In November 2020 we explained how the EU FarmBook is being developed regarding design and software. To catch up you can read the full article here.
So far, the data development team has achieved two overall objectives:
- Completed the design of the FarmBook repository
- Design of a “data pipeline” that integrates knowledge objects made available by multi-actor projects (MAPs) into the FarmBook’s data repository
The work involved in the EUREKA project has, among others, a strong technical component. Part of this technical work has been the design of the EUREKA FarmBook’s database. This design-related work has involved:
- the creation of the system architecture, meaning a blueprint (a technical drawing) of the various components of the FarmBook and how they connect to each other
- the development of the FarmBook data model and a blueprint of the various concepts and their interrelations, needed to describe and understand the data
- a structure of the topics/subjects that the Knowledge Objects address in their content.
To finalize the design, a wide range of activities were undertaken, including making decisions on various technology solutions and choosing a proper schema and metadata requirements for all the various knowledge objects from a large number of MAPs identified within EUREKA:
"This means the definition of a list of metadata (i.e., additional information about the Knowledge Objects) that will help to adequately describe and find, in the FarmBook, any Knowledge Object no matter what its source Multi-Actor Project is", explains Hercules Panoutsopoulos (Research Associate at the Agricultural University of Athens - and leader of the EUREKA tasks related to the data structure design and data repository development).
Final activities to take place
The prototype version of the EU FarmBook has been developed in the EURAKNOS project and was presented to the EURAKNOS/EUREKA partners at the final conference of EURAKNOS held on the 26th of February, 2021. Since then, a process of systematic collection of feedback from the side of users has been initiated.
Hercules Panoutsopoulos explains the final activities to take place in the coming time period before the launch later this summer:
“We are going to develop a 'User Interface' to be used by people involved in Multi Actors Projects in order for them to be able to upload their knowledge objects to the EU FarmBook. For this they will also need a user manual with instructions on how to make use of the specific functionality. Finally, we are going to develop a list of the topics that the EU FarmBook knowledge objects are about. This will help users better navigate through the digital content and find what they actually look for".
