Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
used with discretion as it is seldom 'smart' enough. Similarly, authoring software is
rarely as user-friendly as paper spread out on a desk even with today's large, high-
resolution flat screen technology. Perhaps the next major visualisation developments
that replace screens with true 'electronic books', i.e. paper-thin flexible media, will
herald the next major advance in IT application. Our attitude to IT should be to
adapt our methodology and working practices to use it most effectively and to use
established low-technology methods if and when they do the job better or
complement the IT.
12.11 CONCLUSIONS
One of the biggest problems in developing information networks will be
compatibility and accessibility of information resources. Web interfaces already
allow hitherto incompatible data storage formats to be made accessible without
having to access the software directly. The user is shielded from the complexities of
variations in operating system, application software and hardware platform by the
use of a common user interface. Options, preferences and permissions can therefore
be tailored to users' requirements, allowing different levels of access for different
needs. There are several examples of information systems that go some way towards
the objectives of a common epidemiology information system and point in the
direction that such a development might go: the CABI Crop Protection
Compendium; veterinary systems such as 'EqWise' and human medicine where
UMLS (NLM) and Galan (EU) have considered conceptual integration of diverse
information types.
However, broad information systems relevant to specific subject areas, such as
plant disease epidemiology, are difficult to implement because of lack of funding for
ends that are difficult to quantify. Furthermore, sustained development is essential
since users' needs and available resources will change over time. The key to success
for such a project is likely to be the active involvement of users in the development
of such systems, perhaps borrowing the ethos of the global user community effort in
the development of the Linux operating system and associated Open Source
software.
If IT is used in a 'people-centred' manner, it will add value to our work and
increase our understanding of epidemiology. Use of evaluation methods for IT-
based forecasting and decision systems should lead to a reduction in reliance of
validation by end-use, and may lead in the long-term to a higher adoption rate for
such tools among growers and extension workers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department for
financial support and the British Society for Plant Pathology for when one of us
(ACN) was actively involved in its IT activities. We thank Simon Oxley (SAC,
Edinburgh) and Gary Lyon (SCRI) for valuable discussion and ideas.
