1. GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
The Agricultural Ontology Service:
Area of Food and
Agriculture
A Proposal to Create a Knowledge
Organisation Framework in the Area of
Food and Agriculture
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division

2. FAOs interest in Knowledge Management
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • We need to organize our own information
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
production to enhance the productivity of FAO
Knowledge
Organisation officers in the world
Framework in the
Area of Food and
Agriculture
Slide 2 • We need to make FAOs information accessible
to Decision Makers and Technical Specialists all
over the world
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN • We need to make all relevant Information
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division Sources accessible in the World for FAO officers
and stakeholders

3. The main problems
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
• Efficient resource discovery is only possible with
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to human coded catalogues by specialists
Create a
Knowledge
Organisation
• Little domain interoperability, cross domain
Framework in the
Area of Food and
searching needs high efforts
Agriculture
• The work of knowledge organization is done
Slide 3
without coordination and by doubling efforts
• Machine systems are inefficient or tend to be
Johannes Keizer proprietary or closed in a specific application
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation
• The new possibilities of the web and the
Systems Division
electronic availability of IOs are not fully
exploited

4. The Evolution of Knowledge Management
GTZ
Pre-Web Web Semantic Web
19-12-2001
The Agricultural Human indexing and document annotating Machine indexing and document
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to annotating
Create a
Knowledge
Organisation Card and computer Web catalogues on the Machine readable
Framework in the catalogues templates of trad. catlogs metadata (RDF)
Area of Food and
Agriculture
Human reading, checking Full Text Searchengines Full Text Searchengines
Slide 4 and ordering (Statistical text analysis) (Semantic text analysis)
Implicit knowledge based Formal Knowledge based
web portals web portals
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Card and computer Text Mining by Robots
Organization of the catalogues
UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
Thesauri, Classification Schemes,
Glossaries, Keyword Lists, Ontologies

5. The view of an ideal world
GTZ
19-12-2001
Ontology
The Agricultural
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to Portal
Create a
Knowledge
Organisation Portal
Framework in the
Area of Food and Knowledge
Agriculture
Base
Slide 5 Mining and
Harvesting
Agent
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN RDF Layer RDF Layer
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division

6. What is an Ontology
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • It is a buzz word, but also something very simple
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
• Everyone creates “ontologies”
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
• A directory structure on a a HD is an ontology
Area of Food and
Agriculture • A personal agenda is an ontology
Slide 6
• A bibliographical catalogue is an ontology
• But humans can survive without ontologies, but
Johannes Keizer
Food and
humans have intuition
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
• Machine have no intuition
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
• Machine need formal information

7. Do we need Ontologies
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • An ontology is a formal knowledge organization
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
(representation system).
Knowledge
Organisation • It contains concepts,
Framework in the
Area of Food and
Agriculture • Information about these concepts
Slide 7 • Relations between these concepts
• and instances,
Johannes Keizer
Food and
• And it contains information about the relations
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
between instances and concepts
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division

8. In which areas Ontologies can help (1)
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Ontology Service:
• Teaching machines to have some
A Proposal to
Create a
Knowledge
intelligence
Organisation
Framework in the  Automatic indexing and text annotation tools
Area of Food and
Agriculture  Better machine translation
Slide 8
 Text Mining on the Web (meaning-oriented
access)
Johannes Keizer  Full text search engines that create meaningful
Food and
Agriculture classification (FAO-Schwartz not related to FAO)
(semantic clustering)
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division

9. In which areas Ontologies can help (2)
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Ontology Service:
• Better structure and organization of
knowledge on the web
A Proposal to
Create a
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
Area of Food and
 Knowledge maps
Agriculture
Slide 9
 Guided discovery of knowledge
 Easy retrievability of information without using
complicated Boolean logic
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division

10. AOS: Possible Use... (1)
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to Records found: 5
Create a
Knowledge 1. xxxxxxxxxxx
Organisation
Framework in the 2. xxxxxxxxxxx
Area of Food and
Agriculture 3. xxxxxxxxxxx
Slide 10 4. xxxxxxxxxxx
What would you like to view?
5. xxxxxxxxxxx
Forest rights issues
Johannes Keizer
You may also be interested in... Parasites of forests
Food and Biotopes Pesticides used in forests
Agriculture
Organization of the Cropping systems using forests x Types of forest products
UN Economics of forest production Uses of forest products
Library and Forestry equipment
Documentation
Soil science You can further limit by:
Systems Division
Geographic area Africa
Type of resource Web page

11. AOS: Possible Use... (2)
GTZ
Use your right mouse button to learn more about an italicized word on the Agricultural Web Page
19-12-2001 page.
The Agricultural
Conservation agriculture
Biosecurity:
Ontology Service: management of all
A Proposal to Farmers like it because it gives them a means of conserving,
Create a improving and making more efficient use of their natural resources
biological
Knowledge and environmental risks
Organisation About camels and llamas
Framework in the
associated with food and
Area of Food and Descendants of the same rabbit-sized mammal, they have become agriculture, including
Agriculture two of humanity's most versatile domestic animals forestry
Slide 11 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
Food Safety
Johannes Keizer Biological and environmental risks associated with food and
agriculture have intensified with economic globalization
Risk Management
Food and
Agriculture
Urban food marketing
Organization of the
UN
Or are you interested
Library and
In the “century of cities”, a major challenge will be providing in...:
adequate quantities of nutritional and affordable food for urban Food Security
Documentation
Systems Division inhabitants
Biological Diversity
Crop science and ethics
In order to continue their contribution to human development, crop
scientists must regain credibility

