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DEVELOPMENT, MAINTENANCE AND USE OF DATABASES: THE APINMAP EXPERIENCE

Pamela Jean O. Medina

Southeast Asian Regional Center for
Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture
Laguna 4031

Increasingly unaffordable commercial drugs has heightened the interest for medicinal preparations from plants in the prevention and treatment of ailments. This development has led various organizations such as UNESCO to encourage the creation of information support mechanisms to ensure the effective dissemination and use of research results in this area.

In response to a request by interested Member States, UNESCO formally launched in July 1987 the Asian Pacific Information Network for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (APINMAP) with 11 participating countries namely: Australia, People's Republic of China, India, Republic of Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Through voluntary, cooperative effort of the member countries and institutions in promoting information exchange on medicinal and aromatic plants, APINMAP hopes to ultimately contribute to the well being of people especially those from developing countries in the Asian and Pacific regions.

APINMAP is designed to help member countries improve their capability to collect, process, disseminate, and use information on medicinal and aromatic plants. The Network hopes to be able to develop information products and services for various user groups, starting with researchers/scientists and progressing to lay people both in urban and rural areas.

A primary activity of the Network is the development, maintenance and use of databases. There has been tremendous and exciting developments in the area of new information technologies which could be of use in this activity. However, since many of the members of APINMAP are developing countries, they face a variety of problems which prevent them from using many of the new information technologies. These problems include limited financial resources, antiquated telecommunication facilities and unreliable power supply. The success of APINMAP lies in combining relevant and appropriate information technologies with inherent strengths of the different member countries and institutions. These strengths include accessibility to information generated within the country, availability of scientists involved in medicinal and aromatic plants, capability to offer services such as translation of local materials.

This paper will discuss the strategies adopted by APINMAP in order to optimize the use of suitable information technologies.

APINMAP is a specialized information network operating within the framework of the UNESCO-supported Regional Network for the Exchange of Information and Experiences in Science and Technology in Asia and the Pacific (ASTINFO). The APINMAP structure is designed to be both centralized and decentralized. The Network Center coordinates the overall technical information activities of APINMAP. In addition, the Network Center is responsible for consolidating and redistributing the information provided by the national nodes. The Network acquires its strength from both the capabilities of the Network Center as well as the information activities of the national nodes of each participating country.

The Agricultural Information Bank for Asia (AIBA) of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture based in Los Banos, Philippines was designated as the Network Center. The choice of AIBA as the initial network center could not have been a better one. AIBA has about 15 years experience in the organization, storage, retrieval, and exchange of agricultural information among institutions engaged in agricultural research in Southeast Asia. It has served as the regional coordinating center of the International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology (AGRIS) and the Current Agricultural Research Information System (CARIS), both international information systems of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In addition to AIBA's experience, it also has computer facilities that could be of use to the APINMAP. On the other hand, the APINMAP Management Board, which consists of the heads of the National Nodes, handles policymaking, planning and review of the Network's activities. The Secretariat, which is currently based in Bangkok, provides the day-to-day administrative communication links to the National Nodes, Network Center, funding institutions and other cooperating bodies.

As a foundation, an integrated database containing basic information on documents, both printed (published and unpublished) and non-printed (including maps, audio-visual materials, other objects), research institutions, libraries and information centers, research projects and researchers was created. At present, there are about 2500 records in this database.

The Network adopted the mini/micro CDS/ISIS (Computerized Documentation System/Integrated Set of Information System) developed by UNESCO as its standard software. The mini/micro CDS/ISIS was selected for several reasons, namely: a) it is an information storage and retrieval system designed for the computerized management of structured non-numerical databases; b) it is free of charge and is widely distributed; c) many of the member countries have staff members with working knowledge of the software; and d) it has a PASCAL programming interface which can be used to develop various applications.

Using CDS/ISIS, database definition and formats and standardized data collection forms were created for APINMAP. A manual on input sheet preparation was developed. Based on the feedback from the National Centers, a technical standards group was formed to evaluate and modify the database definition.

The standard hardware used by the Network is the IBM (XT, AT, PS2) family of computers. This is the most popular family of computers in the region. In addition, compatibles are readily available and reasonably priced. UNESCO provided support to most of the member countries in terms of providing computer facilities.

A unique feature of databases of APINMAP is that information on elusive and generally inaccessible documents or information can now be captured. For example, the Chinese National Node is presently covering 51 journals most of which are in Chinese. The articles are indexed and basic bibliographic information and an abstract in English is provided. Plans are to expand next year's coverage to include 70-80 journals. Another example is the case of Papua New Guinea which has a rich pool of information on the ethno-medicinal uses of plants. However, a lot of this information has not been documented and is only available from the old residents speaking a variety of languages and scattered all over the country. With small grants from various funding agencies, APINMAP hopes to include this in the database.

