Format for describing and maintaining FAO in-house databases
A crosswalk of the Dublin Core, AGRIS (International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology), CARIS (Current Agricultural Research Information System) and other document repositories at FAO was developed. The crosswalk consists of the proposed core elements as container elements, while the sub-elements that qualify a specific core element are layered under the hierarchy. This mapping gives homogeneity to the different application profile under one set of defined core elements. This provides a working example of how a low level format, enables interoperability between different information systems to allow resources discovery.
Format for a unified interface for searching heterogeneous archives:- The AGRIS MHS
AGRIS Multi-Host Server is a search engine that allows parallel searching across distributed databases that are heterogeneous and have different data structure and metadata information.
The search engine is being developed in corporation with ZADI (Zentralstelle für Agrardokumentation) in Germany. It searches distributed bibliographical databases giving a one stop access to them without the need of centralising data. The proposed application profile gives common metadata elements that homogenise search set results.
Format for resources discovery through agricultural subject gateways and information providers
Subject gateways are online services and sites that provide searchable and browseable catalogues of Internet based resources. Subject gateways will typically focus on a related set of academic subject areas. They generally consist of databases of detailed metadata or catalogued records.
Some Examples of agricultural subject gateways such at NOVAGATE, BIOME, AGRIGATE, AGNIC have the following benefits;
Participation in a global network to bring agricultural and related information to the Web
Offer users the opportunity to interact and resource share with other national and international agricultural institutions
Offer opportunity to provide value-added services to constituencies
The proposed metadata frameworks offer a uniform format that could be used as a means of interoperability between these gateways. The framework offers opportunity for both low level and detailed description according to the users needs. The different levels of description indicated in the metadata framework express these.
