A new paper by CCRI researchers Julie Ingram and Pete Gaskell has been published in NJAS – Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences. The paper reports on experiences with stakeholders in contributing to the ontology in four agricultural case studies across Europe in the EU FP7 Valerie project (www.valerie.eu).
In this paper Julie Ingram and Pete Gaskell look at how user-input can assist in the development of a search engine designed to help agricultural practitioners (farmers and advisers) find useful research outputs. Computer aided search engines potentially can offer widespread access to large repositories with relevant research reports and publications, however the usefulness of such systems for the practitioners who are dealing with multi-faceted and context-related issues is often limited. Building a search engine based on user-centered ontologies, which provide a vocabulary common to different stakeholders, can overcome this problem.
The paper is currently only available online (access restrictions may apply), and its full reference is:
Ingram, J. and Gaskell, P. 2019. Searching for meaning: co-constructing ontologies with stakeholders for smarter search engines in agriculture. NJAS-Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences.