Through the creation of a National Coordinating Committee and establishment of a data collection mechanism tailored to the situation and needs of each member country, information on medicinal and aromatic plants can be identified, collected, transformed in the standard format, and sent to the Network Center for merging.

Several countries have current infrastructure which can be conveniently used by APINMAP for its data collection. For instance, the Publications & Information Directorate (PID), India's National Node, has been providing an information service on medicinal and aromatic plants since 1976. The main product of PID is the publication Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Abstracts (MAPA), which is a bimonthly abstracting journal covering world literature on medicinal and aromatic plants. Presently, about 650 primary scientific periodicals emanating from over 55 countries and published in 22 different languages are regularly reviewed by PID The Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD), the Philippine National Node has had a long management history of the country's National Integrated Research Program on Medicinal plants and is now on its third year of establishing the Health Research and Development Information Network. Data collection for APINMAP can be easily integrated into the established HERDIN structure.

After data collection at the national level, the national input is then sent to the Network Center for validation and merging. In general, 5.25" double sided, double density diskettes is used for data exchange. For countries with no computer facilities yet, information is sent through input sheets. Since it is not yet possible to link all the member countries online, a temporary solution is for the Network Center to consolidate the submitted data and redistribute the entire input to all the member countries. The ISO 2709 format generated by CDS/ISIS is used for data submission and distribution.

Arrangements are still underway for information and data exchange with other regional and international organizations, institutions and databases from which information relevant to APINMAP could be obtained. Linkages will be formalized by the Secretary-General and technical aspects such as exchange formats and standardization will be followed up by the Network Center. Such linkages will be mutually beneficial. It will avoid duplication of effort and will potentially enrich the databases of all parties involved.

Two telecommunication technologies -- the Electronic Mailbox System (EMS) and the Packet Radio System were evaluated by APINMAP. The EMS is presently being tested by three institutions in the Philippines, including the Network Center and the Philippine National Node. Since the APINMAP database is still relatively small and can be stored, and searched in microcomputers available in the various national nodes and the volume of communication among the various national nodes is still manageable, there is no pressing need to use these telecommunication facilities. At present, the Network is still studying information on the EMS, packet radio and communication systems of other information networks. In the meantime, communication is still largely through telexes, facsimile and telephone.

A series of training courses were conducted to develop the manpower capability of the national nodes. In February 1988, the Network Center conducted a training course on the use of mini/micro CDS/ISIS, indexing and abstracting for the APINMAP Integrated Database for representatives of the member countries. Thereafter, national training courses were conducted by the respective representatives for their own information specialists and scientists. Among these countries were China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Staff members from the Network Center conducted follow up training courses in member countries which were just beginning to develop their infrastructure.

The Network will be able to publish the first comprehensive output of the database in early 1990. Products will include a bibliography as well as a directory of research institutions, information centers, researchers and research projects. In addition, it will be possible for a national node to produce special publications on a particular topic of importance to its local users. Desktop publishing software and facilities will be used for the publication of these products.

Since the entire database will be distributed to the National Nodes, literature searching services will be available for local users. Requests by other nodes for document delivery of information already in the database will be charged at cost. Member countries with foreign exchange problems may use the UNESCO coupon scheme.

With the development of the Integrated Database, the Network felt that it could go beyond bibliographic and referral database and move on to the creation of factual and numerical databases. Using CDS/ISIS v2.0, a prototype of a factual database containing information on plants names, physical description, chemical constituents, utilization and geographical distribution was created. Refinements to be incorporated are as follows: plant, plant parts, ethno-medical use (extraction and plant preparation), scientific data (extraction, composition), Biological activity and disorder/ailment/disease.

The Network Center is presently undertaking a pilot project covering priority areas defined by the Management Board. A technical committee composed of information and computer specialists and scientists will be formed to evaluate the pilot project and develop standards for the full blown factual database.

The experience of APINMAP during its first two years of existence proved that the best strategy is to combine relevant and appropriate information technologies with inherent strengths of the different member countries and institutions. Very few information technologies, including the CDS/ISIS software and microcomputers, were adopted. However, when combined with resources and capabilities available in the Nodes, and through the cooperative effort of the member countries, institutions and interested organizations and persons, these technologies proved to be very useful and have gone a long way in helping APINMAP achieve its objectives.