Joint agINFRA & SCI-BUS workshop agINFRA Open data infrastructures for research in agriculture

Joint agINFRA & SCI-BUS workshop, 30/05/2013, Budapest, Hungary

FP 7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2011-2 programme FP 7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2011-2 programme 283770 agINFRA 283770 agINFRA

Joint agINFRA & SCI-BUS workshop

agINFRA Open data infrastructures for research in

agriculture

30th of May, 2013, Budapest, Hungary30th of May, 2013, Budapest, Hungary

Babis ThanopoulosBabis ThanopoulosAgro-Know TechnologiesAgro-Know Technologies



agINFRA in a few sentences• Based on a linked open data architecture

harmonizing semantics and ontologies.• Aggregating data of existing systems and taking

advantage of advanced Grid & Cloud services and infrastructure.

• Devised for scalability and maximum interoperability by adapting existing widely used components.

• Fostering diverse communities of heterogeneous providers and users.

• Providing researcher-centric services.



Why agINFRA?



Why sharing data? (1/2)

• Sharing research data is “an intrincate and difficult problem” (Borgman, 2011, JASIST)

• Not much data sharing may be taking place - with exceptions in some domains.

• Sharing takes different forms, from private data exchange to posting on-line, and including journal supplementary materials.

• There are few standards for giving shared data the required computational semantics to build automated tools.



Why sharing data? (2/2)

• … however reusing data is at the core of the principles of the scientific method.

• … and a major concern for scientists and policy makers.



Agricultural research (+) content• publications, theses, reports, other grey literature• educational material and content, courseware• primary data, such as measurements & observationso Structured (e.g. datasets as tables) / digitized (e.g. images)

• secondary data, such as processed elaborationso e.g. dendrograms, pie charts

• provenance information, incl. authors, their organizations and projects

• experimental protocols & methods• social data, tags, ratings, etc.



• stats

• gene banks

• gis data

• blogs,

• journals

• open archives

• raw data

• technologies

• learning objects

• ………..

educators’ educators’ viewview



• stats

• gene banks

• gis data

• blogs,

• journals

• open archives

• raw data

• technologies


• ………..

researcheresearchers’ viewrs’ view



• stats

• gene banks

• gis data

• blogs,

• journals

• open archives

• raw data

• technologies


• ………..

practionerpractioners’ views’ view



is greatis great

……but its not the answerbut its not the answer









we create we create

data silosdata silos



• stats

• gene banks

• gis data

• blogs,

• journals

• open archives

• raw data

• technologies


• ………..

we needwe need

data data poolspools



PublisherPublisher

DateDate CatalogCatalog

SubjectSubjectIDID

AuthorAuthorTitleTitle

actually share actually share metametadatadata



• stats

• gene banks

• gis data

• blogs,

• journals

• open archives

• raw data

• technologies


• ………..







.. agINFRA empowered version of tools



OMEKA repository tool (1/3)

An agricultural learning repository tool

Based on the open-source Omeka Web content, collections and digital archives management

system (http://omeka.org)

Supports individuals and organisations to create

their own collection(s) of educational material




•Teachers, trainers, tutors, ..• Hosting, managing and online storage of their resources• no technical background required

• Publish and share their resources online• No additional funding required• No technical support required

• Organic.Edunet, GLN• Creation of digital repositories• Exposition of their content to the network

Individual content developers

Educational institutions

Aggregators




agINFRA empowered agINFRA empowered

versionversion

Current version Current version

(for Administrator)(for Administrator)



Why a data infrastructure?• Enable relating data and combining and contrasting

them in novel ways.• Enable scalable processing on research data.• Provide easy to adopt and deploy services.• Support a data-centric, integrated view of research.• Give a coherent support to a variety of research objects

(Bechhofer et al., 2010).



agINFRA manifesto …



agINFRA valuesA | Open | Must be open and interlinkedA | Open | Must be open and interlinked

NOT subject to barriers, based on standard formats and avoiding building NOT subject to barriers, based on standard formats and avoiding building data silos due to lack of interrelatedness and ad-hoc APIs.data silos due to lack of interrelatedness and ad-hoc APIs.

B | Meaningful | Must be meaningful through explicit semantics B | Meaningful | Must be meaningful through explicit semantics

C | Reliable | Must be reliable, traceable and accessibleC | Reliable | Must be reliable, traceable and accessible

D | Actionable | Must be actionable trough services that empower research D | Actionable | Must be actionable trough services that empower research

Reusing the semantics already provided in mature terminologies and Reusing the semantics already provided in mature terminologies and ontologies that are exposed and interlinked through the Web.ontologies that are exposed and interlinked through the Web.

Any kind of research objects can be stored in the data infrastructure, and Any kind of research objects can be stored in the data infrastructure, and there are NO barriers to expressing relations between these objects to there are NO barriers to expressing relations between these objects to

capture the context of research activities.capture the context of research activities.

Data is not useful without flexible and adaptable services that allow Data is not useful without flexible and adaptable services that allow researchers to act on the data in the ways they need. researchers to act on the data in the ways they need.



agINFRA principlesInfrastructure

Be sustainable in the long term

Allow for heterogeneous and rich kinds of data featuring semantics

Expose everything as linked open data

PeoplePeople

Know and adapt to the Know and adapt to the needs of researchersneeds of researchers

Provide out-of-the-box, Provide out-of-the-box, easy to adopt componentseasy to adopt components

Foster collaboration and Foster collaboration and sharing of data, via search sharing of data, via search but also casual discoverybut also casual discovery

ServicesServices

Use existing components Use existing components supported by strong supported by strong communitiescommunities

Create open services that Create open services that can be easily composedcan be easily composed

Adapt services to research Adapt services to research workflowsworkflows



References• Borgman, Christine L. (2011, submitted). The conundrum of

sharing research data. Journal of the America Society for Information Science and Technology.

• Bechhofer, S., Ainsworth, J., Bhagat, J., Buchan, I., Couch, P., Cruickshank, D., Delderfield, M., Dunlop, I., Gamble, M., Goble, C., Michaelides, D., Missier, P., Owen, S., Newman, D., De Roure, D. and Sufi, S. (2010) Why Linked Data is Not Enough for Scientists. In: Sixth IEEE e–Science conference (e-Science 2010), December 2010, Brisbane, Australia.



Thank you !

Dr. Babis ThanopoulosDr. Babis [email protected]

http://http://aginfra.eu

Documents

Joint agINFRA & SCI-BUS workshop agINFRA Open data infrastructures for research in agriculture