The EGFAR web space Using Web 2.0 technologies to electronically mimic GFAR

1. The EGFAR web spaceUsing Web 2.0 technologies to electronically mimic GFAR Ajit Maru, Valeria Pesce

2. What is GFAR • The Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) is a multi-stakeholder initiative to discuss and act on issues of global concern related to agricultural research for development (ARD) This definition of the scope of GFAR guided us in the re-engineering of EGFAR, the GFAR website • As a neutral platform, GFAR is expected to facilitate the flow of information and knowledge among ARD stakeholders

3. What is GFAR • The Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) is a multi-stakeholder initiative to discuss and act on issues of global concern related to agricultural research for development (ARD) multi-stakeholder discuss and act • As a neutral platform, GFAR is expected to facilitate the flow of information and knowledge among ARD stakeholders flow of information decentralisation subsidiarity communication participation information sharing facilitated access

4. GFAR  EGFAR EGFAR has been re-engineered so that it canmimic the physical space GFAR creates for discussion and action on ARD issues general objective approach A Web 2.0 approach typically builds collaborative and participative environments implement - decentralised management - a gateway in a distributed architecture of data sources / data consumers implement more participative forms of creatingcontent and sharing information and views A Web 2.0 approach typically leverages distributed architecturesand light web services • provide a model for regional information systems and support their implementation: • easily replicable architecture; • pluggable services A Web 2.0 approach allows ”hackability”and re-mixability * decentralisation subsidiarity communication participation information sharing facilitated access * http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=4

5. Web 2.0 for EGFAR The Web 2.0 approach responded to our needs because Web 2.0 technologies arelight-weight, “pluggable” and easily implemented means toaggregate and disseminatedistributed informationandcreate a collaborative environment decentralisation subsidiarity communication participation information sharing facilitated access

6. Web 2.0 for EGFAR Facilitating communication and participation objectives Web 2.0 technologies Allow stakeholders to create collaborative contents and “pools of knowledge” wiki Google Custom Search Engine(GCSE) Allow stakeholders to collaboratively build a searchable base of web contents The GCSE, through its collaboration facility, allows stakeholders to contribute and collectively build a searchable base of web contents The wiki-like Open Site on EGFAR createsa truly neutral platform for sharing views and knowledge decentralisation subsidiarity communication participation information sharing facilitated access

7. Web 2.0 for EGFAR Facilitating the flow of information objectives Web 2.0 technologies Aggregate and disseminate information from and to the stakeholders in real time Google Custom Search Engine (GCSE) Feeds Feed aggregator News feeds Disseminate information on GFAR activities in real time Sharing web contents among stakeholders (1) A customized and integrated GCSE allowsunified searches on EGFAR partner websites RSS feeds making GFAR information(news and events, documents) available in a standard format (2) RSS feed of all the contents of the collaborativeOpen Site An RSS aggregator publishes ARD related news from partners decentralisation subsidiarity communication participation information sharing facilitated access

8. Web 2.0 for EGFAR Facilitating the flow of information objectives Web 2.0 technologies Make GFAR owned databases (institutions, publications) available for display in partner websites Representational State Transfer (REST) services Feeds Representational State Transfer (REST) services Feeds Query and aggregate data from external databases • The GFAR institutions database and the GFAR document repository are accessible through HTTP calls and send XML responses compliant to widely accepted standards • EGFAR retrieves data from the Infosys+ and Wisard databases of organizations through HTTP calls and XML parsing decentralisation subsidiarity communication participation information sharing facilitated access

9. Next steps • Web 2.0 services that will soon be available include: • new RESTful web services to allow other websites to tap into information available on EGFAR; • tools integrating external popular services exposing their APIs (blogs, social bookmarks, news readers, maps) through AJAX or REST requests; • free tagging for the Open Site

10. Next steps • Adding value customising Web 2.0 tools so that they meet the needs and expectations of the ARD community • Adding semantic value • mapping different vocabularies to a “community ontology” / “community tags” • using community ontology / tags for searches • quality control and digesting

11. EGFAR and Web 2.0 - Summary • Subsidiarity and decentralisationdistributed content management, distributed databases, REST web services • Flow of information / Content sharingRSS, wiki, Google Custom Search Engine • Facilitating access to data sourcesREST, tagging, Google Custom Search Engine • Facilitating communication / participationwiki, community tags

12. Challenges (1) Participation • The most important challenge for EGFAR now is building awareness in effectively using its webspace as a collaborative platform. “a key Web 2.0 principle:the service automatically gets betterthe more people use it” (Tim O’Reilly, “What is Web 2.0”*) * http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

13. Challenges (2) The proliferation of communities • With Web 2.0, services are typically built for / by a community. EGFAR too has a community of users.Communities are separate and overlap and this sometimes discourages participation in new communities. • All existing efforts towards universal user accounts should be looked into (e.g. Open ID) • At least in the agricultural/development community, ways should be explored to access different communities with as few as possible accounts, hopefully one

14. Challenges (3) Standards • Web 2.0 technologies could be better exploited and the services based on it could be better automated if the ARD community agreed on standards for sharing information. • Specific agricultural metadata sets should be added to the basic RSS metadata • information services should implement web services in the same way to allow complete interoperability

15. Challenges (4) Adding value • Semantic value • Information services: mapping vocabularies • Information sources: adding semantic information • Precision • selection of sources • guidelines about coverage and scope of sources

16. EGFAR web spaceUsing Web2 technologies to electronically mimic GFAR Thank you for your attention GFAR Secretariatc/o FAO (SDR), viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153, Rome GFAR-Secretariat@fao.org www.egfar.org Ajit Maru, Valeria Pesce