Today I was supposed to fly from Athens to Paris, then get the train to Dijon, settle in my hotel room, grab something to eat and finalize my preparations for the IPM Decisions Annual Meeting. Instead, I am sitting at my living room, working from home almost since early March due to COVID-19.
Flights to Paris and back were early booked, transportation to and from Dijon was carefully planned...damn, I even planned my meals based on TripAdvisor and walks around Dijon (it would be my first time). But apart from the trip itself, it would be my first participation in a project meeting after a really long time.
The IPM Decisions project will create an online platform that is easy to use for the monitoring and management of pests. The platform will be available across the EU with DSS, data, tools and resources tailored to individual regions.
I miss traveling and I miss project meetings. Visiting new places and meeting new people. Walking around unknown roads and working on innovative ways to collaborate in order to fulfill a project's requirements.
I only wish that there will be another opportunity in the near future.
You can learn more about IPM Decisions on the CORDIS Portal.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a consortium meeting of the OpenMinTeD Horizon 2020 project; I am personally involved in the dissemination and training activities, representing Agroknow. I was expecting that during the meeting I would have to keep notes using a GDoc, revise my slides through PowerPoint, browse the Web, check and respond to emails, update the Agroknow social media accounts and maybe edit some additional documents.
Last time I participated in a project meeting, I used my Acer Aspire One 751h netbook; an under-powered machine, which was recently upgraded to 2GB of RAM but still featured a slow Atom Z520 CPU @1,3GHz and a GMA500 graphics chipset. It runs on Windows 10 Home Edition and it's not that most responsive OS I've used on it, so the night before the meeting I decided to install Lubuntu (a lightweight flavor of Ubuntu), with which I am familiar. I also setup Libre Office and Dropbox, so that I would have access to my files. However, mostly due to the fact that Google Chrome & Chromium were so heavy on resources, using the netbook even for light tasks (e.g. for blogging) was a terribly time-consuming process. This was the time I swore that it would be the last time that I am using the netbook for such purposes. Since then I replaced Chrome with Midori but haven't had the chance to test it.
This time I also went light but with a different workhorse; a 10,1-inch Turbo-X WinTab; a Windows 10 tablet with detachable keyboard that features 2GB of RAM, a Z3735F CPU at 1.3GHz and Intel HD graphics - as well as 32GB of storage. Based on testing I did over the previous months, the tablet is much more powerful than the netbook and can be actually used for work. My setup included the tablet with its keyboard, my external hard disk with Thunderbird Portable and my 22GB inbox, a mouse, a micro-USB charger, USB sticks and cables (micro-HDMI to HDMI, in case a spare monitor was around, micro-USB to USB in case I needed to use the micro-USB port of the tablet with a USB device etc.).
Things went pretty well: I managed to revise a couple of slides before my presentation using PowerPoint Mobile, kept notes in a Google Doc and worked on two blog posts in our Wordpress-powered blog, updated Agroknow's Twitter and Google+ account etc. Multitasking with 3-4 tabs open in Microsoft Edge, a document open in MS Word and the slides in PowerPoint was managed efficiently by the tablet. In addition, thanks to the WiFi, I was able to download all files that I needed through the Dropbox web interface (I have not installed Dropbox app due to limited storage size and the fact that syncing would take up precious resources). However, I had some hard times during the meeting:
I was lucky to be really close to a power outlet; my micro-USB cables are pretty short and I had an extension power cord with me, just in case. It was a good thing that I did not need that. I am expecting a 2m micro-USB cable from Amazon during the next days.
It was the first time that there was no laptop set up for the presentations, so I had to ask the project partner that presented right before me to use her laptop. My micro-HDMI to VGA adapter is on its way from the UK, also from Amazon.
The keyboard was probably the weakest link; not only keys are smaller than usual making fast typing a challenge, they also make a lot of noise. Or to be more precise, as I am a heavy typist, I think that the whole keyboard made squeaky sounds while it was pressed against the hard wooden desk.
Apart from that, everything was fine; I even had the chance to take the tablet only (no keyboard attached) during a session that took place in a different room. If I had a laptop with me, I wouldn't have bothered. I noticed though that the tablet with keyboard attached was not much lighter compared to my 15,6-inch home laptop, which was pretty strange...or I was just tired!
