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GFIS (interview with Eero Mikkola) - by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO)
164 Plays15 years ago
The Global Forest Information Service (GFIS) provides the framework to share forest-related information through a single gateway at www.gfis.net.
It promotes the dissemination and sharing of forest and tree-related information and knowledge among the global forestry community by developing common information exchange standards, building capacity and enhancing partnerships among forestry information providers and users.
This podcast is an introduction to GFIS, how it works exactly, what its future plans for development are and what is important for you to know!
Enjoy your listening!
It promotes the dissemination and sharing of forest and tree-related information and knowledge among the global forestry community by developing common information exchange standards, building capacity and enhancing partnerships among forestry information providers and users.
This podcast is an introduction to GFIS, how it works exactly, what its future plans for development are and what is important for you to know!
Enjoy your listening!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to YouForA Podcast. I'm Tarun Vatija, reporting from the headquarters of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations in Vienna, Austria. In this podcast, I will interview Eero Mikola, who is project coordinator for a YouForLead initiative, GIPIS, the Global Forest Information Service.
What is GIPIS?
00:00:33
Speaker
Hi Eero, can you please give us a short introduction and explain to us how GIPIS was started?
00:00:38
Speaker
TFS, Global Forest Information Service, is a partnership development and gateway development. It's a gateway for forest information at www.tfs.net. At the same time, it's the partnership where partners are developing service for partners.
00:01:01
Speaker
Nowadays, it's a leader of the Chiefess and other core partners are FL, C4, ECRAF and the UNFF Secretariat. Chiefess has around 170 information provider partners from around the world, which have linked their first information to Chiefess. Chiefess releases around 60-70 new
00:01:25
Speaker
information items daily on its entry page. It has a multilingual interface and it has the possibility to release all languages from the world.
Development and Hosting of GIPIS
00:01:37
Speaker
The first version of the Chief's Gateway was released in 2002 and after that it has been developed regularly by co-partners. At the beginning it was under the Youth Task Force and then the Spatial Program.
00:01:55
Speaker
Since 2006, it has been the initiative of the collaborative partners on forests. And nowadays, the gateway is hosted and developed by Finnish Forest Research Institute, METLA.
Economic Role of Forests and Information Centralization
00:02:10
Speaker
And from your point of view, why is it important to share forest-related information globally?
00:02:17
Speaker
The forest and forest sector plays an important role in the global economy and natural resources. It's very important that policy makers, decision makers and researchers know one place from where they can find the validated and updated forest information. So is this why GFS is important? Or why is the service that you can provide valuable?
00:02:45
Speaker
Because of the importance of the forest sector, it's valuable and really important that there is one place where this forest information is available and it's updated daily and users who are looking for the information, they know that place and also the organization's institutes which maintain and share forest information, they know the place where they can link the information.
Features and Upcoming Developments
00:03:14
Speaker
Is Gefis an effective service or can it still improve? Today Gefis has almost 200 information providers around the world which have linked their information to Gefis. It has multilingual interface and the information can be linked in any language to Gefis.
00:03:33
Speaker
It really manages the different languages. And we really follow our users' feedback. And now we are developing the next version of Chivis, to which we are adding automatic translation tool, new information types, new functions, which means that we really serve our partners and their needs.
00:03:58
Speaker
I think it would be interesting for our listeners to know more about the new features and the searchable topics. So can you tell us more? Because now we have a few information times. We are adding educational resources church, project church and expert church. We improved the chief calendar, which already now contains around 70 coming forest events from the world. And we improved the event planner function.
00:04:27
Speaker
And what is your vision for the future of GFS?
Expanding the User Base and Resource Development
00:04:30
Speaker
The most important information providers related to forest information, they have linked their information to GFS and we're getting more and more users and more and more colleagues, organizations, they know the GFS and they know the place from where they can find this last updated information. And we have resources to develop further.
00:04:56
Speaker
the GFS gateway in terms of the needs of our users and partners.
Linking Information to GIPIS: A Guide for Scientists
00:05:01
Speaker
If a scientist or organization would like to link their information to be available in GFS, what do they have to do? They have to come to visit GFS website at www.gfs.net
00:05:18
Speaker
and there is a link for information provision. They have to open an account on Chivis to get their username and password to Chivis Gateway.
00:05:30
Speaker
Then they have to create RSS feeds from the information available there website and when these feeds are available then they link those feeds through their chief's account to chief's shirts and then chief's churches their feeds every two hours. Each time when they have new information there it's available through the chief's.
00:05:57
Speaker
And to conclude this interview, what is your personal message to the listeners out there?
Global Information Classification and Reach
00:06:03
Speaker
Today, there's a huge amount of information and it's so easy
00:06:08
Speaker
to add that piece of information to web, and then trust that users can find. But it's really difficult for users to find information. Please take care how you prepare, how you classify, how you add your keywords to your information, and how you put it available on web. And CVS is a very good way to promote your forest information globally.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:06:33
Speaker
This was a podcast brought to you by UFRO, the International Union of Forest Research Organizations. Thank you for listening and stay tuned.