About CGSpace

CGSpace is a joint repository of several CGIAR centers, research programs and partners' agricultural research outputs and knowledge products. It is a tool to archive, curate, disseminate and permanently preserve research outputs and information products. CGSpace is both a repository of open access content and a complete index of research outputs.

The collaboration is built across different initiatives with partners contributing to the core technical costs and working together to expand access to their products.

Note: Not all content is inside CGSpace; it links to much content on other platforms. All efforts have been made to provide high quality information. Links off the site are not the responsibility of CGSpace content partners and collaborators.

Please send feedback on any broken links or errors to us via the Send Feedback link below.

Information for Developers

CGSpace is built on DSpace. It is interoperable with other repositories and supports content discovery and re-use through use of international Dublin Core Metadata standards as well as CGIAR-wide metadata standards.

The repository's metadata is exposed through both the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and a REST API interface — /oai and /rest, respectively. For more information see the DSpace documentation.

Please try to exercise restraint when using these resources. For example, it is a great help to us if your programmatic use of the server can respect our robots.txt, specify a user agent for its requests, and reuse its JSESSIONID cookie. Also note that we have a public test server at dspacetest.cgiar.org which is running a recent snapshot of the production CGSpace software and data — please use this if you're testing a new integration or harvesting process! Lastly, if you are using our data we would love to hear from you.

The CGSpace codebase is managed on GitHub.

History and Evolution

A little history and some credits.

CGSpace emerged from work by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) to make its products public in a state of the art repository. Starting in late 2009, ILRI set up a DSpace repository. Looking for ways to capture products of projects hosted by, but not belonging to ILRI, communities were set up for other initiatives, such as the CGIAR System-wide Livestock Program.

In 2010 and 2011, the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security joined this effort and agreed to work on a "co-tenant" application of a single DSpace.

With technical assistance and training from Atmire, the collaboration has grown to include other centers and initiatives seeking to have such a repository while sharing costs and achieving synergies. Some of this work has been documented in a series of presentations and blogposts (Slideshare and Maarifa).

The key individuals involved included:

  • Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) ― instigated the repository, leads the overall effort.
  • Sisay Webshet (ILRI) ― set up the first ILRI DSpace, involved in all the technical developments.
  • Michael Victor (CPWF then WLE) ― saw the early opportunity to join forces.
  • Alan Orth (ILRI) ― moved DSpace to GNU/Linux and GitHub; troubleshoots and manages systems, upgrades, code, servers and more.
  • Bram Luyten (Atmire) ― confirmed the technical feasibility of a co-tenant application; provides ongoing state of the art advice and inputs and connections to the core DSpace developers.
  • Vanessa Meadu (CCAFS) ― joined forces and motivated DSpace to Drupal interface.
  • Abenet Yabowork (ILRI) ― curates and quality checks the ILRI content; supports partner content.
  • Tezira Lore (ILRI) ― from the beginning, she systematically published ILRI's food safety and zoonotic disease research through CGSpace.
  • Chris Addison (CTA) ― identified CGSpace as a suitable platform to host archive, and now also current, content from CTA.
  • Bizuwork Mulat, Abeba Desta and Goshu Cherinet (ILRI), Megan Zandstra and Leroy Mwanzia (CIAT), Udana Ariyawansa and Chandima Gunadasa (IWMI), Sufiet Erlita (CIFOR), Joel Ranck and Cecilia Ferreyra (CIP), Maria Garruccio (Bioversity), Martin Mueller (IITA), Ryan Miller (IFPRI), Thierry Lewyllie (CTA) and Daniel Haile-Michael and Tsega Tassema (ILRI web team) all brought their specific expertise and dedication to help move the collaboration forward.

Disclaimer

CGSpace content providers and partners accept no liability to any consequence resulting from use of the content or data made available in this repository. Users of this content assume full responsibility for compliance with all relevant national or international regulations and legislation.