Session: Mapping the GOATscape - Open Ag Tech, Tool, and Data Library

Open Ag Technology GOAT 2022 Conference
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This is a mapping the GOATscape discussion focused on inventorying open access data and open source software for Ag Tech.

Participants: @laurieWayne (F), @julietnpn (D), Alex Jones, @anna, @johnnybroadturn, @hopeCAL, @KerenR

Scoping

How to invite/engage/introduce goat to existing ag farm communiteis?

GOAT Open source library list/ wiki devs

How to engage students in GOAT (CS, Ag, Anthro, others)

Should group break out into sections?

  1. Information/Library for our selves.
    • Toolkit for tools. <— All participants want to do this
  2. Reaching out and including others.

Open Ag Tech, Tool, and Data Library

What does the front end of this look like? Tools for implementation?

Interface feature in Airtable ← @hopeCAL does this

  • Sift through data aggregation

Mapping partnerships among stakeholders

  • Kumu (project, partners, lead partners) ← @anna is a user of this tool
  • Relationships across tools.

Current set up for GOAT 2022: Google sheet in short term:

  • People will fill it out

Sum App, a tool to create a survey - social system mapping.

  • Not only tools, but organizations or independent contractors.

Initial content ideas:

  • Tool
  • Developers
  • Who was involved
  • Attachment
  • Categories
  • Geographic scope
  • initial conditions
  • output parameters
  • how it is validated or calibrated
  • who its built for
  • who it is used by

Required Data versus Optional

  • required fields based on visual representation

What will the data be used for?

  • Visualizing relationships?
  • Make tool kits to solve issues?
  • Networking, find people, jobs board
  • Discovering gaps in the field?
  • What role are you what types of things are you looking for? When you’re answering the survey here are things you’re looking for.

Floor mapping activity:

User Groups and Needs

Analysts/ Researchers:

  • map the (tool) landscape
  • support projects
  • make connections
  • ask Q’s

Farmers

  • crops, scale
  • region ecosystem
  • market
  • management tools
  • hardware / sensors
  • coops/ orgs
  • driven by trust/ reputation, has it been used before? (visualization would help)

Activists (researchers)

  • building tool kits to affect change

Software Devs

  • Open libraries search
  • Collab orgs

Hardware Devs

  • foundational open hardware components
  • hardware libraries
  • connector projects for IOT

Start-Ups

  • find partners
  • reduce redundancy

Ag Students

  • To find topics of research

GOAT community

  • Find gaps in tech and data
  • Network
  • look for collaborators
  • post jobs
  • custom dev requests!

Project Managers

  • organizational tools
  • data collection tools
  • prototype web services (no code)

Long-term Goals of Open Ag Tech Lib

Interactive data visualizations that allow a diverse user base to filter and explore based on needs (highlighting things like relationships, users, etc)

User type views - be able to access library based on who i am / user type.

Community member activists find possible solutions that are in use or available now

visual representation of data (kumu) with different filters per user type.

Research for activists to build tool kits for their community needs.

Intermediate objectives

(starting this week!)

  • Google form and dataset
  • Product whitepaper (ish) with
  • future vision for toolkit
    • define “open”: privacy, access, ownership of data

Soon:

  • Searchable tool name and categories
  • Filter capabilities for retrieval
  • Visualizations a la Kumu

Tools for toolkit building:

  • Survey Stack
  • Airtable
  • Google Forms
  • Kumu

Required fields

  • Open data vs open source
  • Tool name
  • Source of information: developer, researcher, website, interview
  • Region/geographic info - where is/can be the tool used?
  • Description
  • Categories fluid with hashtags
  • What is the tool used for?
  • Who uses the tool? Who uses the tool? Separate with hashtags
  • Who built/maintains: one person, small group, institution/company

Ideal fields

  • Feature list (customizable)
  • Compatibility
  • Business model: Paid service available, your data is how you pay, something else?
  • Interoperability/standards: with who? What? And mechanism of linkage
  • Where is discussion/collaboration taking place?
  • Reviews from users, how many users? Where are they?

Next steps:

Thursday working group to define dataset and adjust form
Outline and start on whitepaper-lite™

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Hi @laurieWayne, @julietnpn, Alex Jones, @anna, @johnnybroadturn, @hopeCAL, @KerenR, and everybody else on this forum!

I’m wanting to set up 2 x two-hour workshop to prototype and testing the Open Ag Tech, Tool, and Data Library. If anyone is interested in joining respond here! I’m looking at 10/20/2022 from 3-5pm ET and 10/21/2022 from 12-2pm ET. I’ll send out a calendar invite to folks that are interested in joining.

On 10/20/2022 we will construct the library and make an action plan for populating it. On 10/21/2022 we will focus on populating the library.

You don’t have to come to both sessions or the entirety of one session. :slight_smile:

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Super interested - can do the 20th but not the 21st. OK to use The GOAT Room if we want for video conferencing and such.

