1. Introduction
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
project, a
cooperative
approach to
improve
organization
and retrieval of It has become a triviality to state the difficulty
knowledge on
the web. of finding relevant information on the web
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
21-03-2002
Slide 1

2. The Search Problem
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
project, a How to evaluate Search Results?
cooperative
approach to
improve Number of Relevant Documents Identified
organization Precision
and retrieval of
knowledge on Total Number of Documents Identified
the web.
Number of Relevant Documents Identified
Recall
Johannes Keizer Number of Relevant Documents in the Collection
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
21-03-2002
Both parameters are ranking low today!
Slide 2

3. The Browse Problem
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
• Topic Trees from categorization schemes and thesauri are
project, a rigid and not very expressive
cooperative
approach to
improve
organization
and retrieval of
knowledge on
the web.
• Machine produced clusters are “flexible”, but very
imprecise
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
21-03-2002
Slide 3

4. Ways to Resource Description and Discovery
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service - • Statistical:
project, a
cooperative
approach to using words as lexical terms, statistical analysis
improve
organization (word counts), most full text search engines work
and retrieval of
knowledge on like this
the web.
• Semantical:
referring the information resource to a category or to
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of thesaurus terms
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
 Statistic methods are unprecise by nature; semantic
21-03-2002 methods depend on the knowledge organization system
Slide 4 used

5. Knowledge Organization Systems now
The
Agricultural
Ontology  Insufficientand Knowledge +
Existing Thesauri subject Dedicated KOSs
Service - Organization Systems (KOSs)
project, a language coverage e.g., ASFA thesaurus
cooperative
e.g., the Multilingual
approach to  Only very simple encoding
Forestry Thesaurus
improve
organization of semantic the Sustainable
e.g.,
relations
and retrieval of
Development
knowledge on
the web.
 Common concepts are website classification
not declared e.g., biological taxonomies such
as NCBI and ITIS
 No or very limited
Other thematic thesauri
Johannes Keizer
Food and
interoperability
Agriculture
Non-dedicated KOSs
Organization of
the UN  Very limited machine
CABI Thesaurus
Library and
Documentation readability AGROVOC
Systems Division
NAL Thesaurus
21-03-2002  Severe maintenance
GEMET
Slide 5 problems

6. Consequences
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service - • No common topic trees in one domain, no cross
project, a
cooperative
navigation between applications in a specific domain
approach to
improve
organization
and retrieval of
• Keyword searches are based on statistical textanalysis
knowledge on
the web.
• Automatic indexing systems show mostly poor results
Johannes Keizer • Web crawlers and harvesters do good jobs only on
Food and
Agriculture already structured information sources
Organization of
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
• The semantic Web is very far away
21-03-2002
Slide 6

7. But there is a solution…
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service - • Development of Application and Domain
project, a
cooperative
approach to
Ontologies to assure:
improve
organization
 a formal description of the application knowledge
and retrieval of
knowledge on
 possibility of machine processing
the web.
• Development of an Agricultural Ontology
Johannes Keizer Service to assure:
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of
 compatibility
the UN
 reusability
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
 sustainability
21-03-2002
Slide 7

8. Ontologies?
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -  An ontology is a formal knowledge organization
project, a
cooperative system
approach to
improve  It contains concepts (and instances)
organization
and retrieval of  Definitions of concepts and instances
knowledge on
the web.  Relations between concepts and instances
 Nearly everyone tries to build (inexplicit) ontologies
Johannes Keizer
Food and
 Directory structures, navigation trees
Agriculture
Organization of  Humans can overcome bad organization by intuition
the UN
Library and  Machine have no intuition, Machine need formal information
Documentation
Systems Division
21-03-2002
Slide 8

9. A Sample ontology for crop pest management
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
project, a
cooperative
approach to
improve
organization
and retrieval of
knowledge on
the web.
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
21-03-2002
Slide 9

10. Why Ontologies?
The
Agricultural
Ontology • Semantic Organization of websites
Service -
project, a
 Knowledge maps
cooperative  Guided discovery of knowledge
approach to
improve  Easy retrievability of information without using complicated
organization Boolean logic
and retrieval of
knowledge on • Text processing by machines
the web.  Text Mining on the Web (meaning-oriented access)
 Automatic indexing and text annotation tools
 Full text search engines that create meaningful classification
(FAO-Schwartz not related to FAO) (semantic clustering)
Johannes Keizer
Food and • Intelligent search of the Web
Agriculture
Organization of  Building dynamical catalogues from machine readable meta data
the UN
Library and
• Natural Language processing
Documentation
Systems Division
 Better machine translation
 Queries using natural language
21-03-2002
Slide 10

11. Guided Browse and Search Facilities
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
project, a
cooperative
approach to
improve Records found: 5
organization
1. xxxxxxxxxxx
and retrieval of
knowledge on 2. xxxxxxxxxxx
the web.
3. xxxxxxxxxxx
4. xxxxxxxxxxx What would you like to view?
5. xxxxxxxxxxx Forest rights issues
Johannes Keizer
Parasites of forests
Food and You may also be interested in...
Agriculture Pesticides used in forests
Organization of
the UN
Biotopes x Types of forest products
Cropping systems using forests Uses of forest products
Library and
Documentation Economics of forest production
Systems Division Forestry equipment You can further limit by:
Soil science
Geographic area Africa
21-03-2002
Type of resource Web page
Slide 11

