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Châtenay-Malabry (FR - 92290), 29 October 2012 EFITA newsletter / 582 - European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment The distribution of this efita newsletter is sponsored by vitisphere.com Please, contribute to the content of your efita newsletter, and advertise your events, new publications, new products and new project in this newsletter. Without your support, it will not survive! Contact: Guy WAKSMAN E-mail: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net Vitisphere is innovating! InterVignes.com is a new website which is addressed to those who want to invest in a vineyard, a winery. Discover more than 300 ads. See: http://www.InterVignes.com/index.php?langue=2 Contact: Bertrand JOLIVEL Mél : bertrand.jolivel(a)vitisphere.com To read this newsletter on our web site See: http://www.informatique-agricole.org/gazette/efita/efita_121029_582.htm The archives of this newsletter See: http://www.informatique-agricole.org/category/gazette-efita/ Public Comments Welcome on IFPRI’s Institutional Strategy During the past year, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has been drafting a new institutional strategy, geared to respond to changes in the food and agricultural policy landscape, and to reinforce our position as an evidence-based research organization that partners for impact. The strategy lays out six priorities for our research, addressing the most critical food policy issues in the major regions where we work. The draft strategy was developed through a comprehensive landscape scan, research and literature reviews, regional consultations, and the collection of inputs from key stakeholders. We are now opening up the strategy for comments and feedback from you. Please take a minute to review the strategy on our website and leave a comment on the page. We will be collecting comments until Wednesday, October 31, 2012. We will incorporate this feedback into a final strategy document, which will be presented to the Board of Trustees for approval in December. See: http://www.ifpri.org/blog/ifpri-invites-comments-draft-strategy My answer (GW): It seems to me that the need to improve Management / ICT skills of farmers (including basic book-keeping knowledge) remains very high and very much underestimated since e.g. too few farmers are using a farm management information system… even in developed countries. But at the same moment, farmers are more and more using the web to get info on their PC or on their mobile (quite often a smartphone). Here there is a kind of contradiction that should usefully be investigated. EIONET Data Collection 2010 (Soil Organic Carbon) In 2010, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC), which is charged with the collection of soil data at European scale and hosts the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC), conducted a project to collect data on Soil Organic Carbon(SOC) and soil erosion in Europe using the European Environment Information and Observation Network for soil (EIONET-SOIL). The data submitted by participating countries are their best estimate and represent an official point of view. The technical approach taken allows a country to easily update the records when new data become available. Regarding SOC, the cell values had to express the OC density (t ha-1) in the soil for the depth range of 0-30cm (including the organic H horizons) and the gravimetric SOC content (in %) in the cell for the same depth range. The EIONET data providers were also requested to include explicit meta-data that would allow the correct interpretation of the cell values. The information requested in the meta-data include the period of the ground survey(s), the method used for a spatial interpolation of point data and the land use types covered. The results of the SOC analysis are presented in the Soil Portal pages: See: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/data/eionet/DataCollection.htm Contact: Panos PANAGOS E-mail: panos.panagos(a)jrc.ec.europa.eu European Soil Portal Newsletter No 46 (October 2012) See: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/utilities/newsletter/201210.pdf Good Practices for Universities Open Access Policies (from the AIMS / FAO newsletter) The Harvard Open Access Project [1] (HOAP) just released a guide [2] to good practices for universities open-access (OA) policies. This guide has been in the works for several years before its publication this October, and is expected to evolve and grow. While this guide is conceived within the context of selected open access policy experiences in specific academic institutions it, nevertheless, includes recommendations that are useful to other institutions crafting open access policies. >>> Overview of the Guide The guide provides a step by step approach to the drafting, adoption and implementing an Open Access policies and covers in-depth the following stages: * Drafting a policy [3] which defines types of policies, authors rights and issues dealing with open access archiving, and it further gives good tips on the drafting and wording a policy * Adopting a policy [4] details how the policy can be adopted by the faculty and what education and lobbying strategies can be employed before an adoption vote * Implementing a policy [5]provides how the policy can be implemented especially with regards to article deposits in an institutional repository providing various deposits scenarios * Filling the repository [6]with a practical use cases in advocacy from a wide spectrum of institutions. * Talking about a policy [7] explains keywords and terms including 'Academic Freedom', 'compliance', 'institutional repository', 'mandates', and 'waivers'. >>> Authorship and endorsements While the guide is written and edited by renowned OA advocate Peter Suber [8], and Stuart Shieber, a number of experts in OA were consulted. Meanwhile, the following institutions, COAPI [9], COAR [10], EIFL [11], EOS [12], HOAP [13], OAD [14], OASIS [15] and SPARC [16] have endorsed the guide. In the agricultural domain, the AIMS Website provides a listing of Open Access Policy Mandates related to agriculture, these can be browsed here [17]. For more information regarding this guide kindly follow this link http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Good_practices_for_university_open-access_policies [18] [1] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Main_Page [2] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Good_practices_for_university_open-access_policies [3] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Drafting_a_policy [4] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Adopting_a_policy [5] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Implementing_a_policy [6] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Filling_the_repository [7] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Talking_about_a_policy [8] https://plus.google.com/109377556796183035206/about [9] http://www.arl.org/sparc/about/COAPI/index.shtml [10] http://www.coar-repositories.org/ [11] http://www.eifl.net/ [12] http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/j_6/home [13] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Main_Page [14] http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Main_Page [15] http://www.openoasis.org/ [16] http://www.arl.org/sparc/ [17] http://aims.fao.org/advice/open-access/oa-institutional-mandates [18] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Good_practices_for_university_open-access_policies Six French Science Academies Dismiss Study Finding GM Corn Harmed Rats See: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/six-french-science-academies-dismiss-study-finding-gm-corn-harmed-rats/ New facts have come to light... Apparently Osama Bin Laden was living with 3 wives in one compound and didn't leave the house for 5 years. New evidence strongly suggests that he called the Navy Seals himself. Contact: Mick HARKIN E-mail: harkin(a)iol.ie About the EFITA mailing list You can use the efita moderated list (> 4300 subscribers) to announce any event / product / web site / joke (!) related to IT in agriculture, environment, food industry and rural areas. If you want to subscribe a friend, please fill in his form. If you do not wish to receive our messages, please fill in the following form... |