Presentation of cloud-based metadata aggregation infrastructures for agricultural data. Given at Alterra, University of Wageningen, The Netherlands.

1. Metadata-powered
dissemination of content
Nikos Manouselis
nikosm@agroknow.gr

2. http://wiki.agroknow.gr
“meaningful services
around high-quality
agricultural data pools”

3. agricultural research(+) content
• publications, theses, reports, other grey literature
• educational material and content, courseware
• primary data, such as measurements & observations
– structured, e.g. datasets as tables
– digitized, e.g. images, videos
• secondary data, such as processed elaborations
– e.g. dendrograms, pie charts, models
• provenance information, incl. authors, their organizations
and projects
• experimental protocols & methods
• social data, tags, ratings, etc.
• …

4. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals educators’
• open archives view
• raw data
• technologies
• learning objects
• ………..

5. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals
• open archives
• raw data
researchers’
• technologies
view
• learning objects
• ………..

6. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals
practioners’
• open archives
view
• raw data
• technologies
• learning objects
• ………..

7. • stats
• gene banks
• gis data
• blogs,
• journals
• open archives
• raw data
• technologies
• learning objects
• ………..

8. is great
…but its not the answer

10. data infrastructure for agriculture
• aim is:
promoting data sharing and
consumption related to any research
activity aimed at improving
productivity and quality of crops
ICT for computing, connectivity, storage,
instrumentation

11. we actually share metadata
Author Subject
ID Title
Publisher
Date Catalog

12. e.g. an educational resource

13. …metadata reflect the context

14. …sometimes, data also included

15. metadata aggregations
• concerns viewing merged collections of
metadata records from different sources
• useful: when access to specific supersets or
subsets of networked collections
– records actually stored at aggregator
– or queries distributed at virtually aggregated
collections
15

16. typically look like this
16 Ternier et al., 2010

17. metadata aggregation tools
More than a harvester:
 Validation Service
 Repository Software
 Registry Service
 Harvester
Powered by
17

18. workflows with commonalities
Harvesting Validating Transforming
OAI target -
XMLs
Storing Indexing
XMLs
Automatic
De - duplication
metadata Triplification
service
generation

19. typical problem: computing

20. typical problem: hosting

21. to curate & preserve we need

22. even when machinery exists there are
problems
• hardware maintenance
• technical support
• interoperability limitations
– no APIs for the dissemination of data across
systems
• hardware costs

23. the cloud approach
Students
Academics
Researchers

25. what can be hosted on the cloud
• Data storage & management tools
– APIs for content dissemination in large networks
• Processing & visualisation tools
• Metadata aggregation infra
• Search engines and apps for institutions or
communities

26. what data providers need
… only a browser and internet connection

27. CASE 1: DATA MANAGEMENT TOOL
OVER THE CLOUD

28. Educational Pathway Authoring Tool

29. Educational Pathway Authoring Tool

30. Cloud service workflow

31. how it works
Demo

32. comparing costs for hosting data
management tool at own site and cloud
Cloud Hosting at institution
•cloud hosting = 20 euros/month •1 server+monitor+ups = 1200 euros
•set up effort = 1hr •set up > 1 day effort or 100 euros
•back up included •hardware maintenance effort =
difficult to be defined but significant
•Total for 5 years = 1200 euros •Total for 5 years = 1300 +personnel for
hardware maintenance+ costs of
unexpected HW breakdowns e.g.
supplier, hard disk
Costs of software support
Costs of software support
After 55years the HW should be
After years the HW should be
could be the same for both
could be the same for both
renewed/upgraded
renewed/upgraded
cases
cases

33. CASE 2: SETTING UP SEARCH
SERVICE/PORTAL OVER THE CLOUD

39. demo
• GLN backbone (http://www.greenlearningnetwork.com)
• Organic.Edunet revamp (
http://www.greenlearningnetwork.com/organicedunet)
• AgShare Find OER
(http://greenlearningnetwork.com/agshareoer)

40. how it works
Institution
Template customization
html, css, Ajax, JS
Search API Search API
Metadata aggregator for other data types Metadata aggregator for educational content
Cloud
Data management tool Educational collection management tool

41. how it works
widget in Facebook page
Template customization
html, css, Ajax, JS
Search API Search API
Metadata aggregator for other data types Metadata aggregator for educational content
Cloud
Data management tool Educational collection management tool

42. next challenges

43. 1. Social Research Networking
• Connecting peers & visualising social
networks, connecting researchers with
publications, recommending relevant research
– Mendeley (www.mendeley.com), ResearchGate
(http://www.researchgate.net), Academia.edu
(http://academia.edu), ArnetMiner
(http://arnetminer.org), …
– Social research components in popular CMSs
(JomSocial, Drupal’s Buddylist, Elgg…)

44. connect peers/publications (+APIs)
http://dev.mendeley.com/

45. extending social CMS components
http://voa3r.cc.uah.es

46. 2. Enriched research objects
• Complex, linked research objects
– executable scientific workflows, e.g. MyExperiment
(http://www.myexperiment.org), Kepler (https://kepler-
project.org)
– data sets e.g. PLoS (http://www.plos.org), FigShare
(http://figshare.com)
– processing web services e.g. BioCatalogue
(http://www.biocatalogue.org)
– Scientist generated classifications/taxonomies e.g. Scratchpads
(http://scratchpads.eu)
– thematic networks/catalogues e.g. TELeurope
(http://www.teleurope.eu), VOA3R (http://voa3r.cc.uah.es)

47. composite/networked research
http://education.natural-
europe.eu/green/exhibits/show/grape-
cultivars/to-begin-with

48. 3. End-user interfaces and access
• Facilitating and monitoring usage and access
– Visualising social bookmarks (Klerx & Duval)
– TinyArm (http://atinyarm.appspot.com)
– MACE (http://portal.mace-project.eu) and maeve
interactive installation at Venice Biennale
(http://vimeo.com/1738770)

49. research visualisations & analytics

50. interactive navigation interfaces

51. METADATA
AGGREGATOR

52. thank you!
nikosm@agroknow.gr
http://wiki.agroknow.gr
http://aginfra.eu