After testing it under real conditions, I believe that WinTab could also by my work horse in the next project meetings; however, I will make sure that I will have a micro-HDMI to VGA adaptor this time!
OpenMinTeD is having a user meeting between 24-25/2/2016, hosted at the premises of Athena Research Innovation Center. Partners involved in the dissemination and training Work Packages (WP2 & WP3 respectively) had the opportunity to work collaboratively on the joint activities to be undertaken within the next months in the context of these two WPs on the day before - 23/2/2016. Partners from Athena RC (hosts of the meeting and coordinators of the project), LIBER (the WP2 leader), Open University (WP3 leader) and Agroknow attended this pre-meeting.
The discussions focused mainly on the dissemination tools that are already used (such as the project website, Twitter account and blog, for the time being) as well as the envisaged one for the next months (such as a potential Facebook page and the under-preparation project newsletter); the events and workshops that can be considered for dissemination purposes. Potential revisions and ideas for improvement were discussed, mostly on the OpenMinTeD website and blog (powered by Wordpress). This is where our experience with Wordpress, based on the Agroknow blog, was considered useful and may provide some quick fixes for open issues.
Events were also discussed in details, mostly LREC 2016 Conference and the RDA 7th plenary meeting. The project will be represented in both events, while additional ones will also be considered
As regards the training activities (WP3), they will focus on the OpenMinTeD platform and the services provided by the project. In addition, training sessions on more generic topics (introductory sessions on the TDM methodologies, advantages for various types of stakeholders, legal and interoperability aspects etc.) will also be considered, especially when training communities that are not exactly familiar with text mining and what it can do for them. In this context, I am excited that Agroknow (and therefore me personally, as I am representing Agroknow in these two WPs) is going to work on a report that will aim to provide the basics of the work to take place within the next months, such as the mapping of the communities to be trained, the curriculum for the trainings (e.g. thematic areas to be covered; it's been quite a long time since I was last involved in something like that but it would be great to apply my past experience in a new context), means to be used for the delivery of the trainings and other parts.
This work will take into consideration the work that has already taken place by Agroknow in WP4, in terms of the analysis of the research communities within the project and will feed the next steps of the Training WP. The deadline for this task is the end of March so I'd better stop blogging and start working on the report!
Some weeks ago I was asked to represent Agro-Know in the 4th project meeting of the Herbal.Mednet project, replacing my colleague Andreas who would not be available at that time (4-6/6/2014). That would be a nice opportunity for me to get to see old friends like the local hosts of the project, as well as the rest of the project consortium, which I have met in the previous project meetings. Despite the fact that I am not directly involved in the project, I always keep an eye on its progress and outcomes and of course I am checking out how the agriMoodle platform developed by Organic.Lingua is (going to be) used by the Herbal.Mednet project.
Flights were booked (direct ones!), hotel room was booked, arrangements were made so I found myself in Bucharest, outside my hotel at about 11.30 in the morning. However, the room would not be ready before 13.30, so I decided to leave my stuff and take a walk around the city. The walk in the huge park near Arcul de Triumf should have been refreshing; however, the weather was rather warm and humid, so walking around was rather difficult.
The first day of the meeting started early in the afternoon of 4/6 and was dedicated to the results received by the Spanish National Agency after the interim reporting. Some issues were identified and solutions were proposed for the partners responsible to address them. The meeting took longer than expected, due to the fruitful discussions among the project partners. This time, we had the pleasure to meet two new faces in the consortium: Marta di Pierro from Associazione Italiana per l’Agricoltura Biologica (AIAB), Italy, Italy, which replaced the ex-partner SERIFO and Kostas Gardikis from Apivita, replacing Tasos Choukalas who usually represents the company in the project meetings. In both cases, we were really glad to meet the new persons, who managed to positively affect the meeting with their fresh ideas.