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I can attend the 10/20 and/or the 10/21 session :slightly_smiling_face:

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OK, I’m going to cut the 10/21 session for now. Lets meet on 10/20 from 3-5pm ET in the GOAT Room. I sent an invite to @hopeCAL and @laurieWayne .

Everyone else is welcome to pop in!

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@anna @sezuco @JeffPiestrak @jtwood @meganlowmy Hi Folks, I hear that you’ve got a parallel effort going. Don’t see record of it in the forum, but could be my search terms. Anyway, we’re meeting in about 20 minutes. Feel free to hop in the GOAT room.

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GOATscape links:

[GOATscape 2018](GOATscape 2018 )
GOATscape 2022
Open Ag Tech Libary Airtable

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10/20 Chat notes

@julietnpn @laurieWayne @hopeCAL Morgan

Recap from GOAT 2022

Chat

  • What’s allowed to be in the toolkit, how do we determine “what is open” “enough” ?
    • FAIR principles? FAIR data - Wikipedia
    • What are our principles/values?
    • Does current business model have an implication?

Start filling out airtable

  • Adding farmOS, Cover crop species selector tool
    • Creator? Single person, team,
    • Contributors, should they be included? Do they want to be included? We can include links to git contributors?
      • Separate individual from organizational contributors. Sponsors? Organizational is a higher level representation.
    • Dependencies? Do we need to include dependencies? Maybe not, they can get from the tool page. Also change over time.
    • Stakeholders:
      • Those that have influence on the tool & function (financial), funders, have equity, clients, people w/ interest & investment.
      • Organizations can have parent organizations (USA → NSF)
      • Stakeholder category: organization, generic group
      • The table in airtable could be used for organizations more generally (not just stakeholders)
    • Current users vs aspirational users. Cover crop example: aspirationally for farmers, but ended up as middle ground “expert tool” for crop advisors, some farmers.
      • “Is someone like me using this?” Might not know what an organization is/represents, using a universal description is ideal for this.
    • Business model
      • Want to know if a tool will be around in x years, how sustainable, longevity,
      • Whether it is offered freely, nonprofit, …
      • Are we really talking about business model or “funding” more generally?
      • Soft funding: funding w/ end date
      • Really looking at the “vitality” of the tool, knowledge, care, stewardship, community
      • Funding categories: grant funded, user funded, not funded, contract, developer charity, volunteer
      • Past / current / aspirational model. But how do you enter this data once and ensure it remains meaningful? Last updated timestamp? Timestamp per data point vs timestamp per record? Comments for each revision can help (not public facing).
    • Aspirational business model
      • the interpretation of this may be “political” …
      • leave this as a point of information, leave politics out

For next call:

  • Data dictionary of different terms, go through terms and decide which are most important
  • @julietnpn to clean up airtable a bit more, 1 -2 weeks host another call to discuss
  • Would also like feedback from the other group planning to do visualization from this data
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Thanks for the heads up Juliet (and detailed notes @paul121)! Sorry I missed this. We postponed our meeting so there’s still time to coordinate.

@jtwood was the main convenor, but I believe our main focus was discussing possible use of sumApp for “social systems mapping”.

This was following up on conversations at Omega related to mapping OpenTEAM specifically, but I could see us broadening it to be inclusive of the wider GOAT community and beyond…

I was also thinking we might be able to use data initially gathered through the SurveyStack common profile and hylo onboarding questions, to help seed initial efforts.

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Thanks @julietnpn @meganlowmy @JeffPiestrak I think maybe this is a different topic than our focus, which was captured in two sessions at the conference here and here. Our conversation is more about visualizing the networks of people and organizations involved with GOAT, connecting that network to larger networks, and investigating/identifying a mechanism that can facilitate an easier flow of information and action and communication across the networks. Basically social system mapping but with looking at integration into the existing set of tools such as hylo, survey stack, this forum, others. And perhaps there is a nexus with the effort you are looking at which is more focused on materials? Anyone correct me if I am not understanding this correctly @anna @sezuco

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Sorry to have missed this, I’d love to join if ya’ll meet again

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Hi @jtwood, I agree that the end goal is different and yours is more broadly scoped. However, our initiative already has data and will continue to collect data that you would be needing to do the work you describe. Instead of independent efforts on determining who is involved with goat and how they are connected, I am hoping we can get in touch about what the over lapping data points are and then, if it makes sense, create a coordinated effort. :slight_smile: Anyway, please include me in your next meeting.

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100% agree. Let’s connect if you think this strand is worthwhile to do with this team, don’t want to duplicate efforts for sure. Should we set up a meeting to include you to brief us, or should one or more of us come to one of your meetings? Don’t want to burden anyone with excess meetings

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Great meeting today - sounds there is much intersection between the tool librarians and the network visualizers. We have set up a Hylo space to continue collaboration here: Hylo
Here is Lettuce Meet for a full team gathering in January LettuceMeet - Easy Group Scheduling
@JeffPiestrak can you make some of us moderators of Hylo group and change the permissions to allow people to request access? Thanks, Jennifer