24. “and if we build it, will they come?”

25. “and how it will be different to the X
we have now?”

26. my initial recommendations

27. Separate Independent (variably
linked) actions
Collective and Cohesive Approach
(More Collaboration, Coordination,
Communication, Connection)
taking stock of existing work

28. Global CD for AIS
Knowledge Hub
Local CD for AIS
Knowledge Hubs
Source diagram from Open Models concept paper: http://bit.ly/1p729Jm
embrace & facilitate sharing of local knowledge

29. create a network of knowledge hubs
Global CD for AIS Knowledge Hub
Regional/local
knowledge sources
Regional/local hub
Interconnected regional/local knowledge sources & collections on CD for AIS
Regional/local
knowledge sources
Regional/local hub
Regional/local
knowledge sources
Regional/local hub
…etc

30. need to prioritise
1. Who are the most important stakeholders &
actors to serve?
2. Which is the most important knowledge that
they need to do their job, better?
3. Which is the top difficulty that they have
today, which could be hopefully addressed by
introducing a new IT system?

31. What should TAPipedia do?
1. To help TAP members and local stakeholders to
discover methods & tools that will help them identify
and assess emerging capacity development needs for
AIS
2. To help local stakeholders discover AIS knowledge
from other regions that could be of value for their
stakeholders
3. To help TAP members to present, explain and
communicate the framework on CD for AIS so that it
may be easily adopted & implemented
4. To help local stakeholders share their own applied
and context-specific AIS knowledge that addresses
the needs of their stakeholders

32. quick round: what if you could only chose one?
1. To help TAP members and local stakeholders to
discover methods & tools that will help them identify
and assess emerging capacity development needs for
AIS
2. To help local stakeholders discover AIS knowledge
from other regions that could be of value for their
stakeholders
3. To help TAP members to present, explain and
communicate the framework on CD for AIS so that it
may be easily adopted & implemented
4. To help local stakeholders share their own applied
and context-specific AIS knowledge that addresses
the needs of their stakeholders

33. wrapping up

35. thank you!
nikosm@agroknow.gr
www.agroknow.gr