The participants of the Herbal.Mednet 4th project meeting
The second day of the meeting included discussions on the financial aspects of the project and the remaining issues to be resolved. Apart from that, the plan for the pilots in each user country was presented in some details, while additional presentations provided information on the progress related to the revisions of the project's website and the course management platform to be used for delivering the online courses. During the afternoon of the 2nd day, we had the pleasure to meet Prof. Vicente Castell-Zeising from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, who is a member of SEAE as well. The 2nd day ended with a classy joint dinner provided by our local hosts (Prof. Roman and Dr. Maria Toader).
The 3rd day of the meeting included the participation of the project consortium in the "Agriculture for Life, Life for Agriculture" International Conference, the first session of which was dedicated to presentations from the Herbal.Mednet project partners.
The 7th (and final) project meeting of Organic.Lingua took place between 15-17 of January 2014 at the lovely premises of the newly built Library of Birmingham, hosted by BCU. Just one month before the end of the project, the consortium had an opportunity to meet for the last time and coordinate on the final details before the end of the project and the upcoming final review meeting (to be held in Luxembourg by the end of April 2014). The K-C team could not physically attend the meeting; however, Christoph and Dominik participated through Skype video calls when needed (focusing on the sessions on the UGC widget and recommendation service) and thanks to the facilities of the meeting room their participation was smooth. As a member of the UAH team, this time I presented the re-engineered Organic.Edunet Web portal, the revised AgLR tool and the developments in agriMoodle (the latter is also available at the GitHub).
Short break during the meeting
All aspects of the project were discussed per Work Package, pending issues were highlighted and solutions were proposed. All activities are planned for the next month and everything is expected to be completed by the end of the project. There were also several news in this meeting; Raluca Ionescu from the BCU team made her first appearance in an Organic.Lingua project meeting after a long-time involvement in the project, replacing Ben Cave, the usual representative of the BCU team (who was attending the agINFRA project meeting in Budapest at this time). At the same time, it was Katharine's last involvement in the project, as she has a new placement and Ben Wells from BCU will be replacing her until the end of the project.
The meeting was full of nicely organized events as well; kudos to the local organizers for that! The first day included a short visit to the Shakespeare Memorial Room at the top of the Library, which provided an insight to the Shakespeare's work and also a magnificent view of the city (which was heavily photographed by the project partners!). It also included a well-thought dinner at a restaurant next to the canal.
Inside the Shakespeare memorial
The 2nd day included an amazing tour in Birmingham, focusing on the music history of the city, which proved to be really rich (and much richer that we initially though!). Our guide was Jez Collins from BCU, a person heavily involved in the cultural activities of Birmingham and really keen on promoting the city's cultural history (also the founder of the Birmingham Popular Music Archive). Jez used his knowledge, experience and combined with photos and videos from his iPod in order to introduce us to hidden spots of high interest in the city. The bonus of this short tour was a stop at the Crown pub, which is supposed to have hosted the first Black Sabbath gig ever; however, there was nothing to prove the history of this place now...
Jez Collins and the UAH team
Overall it was an amazing experience, combining three days of intensive collaborative work and social activities. Many thanks to the BCU team (mostly Katharine Fuller) for organizing everything so nicely and arranging the accompanying social activities; it was one of the best project meetings ever!
You can find additional information about the meeting in the interesting blog post by Salvador Sanchez (the coordinator of the project) in the IEUAH blog, as well as in the Agro-Know blog.
The 6th project meeting of Organic.Lingua took place between 8-10/10/2013 at the AMEDIA hotel in Graz, Austria, hosted by the Know-Center partner of the project. The conference room was an excellent choice, providing advanced facilities for the meeting, which made things easier for the consortium partners. I participated to the meeting as a member of the UAH team, along with Salvador and David Martin.
The presentation panel of the meeting room
It was the first project meeting after the 2nd review meeting which took place in April 2013, so we needed to ensure that all comments received by the reviewers were already addressed or at least that there were ongoing activities towards this direction. All aspects of the project, both content and technical-related, were discussed and the next steps of the project were defined. Special attention was given to the status of the multilingual (and not only) components that are expected to make the difference for the project. Since the project officially ends by the end of February 2014, there are only some months left, during which we need to make sure that everything will be ready as promised.