12. What is the starting point?
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • FAO maintains the multilingual thesaurus
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
AGROVOC since the early 80s
Knowledge
Organisation • Other consistent thesauri are maintained by
Framework in the
Area of Food and
Agriculture
CABI in England and the National Agricultural
Slide 12 Library in the States
• Various other knowledge organization systems
Johannes Keizer
are scattered around the world
Food and
Agriculture • The existing systems are language biased with
Organization of the
UN
Library and
English as the leading language
Documentation
Systems Division • None of the systems is satisfactory for resource
description and discovery purposes

13. Thesauri Contain Knowledge
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • Thesauri were mostly used only for indexing and
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a to help users in searching
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the • But thesauri are already knowledge organization
Area of Food and
Agriculture
systems
Slide 13
• Not only the vocabulary of concepts, but also the
defined relations (BT, NT, RT, UF …) contain
Johannes Keizer
Food and
domain knowledge
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN • To leveradge this knowledge in the context of
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division
Web technologies we need to develop them
further

14. The Origin of the AOS - Project
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • Born as the AGROVOC Taxonomy Server
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
• Agronomists were upset with the word taxonomy
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
• IT people were upset about the word server
Area of Food and
Agriculture • After XML2000 the word ontology started to
Slide 14
become sexy... And fundable
• Now we are in the phase to define the project
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division

15. Why an Agricultural Ontology Service (1)
GTZ
19-12-2001
Existing Thesauri and Knowledge Dedicated KOSs
The Agricultural Organization Systems (KOSs)
Ontology Service: e.g., ASFA thesaurus
A Proposal to
Create a e.g., the Multilingual
Knowledge Forestry Thesaurus
Organisation
Framework in the
e.g., the Sustainable
Area of Food and
Agriculture Development
website classification
Slide 15
e.g., biological taxonomies such
as NCBI and ITIS
Other thematic thesauri
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the Non-dedicated KOSs
UN
Library and CABI Thesaurus
Documentation
Systems Division AGROVOC
NAL Thesaurus
GEMET

16. Why an Agricultural Ontology Service (2)
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • FAO can be a neutral point of co-ordination
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
• Central access-point to domain knowledge
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
• Re-usability of domain knowledge
Area of Food and
Agriculture • Involvement of a high number of subject
Slide 16
specialists
• Clear and distributed responsibilities for
Johannes Keizer maintenance
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the • Federation of Institutions to manage this service
UN
Library and
Documentation
• Possibility of business plan to assure
Systems Division
sustainability

17. AOS: A reference point on the web
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Attributes Concept
Create a
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
Area of Food and
Definitions
Agriculture
Slide 17
Labels
URI, e.g., www.agri-ontology.org/2050.xml
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Relations
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation Responsible Party
Systems Division
??????

18. AOS: Iterative Knowledge Registration
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Ontology Service: KOS Components: terms,
A Proposal to
Create a KOS uses partner definitions,
Knowledge relationships
Organisation components to build
Framework in the an application
Area of Food and
Agriculture
Slide 18
KOS Agricultural Ontology
application Service (AOS)
Federated storage and
Johannes Keizer
description facility
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the Users search and browse Components:
UN application using KOS terms,
Library and
Documentation
components partner definitions,
Systems Division relationships
User feedback
Discussions and choices
for amendments to
components

19. AOS: The Next Steps (1)
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural • The concept note has found interest in the
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a
domain area -- comments are mostly
Knowledge
Organisation encouraging from both subject specialists and
Framework in the
Area of Food and ontology developers
Agriculture
Slide 19 • Participation in the first workshop:
– FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization)
– CABI (CAB International)
Johannes Keizer
– Various FAO groups (Fishery, Forestry, Nutrition)
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
– University of Florida (Agricultural Department)
UN
Library and
– National Agriculture Research Center (Japan)
Documentation
Systems Division – Participants from the OntoWeb Initiative
– GTZ
– And many others...

20. AOS: The Next Steps (2)
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
• A Launch Group (under participation of Uni Karlsruhe) has
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
been established at the first workshop
Create a
Knowledge
Organisation
• The Launch Group is in charge to write a definite project
Framework in the
Area of Food and
proposal and to define the possible collaborations and the
Agriculture
necessary management structures of the project
Slide 20
• The next Launch Group meeting is on the 25 of January in
Wallingford, hosted by CABI
Johannes Keizer
• Together with the Launch Group meeting there will be a
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
workshop of possible AOS users
UN
Library and
Documentation
• The next Launch Group meeting will discuss a project
Systems Division
brief and an outline of a businessplan

21. Involvement of GTZ in the project
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Influx of knowledge from specific GTZ areas
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a Participation in the consortium for funding
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
Area of Food and
Exchange of experience in the use of
Agriculture
knowledge organization tools
Slide 21
Johannes Keizer
Food and
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division

22. Information and Contacts
GTZ
19-12-2001
The Agricultural
Ontology Service:
A Proposal to
Create a http://www.fao.org/agris
Knowledge
Organisation
Framework in the
Area of Food and
http://www.fao.org/agrovoc
Agriculture
Slide 22 johannes.keizer@fao.org
frehiwot.fisseha@fao.org
Johannes Keizer
Food and J.Brooks@cabi.org
Agriculture
Organization of the
UN
Library and
Documentation
Systems Division