12. Context Sensitive Knowledge Access
The
Agricultural
Ontology Use your right mouse button to learn more about an italicized word on the Agricultural Web Page
Service - page.
project, a Biosecurity:
Conservation agriculture
cooperative management of all
approach to Farmers like it because it gives them a means of conserving,
biological
improve improving and making more efficient use of their natural resources
organization and environmental risks
About camels and llamas associated with food and
and retrieval of
knowledge on Descendants of the same rabbit-sized mammal, they have become agriculture, including
the web. two of humanity's most versatile domestic animals forestry
Agribusiness and small farmers and fisheries
Well managed contract farming contributes to both increased
income for producers and higher profits for investors See also:
Toward biosecurity
Biosafety
Johannes Keizer
Food Safety
Food and Biological and environmental risks associated with food and
Agriculture agriculture have intensified with economic globalization
Risk Management
Organization of
the UN Urban food marketing Or are you interested in...:
Library and In the “century of cities”, a major challenge will be providing Food Security
Documentation adequate quantities of nutritional and affordable food for urban
Systems Division Biological Diversity
inhabitants
Crop science and ethics
21-03-2002
In order to continue their contribution to human development, crop
Slide 12 scientists must regain credibility

13. Why an Agricultural Ontology Service?
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
The production of knowledge organization systems in our subject area
project, a can be only
cooperative
approach to  International
improve
organization The Internet must become plurilingual
and retrieval of
knowledge on  Multidisciplinary
the web.
FAOs subjectarea is broad and needs various inputs
 Cooperative
different expert knowledge has to be associated and used)
Johannes Keizer
Food and  Distributed
Agriculture
Organization of no central ownership should be looked for
the UN
Library and
Documentation
 Coordinated
Systems Division Coordination must ensure reusability and standardization
21-03-2002
Slide 13

14. AOS: Iterative Knowledge Registration
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
project, a
Components: terms,
cooperative
approach to KOS uses Partner definitions,
improve components to build relationships
organization an application
and retrieval of
knowledge on
the web.
Agricultural Ontology
Application Service (AOS)
Federated storage and
Johannes Keizer description facility
Food and
Agriculture Users search and browse
Organization of
Components:
the UN
application using terms,
Library and
components Partner definitions,
Documentation relationships
Systems Division User feedback
Discussions and choices
21-03-2002
for amendments to
components
Slide 14

15. The Start of the AOS Initiative
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service - • The first workshop took place in Rome, November
project, a
cooperative 2001
approach to
improve • A launch group was established with participation
organization
and retrieval of
knowledge on
of
the web. – Content providers (FAO, CABI)
– Solution providers in the Agricultural Area (ATO -Wageningen,
University of Florida)
– Ontology development Groups (AIFB Karlsruhe, CNR Italy)
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of
the UN • Now key international partners have to be
Library and
Documentation determined
Systems Division
21-03-2002
Slide 15

16. AOS Initiative – the development
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service - • The second AOS workshop took place in January
project, a
cooperative in Oxford, prototypes were planned
approach to
improve
– Fishery Ontology
organization – Crop Pest Ontology
and retrieval of
knowledge on – Microbial Agents Ontology
the web.
• The third AOS workshop will take place in May in
Florida
– To discuss the prototypes
Johannes Keizer
Food and – To get keyplayers from the Americas (IICA already confirmed
Agriculture participation)
Organization of
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
• Are you interested in participation?
21-03-2002
Slide 16

17. AOS- Intiative - Sustainability
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -  FAO plays a key-role in defining Knowledge
project, a
cooperative Organization Systems since the 70th (AGRIS-
approach to
improve Categories, AGROVOC)
organization
and retrieval of
knowledge on
 But FAO needs committed partners for this project
the web.  For Subject Coverage,
 For Language Coverage
 External funding is necessary for the first years of
Johannes Keizer
Food and
the project
Agriculture
Organization of  The Launch Group is preparing a proposal for the
the UN
Library and 6th Framework (EU)
Documentation
Systems Division
 Other roads must be explored
21-03-2002
Slide 17

18. The Evolution of Knowledge Management
The
Agricultural Pre- Web Web Semantic Web
Ontology
Service -
project, a
Books, Magazines, Books, Magazines, Articles Defined Electronic
cooperative
approach to Articles, …. Databases, Webpages Information Elements
improve
organization Libraries/Archives/File Libraries/Archives/File Electronic
and retrieval of systems Systems/Websites Repositories
knowledge on
the web. Bibliographic Catalogues Bibliographic Catalogues Machine Readable
on Cards or Computers Machine Index Catalogues Metadata Repositories
Human Indexing Human Indexing Machine Indexing
Machine Indexing Human Indexing
Johannes Keizer
Human reading, checking Statistical Analysis by Semantical Analysis by
Food and
Agriculture and classifying Machines Machines
Organization of
the UN
Library and Bibliographies Bibliographies/Output from Knowledge based
Documentation Fulltext Search Engines specialized webportals
Systems Division
Reviews Knowledge Mining
21-03-2002
Slide 18 Thesauri, Classification Schemes, Glossaries, Ontologies

19. Further Information
The
Agricultural
Ontology
Service -
project, a
http://www.fao.org/agris/AOS
cooperative
approach to http://www.fao.org/agris/AGMES
improve
organization
and retrieval of
knowledge on
the web.
Johannes.Keizer@fao.org
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Frehiwot.Fisseha@fao.org
Agriculture
Organization of
the UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
21-03-2002
Slide 19