The project's user partners working during the parallel session
What I found really interesting was the collaboration between the technical partners (I really enjoyed the joint presentation) as well as the hands-on sessions for the user partners, which included the use of the MoKi tool and work towards the use of new components recently integrated (which helped us identify some issues) as well as work related to the ontology evolution. Nikos Marianos from AK also held an interesting session during which we had the opportunity to use the different automatic translation options available through the Organic.Edunet Web portal and compare the translations provided in each case.
K-C proved to be excellent hosts (thank you for the great social event!) and Graz was a lovely, well-preserved city, full of interesting buildings; modern and traditional at the same time. The hotel suggested by the local hosts was also high-quality, providing (among others) constant and fast internet connection (which is always appreciated). In fact, I think that this was one of the most comfortable rooms that I have ever stayed in during my recent trips all over Europe.
The next and last project meeting of Organic.Lingua is expected to take place in Birmingham, UK, hosted by BCU before the end of January 2014. This will allow partners to meet again, ensure that everything is going according to the schedule and leave enough time before the end of the project and of course before the 3rd and final review meeting, during which the progress and final outcomes of the project will be evaluated.
UAH team: David Martin and me celebrating the progress of the project during the social event
The trip back to Athens proved to be challenging, including delayed flights, almost missing connection ones, damaged luggages, missing buses and grumbling taxi-drivers; sometimes I think that such trips are the spice of life!
You can find more photos from the meeting here. Salvador has also posted an interesting (as usual) blog post at the IEUAH blog ;-)
The 7th (and last) project meeting of ISLE took place in the lovely premises of the Lighthouse Golf and Spa Resort in Balchik and the International University College (IUC) in Dobrich, Bulgaria, hosted by the IUC partner of the ISLE Network, between 10-14/6/2013. Due to various reasons, I could not attend the two first days of the meeting (in fact, Monday is always the day for travelling and only a dinner takes place, so I only missed Tuesday).
My trip to Balchik was rather long, as due to delays in flights from Athens to Sofia and from Sofia to Varna, I left Athens at 21.30 and reached the hotel room at 03.30 - the taxi ride from the Varna airport to the hotel took almost one hour! It was really hard for me to wake up at 07.30 next morning as expected but still managed to do so...
The program of the meeting was full and I was glad to see that things were progressing since the last time I joined the consortium (I missed the previous project meeting). There were interesting and long discussions related to sustainability of the project and its outcomes, based on predefined questions, while a reporting took place at the end of the day, summarizing the discussions and proposing specific actions.
Presentation of the ISLE Quality Label by Christina Armutlieva
My presentation was held on Thursday and had to do with both the dissemination activities (Agro-Know is the Dissemination WP leader in this project) and the post-project dissemination and sustainability ones. My colleagues have been working on the corresponding deliverable so it was easy for me to prepare the presentation. I also made use of the really interesting analytics for the project web site and some additional ones for the Facebook page of the project; the participants seems to like this new approach!
In addition, the presentation made by the Harper Adams University College team who won the ISLE Students' competition was a really nice surprise; the students presented an interesting approach to recycling using a fresh presentation method. I filmed the whole presentation and discussion which followed after the presentation using my trustworthy Sanyo Xacti CG20. The video is available here.
The HAUC team with Leticia and Corinne after the presentation
The project ends on September 30th, 2013 and this was the last project meeting. While there is always the possibility that the proposal for the continuation of the project (ISLE 2) will be accepted, it was really strange for all participants to know that this would be the last time that they meet after almost 3 years and various meeting opportunities. I managed to miss only two of the project's meetings; the kick-off one (when I was not even aware of the project) and the 6th one in lovely Maribor, Slovenia, where a colleague of mine participated instead of me.
Last family photo of the ISLE Consortium members
I keep saying that the ISLE consortium is like a big family so each meeting is more like a family reunion and this last meeting just confirmed my point of view; it seems that I was not the only one to see things this way! I am really going to miss you guys!
Just 15 days before its official end, VOA3R held its 7th and last project meeting at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy between 14 & 15 of May 2013. As usually, all Work Packages were discussed in terms of their status (including each one of the individual pending deliverables) and actions to be taken by the end of the project were also defined and discussed. Everything should be ready before the 2nd (and last) Review Meeting of the project, which will be held on July 18th, 2013 at Brussels, Belgium.
