Design and implementation of an agricultural publication information system using metadata description

Abstract

The scientific work of researchers or research institutes is generally assessed by the quality of resulting research publications. Therefore, a need arises to maintain information on publications in an organized and accessible manner. Existing software tools for information management of publications are not well suited for evaluation purposes, particularly for agricultural research, with interdisciplinary aspects. We implemented an Agricultural Publications Information System (AgriPubInfo) prototype for the documentation of research publications and evaluation of performance of institutions involved in agricultural research. This prototype, which supports a wide range of publication types, is designed to meet the specific requirements of agricultural research institutions and has features like advanced search option, extraction of publications statistics based on a variety of visual form based queries, etc. For filtering and effective searching, metadata formats suitable for describing scientific publications have been used in creating the database. Several workflow procedures maintain data quality and the system allows the researchers / users to enter the publication data in the database themselves. Public search facility has also been provided for searching records, dynamic browsing of publication lists and exporting the contents to various formats for creation of reports. This AgriPubInfo prototype can serve as a versatile tool for monitoring progress and facilitating evaluation of research quality at the individual and institutional levels.