W
HAT IS CARIS?
CARIS is the Current Agricultural Research Information System. It was created by FAO in 1975 to identify and to facilitate the exchange of information about current agricultural research projects being carried out in - or on behalf of - developing countries.
CARIS is managed centrally - and the global database maintained - by the WAICENT/FAOINFO Dissemination Management Branch of the Library and Documentation Systems Division (GIL) of FAO.
Subject Fields
CARIS identifies research projects dealing with all aspects of agriculture (including forestry, fisheries, human nutrition and environment):
- agriculture in genera
- plant science, production and protection
- post harvest technology
- forestry
- animal science, production and protection
- fisheries and aquaculture
- agricultural machinery and engineering
- natural resources and environment (including pollution, water management and climatology/meteorology)
- food and human nutrition
- processing of agricultural products
- agricultural economics
- rural sociology and rural developmen
- geography and history
- agricultural administration, legislation, information, education and extension
- methodologies.
To see a more complete description of subject categories of CARIS click here.
Research Project Description
Each research project is described by the most revealing and conclusive data:
- title (English, French or Spanish)
- objectives
- starting date and duration (end date)
- organisation(s) carrying out the research (name, address)
- researchers and their specialisations
- language(s) of communication
- primary and other subject category codes
- descriptors (key words) in English, French and Spanish
- etc.
To see a more complete description of a project in the CARIS system click here.
For indexing the projects (associating the appropriate descriptors) in order to be easily retrieved, a structured and controlled thesaurus, AGROVOC, is used.
How does CARIS work?
CARIS is a cooperative system in which participating countries input references to the research conducted within their boundaries and, in return, draw on the information provided by the other participants.
The references forwarded by participating countries are collected and processed in the WAICENT/FAOINFO Dissemination Management Branch of the Library and Documentation Systems Division (GIL) at FAO Headquarters.
Contributors to CARIS:
132
national and 19 international and intergovernmental centres participate in CARIS. Centres have submitted exhaustive information on roughly 30,000 currently active projects. In addition, two regional centres submit input on behalf of 6 countries in their respective regions.
CARIS Products and Services
(Provided by the WAICENT/FAOINFO of GIL, FAO)
On-line CARIS Database
An active database to which new projects are regularly added and from which completed projects are deleted (FAO Web Server).
To start search now click here.
CARIS CD-ROM
A CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read-Only-Memory) uses an electro-optical technology for storing and retrieving large amounts of data.
The collected CARIS information (two databases) is distributed using a CD-ROM, which contains also the SIS database:
CARCD (CARIS Current Database): contains CARIS current projects
CARIH (CARIS Historical database): contains CARIS completed projects
SIS (SPAAR Information System database): contains information on projects of the SPAAR (Special Programme for African Agricultural Research).
For information retrieval from CARIS CD-ROM, the PC software HEURISKO (developed by FAO/WAICENT based on UNESCO's CDS/ISIS software package and included in CD-ROM) permits different searching operations to accommodate different searching needs of users:
- Searching by descriptors defined in the AGROVOC Thesaurus
- Searching by subject category codes, research organisations, researchers, countries, etc
- Searching free text in different description fields (e.g. objectives)
- Logical search operators (OR, AND, NOT)
- Limiting search operators (less than, greater then, range, etc.
- Truncation of words (to retrieve all variants)
- Lateral searching (forward/backward)
- Etc.
Other Data Distribution
Other Services
New Developments
New developments are under work for the CARIS System, which will take advantage of the latest improvements of Information Technologies (Internet, etc.). These developments have in view to decentralise data processing and to prioritise national capacity building enhancing autonomous management of national agricultural information.
The development of the CARIS System was discussed and included in the recommendations of the Fourth Technical Consultation of AGRIS and CARIS Participating Centres held in Rome in June 1998.