Not only has VOA3R a revised website, but there have been revisions in the VOA3R portal as well, including a change in the URL. The new one is much easier to remember: http://www.voa3r.org!
Among the revisions in the portal the major ones are related to the improvement / refinement of the search mechanisms, as well as bug fixes and usability issues.
I also had the opportunity to participate in the first day of the SemaGrow project meeting on Monday morning, which took place at the premises of Tor Vergata University, quite far from the center of Rome - it was expensive reaching that and tricky reaching the center of Rome after the end of the meeting. I had the opportunity to meet colleagues from UAH (Miguel-Angel and Jaakko), NCSR (Pythagoras) and of course meet new people as always, like Vangelis and Caterina. I was mainly interested in the data sources for this project, as this is a task that I am closely following and contributing to.
SemaGrow held a joint session with VOA3R partners, during which both presentations and interactive sessions took place. During this interactive session we had the chance to provide some ideas for enhancing the tools and services provided by VOA3R. This session also provided me with a unique opportunity to get to meet +Stefano Anibaldi for the first time, after spending hours in Flash and Skype meetings and exchanging numerous emails about various topics - he is always an excellent source of useful information and always willing to help!
This was my first time in Rome (3rd time in Italy though, after my participation in project related events at Teramo and Pollenzo) and I really enjoyed that. I stayed at a lovely B&B near Termini station, so I was only 3 stops away from the meeting place. We also enjoyed a nice traditional Italian pizza at a nice traditional place and had the opportunity to discuss informally with the project partners.
It seems that there goes this year as well... it has been a long and rather successful year, full of trips, meetings, tasks and tight deadlines. I took some time to go through the major events that I participated in during 2012 and here is a short list:
5th ISLE project meeting (23-27/4/2012, Newport, UK): Held at the Harper Adams University College, it was my first time in the UK for a project (my second one overall) and I was amazed by the landscape (and the awful weather...), as well as by the facilities and organization of the hosting institution. The meeting was combined with an Action Collab session facilitated by Sam and Megan from ISKME, as always.
BioVeL MS6 Workshop (9-11/5/2012, Gothenburg, Sweden): My first time in Sweden and the first time to be among the BioVeL consortium. I participated on behalf of the agINFRA project, which also works with similar workflows as the ones used by BioVeL. I had a great time in the Workshop, meeting a lot of interesting people (I was always fond of biodiversity anyway, let alone combining it with software tools!) and did a litlle bit of sightseeing as well. My suitcase was for once more left behind while changing flights at CDG airport, France, but I managed to survive anyway. Since then, I keep an eye on the progress of the BioVeL project.
5th VOA3R project meeting (29-31/5/2012, Paris, France): The meeting was hosted by ACTA Info & INRA. It was my first time in Paris but I have to admit that I didn't really enjoy it, due to several factors. I also realized how expensive hotels in Paris are... more than 100 euros per night for a two-star hotel, including a really poor (not buffet) breakfast. Despite the bad weather, I managed to see almost all sights of Paris in just one evening, thanks to a really active colleague!
4th Organic.Lingua project meeting (18-20/9/2012, Paris, France): Wow, visiting Paris for the second time in 3 months! Things were serious there, as I had to present a lot of different aspects of the project (including stuff that I was not involved in). Due to the pressure and obligations for this meeting, I totally forgot that it was my birthday, which I accidentally celebrated with a colleague of mine & a fine bottle of French wine in a small but cozy French restaurant. No sightseeing this time, due to total lack of time...
6th VOA3R project meeting (15-18/10/2012, Limassol, Cyprus): My first time in Cyprus, where October was like summer! The city was full of tourists and transportation was an issue, but it was really nice to be there. Apart from our contribution (as GRNET) to the meeting, we also supported the organization of the Workshop on Open Access & Agricultural Repositories with the help of our good friend George Adamides from ARI, which I found really interesting. Bonus: I got to meet accidentally my good friend Petros from CUT, a colleague in the ISLE Erasmus Network! You may find more info about the Workshop at the FAO/AIMS website.
Workshop on Agricultural Education, Methods, Practices and Technologies" (AgEdWS12) (25/10/2012, Pollenzo, Bra, Italy): I was responsible for the organization of the workshop and made a couple of presentations. It was hosted by the University of Gastronomic Sciences in a lovely landscape and building. I believe that despite the limited time that we had to prepare for the Workshop, we did a nice job with the organization and agenda. As it was collocated with Green Ideas 2012, I got to meet a lot of friends too and there was a warm feeling during these two days. The hotel was really nice, too. You may find more information about the workshop at the FAO/AIMS website.
Herbal.Mednet Kick-off meting (22-23/11/2012, Alcala de Henares, Spain): It was my first time in Spain and my poor Spanish proved to be valuable for daily communication. even though I am not a member of the consortium, I was participating as an Organic.Lingua member, in order to present the concept of agriMoodle, which is going to be used for the training courses to be developed by the project. I loved Alcala de Henares, which is a traditional town with apparent medieval influences. I have a feeling that I will be a frequent visitor of this town in the future!
EdReNe 9th Thematic Seminar (10-11/12/2012, The Hague, Netherlands): I was informed about EdReNe by a colleague of mine and was really anxious to initiate a communication and make sure that Agro-Know becomes a member of this interesting and active network. I was really glad to participate in the seminar and make a presentation about the Organic.Edunet network of learning repositories. I was also glad to make some really interesting connections and participate in some really interesting discussions, mainly during the social dinner... I could not believe how beneficial these events could be! By the way, kudos to the organizers of the workshop for the selection of the Rootz for the social event: wide variety of beers and tasty dishes made communication much easier! It was my first time in the Netherlands and I got in love with the Hague!
In the meantime, I managed to find some time for some publications, based on the outcomes of the things that I am actually working on:
Geser G., Jaques Y., Manouselis N., Protonotarios V., Keizer J. and Sicilia M. (2012) Building Blocks for a Data Infrastructure and Services to Empower Agricultural Research Communities. In: Agris on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Volume IV, Number 4, 2012, http://online.agris.cz/archive/2012/04/. PDF direct: http://online.agris.cz/files/2012/agris_on-line_2012_4_geser_jaques_manouselis_protonotarios_keizer_sicilia.pdf
Protonotarios, V., Papakonstantinou, K., Giannikopoulou, V., Toader, M. and Roman, Gh.V. (2012) Involving rural communities in organic agriculture-related EU initiatives: The case of the Organic.Balkanet LdV project. International Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Information Systems, Special Issue on "Online Information Systems and eServices for Rural Development" (accepted)
Bouranis D.L., Chorianopoulou S.N., Siyiannis V.F., Protonotarios V.E., Koufos C. and Maniou P. (2012) Changes in nutrient allocation between roots and shoots of young maize plants during sulfate deprivation. Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, 175, 499-510.
Thanopoulos, Ch., Protonotarios, V., and Stoitsis, G. (2012) Online Web portal of competence-based training opportunities for Organic Agriculture. Agris on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Volume IV, Number 1, 2012, pp. 49-63. ISSN 1804-1930.
Toader, M., Roman, G.V. and Protonotarios, V. (2012) The Use of Metadata in the Description of e-Learning Content for Organic Agriculture. In J.-M. Dodero, M. Palomo-Duarte and P. Karampiperis (Eds.), Metadata and Semantics Research, Communications in Computer and Information Science 2012, pp 313-324, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-35233-1_30, Springer.
Protonotarios, V., Ungur, M., Ebner, H. and Manouselis, N. (2012) Green Education using Open Educational Resources (OER): Setting up a Green OER Repository. Proceedings of the SPDECE-2012: 9th Multidisciplinary Symposium on the Design and Evaluation of Digital Content for Education. June 13-15, 2012, Cadiz, Spain.
Protonotarios, V., Katrakilis, A., Stoitsis, G., Psochios, Y., Chiodo, E., Aguado., P. and Armutlieva, C. (2012). Innovation in the Teaching of Sustainable Development in Europe: The Case of ISLE Erasmus Network. Proceedings of SPDECE-2012: 9th Multidisciplinary Symposium on the Design and Evaluation of Digital Content for Education. June 13-15, 2012, Cadiz, Spain.
So, what I really worked on during 2012?
Organic.Lingua: Mostly content population but also on other aspects of the project (e.g. the White Paper, dissemination activities, contribution in the user trials etc.). My main focus is to support the multilingual content population of the project with the existing content providers, as well as extend the network and engage new content providers. We are currently working on the revision of our approach and the whole package of Organic.Edunet, so major changes are expected next year.
agINFRA: I always feel confused with my role in this project... I am supporting the content population task, contributing in other aspects like metadata analysis, workflow analysis etc. I try to follow and contribute but I don't always find it an easy task...it is a big project with big tasks and expectations.
VOA3R: Coordination of the content population. The addition of my colleague Effie in the GRNET team of VOA3R proved to be an excellent option, as the communication and outcomes were significantly enhanced after she started working on this project. On top of that, Effie is a real metadata expert, due to her studies as a librarian/information specialist, so she greatly supported metadata-related tasks of the project. The project ends at the end of May 2013 and the content population is one of the major aspects of this project, therefore we need to ensure that all goes well there.
ISLE: Our role in ISLE is always limited, as we as AK are dissemination partners. Even though I love dissemination activities, I found myself lagging behind the tasks of this project therefore the contribution of my colleague Valia was a relief. She took over the update of the project website and the project's social media channels (e.g. Facebook page, Twitter, Flickr), the newsletters etc.
Now that I see all these listed here, I can say that 2012 has been a really busy year for me but still leaves some space for an even more busy 2013!
I had the opportunity to visit Cyprus for the first time during October 15-17, for the 6th project meeting of the VOA3R project. In addition, we have worked closely with George Adamides, the local host from Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) and we managed to organize a Workshop on "Open Access and Agricultural Repositories Workshop" right after the meeting, on October 18th, 2012.
The meeting was successful, since there was active participation and long discussions on pending issues, in order to make sure that everything will be on time, just 8 months before the end of the project.
Workshop participants working
on the VOA3R portal
The aim of the Workshop was to bring in touch stakeholders from Cyprus (researchers, students, practitioners etc. in the area of agriculture and agricultural research) in order to create and support a network, as well as to present the tools and services developed by related EU projects, like VOA3R and agINFRA, that could be used in order to facilitate the daily research work of the participants. It was rather successful, as it was attended by about 10 Cypriot stakeholders, mainly (if not all) researchers. I was facilitating the Workshop, making an introductory presentation and introducing each presenter before his presentation, which was really nice since all speakers were colleagues and friends of mine. Imma Subirats from FAO/AIMS made a long but really interesting presentation about Open Access, which was followed by two case studies of Open Access repositories: The SLU Epsilon repository (presented by Urban Ericsson from SLU) and Organic Eprints (presented by Ilse Rasmussen from ICROFS), both based on Eprints software. Then there was a presentation of the repository tools used in Open Access repositories, like the AgriOcean DSpace (by Dirk Leinders from University of Hasselt) and Eprints (by Alejandro Engelmann from SLU). The following session was a hands-on session on the VOA3R portal, as a networking platform for researchers, practitioners and students in the agricultural context. For collecting the feedback we used both the online questionnaire as well as some additional focused ones provided by the UAH team. After a really interesting lunch break (I really loved the buffet lunch at Atlantica Miramare Hotel!), it was time for another interactive session, supported by the agINFRA project, which included a short presentation of the project and its expected outcomes as well as a discussion during which we tried to identify the needs of the participants as regards the tools, services and infrastructure used, barriers they face regarding the open access to content and other aspects. You may find additional information about the Workshop in my post in the FAO/AIMS website.
In general it was a fruitful workshop and I feel really grateful to the people who got involved in it and dedicated their time in order to prepare and present their presentations. I felt really glad that we had the opportunity to engage some stakeholders from Cyprus in such a discussion about Open Access and repositories and I really enjoyed the related discussions that we had with the brave ones who stayed until the end of the Workshop. I also hope that I will have the opportunity to visit Cyprus again in the near future, as due to the lack of time I did not have the opportunity to go around and see things!
The 7th (and final) project meeting of Organic.Lingua took place between 15-17 of January 2014 at the lovely premises of the newly built 
