Practitioners and policymakers working towards sustainable development are constantly seeking information to understand what is happening around the world in the context of their work. At the same time however, a recent explosion of content and improved access to it (e.g. open data policies) has resulted in an unprecedented amount of information to sift through.The flood of content, in our email inboxes, on the intranet, in our online searches, in data warehouses or in the cloud is just that, a flood. Never have we had so much information at our disposal, but what is the content of all that content? More often than not, we simply have no idea.
This “information dilemma”, while not unique to any field, is particularly relevant for those working on clean energy, climate change, or green growth, where relevant and timely information is constantly being sought to inform the development of new policies around the world. Over the past few years, a number of organizations in this field have been working to collect and manage this information in smart, user-friendly ways. Through the development of new websites, databases, portals and gateways, so called “knowledge brokers” are helping to connect users to the information they need.
New technologies have been instrumental in helping knowledge brokers catalogue and connect data and information with their users. One recent example has been the development of the reegle Tagging API by the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP).
Turning data into knowledge
The reegle Tagging API (application programming interface) is a free online service that automatically turns data into knowledge – knowledge that helps users of information make better decisions.
The reegle Tagging API provides organisations publishing online resources in the climate, energy and green growth fields with two core services:
Automated tagging of documents covering renewable energy, energy efficiency,climate change and green growth relevant subjects.
Suggestions of related documents from the rapidly growing content pool of already indexed articles.
Automated tagging
An organization looking to categorize and sort the vast amounts of knowledge available on their website can utilize the API to tag reports, articles and scientific papers instantly. By sending a file through the API, the content is analyzed and the most relevant terms and concepts are extracted. Concepts, based on the comprehensive reegle thesaurus, built in collaboration with experts in these areas, can then be used to tag and structure the information.
Since the system relies on a thesaurus with clearly defined terms and interrelationships, it will automatically use a consistent set of keywords to describe content. This means you can place documents in useful clusters, make them all accessible to others and increase the impact of your work. Currently the tagging tool can be used to tag documents in five different languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German. It can also extract geographical locations.
Content pool
Organizations looking to enrich the documents available on their website with related articles can pull from the Reegle Content Pool. Using the same, consistent tags generated through the API, reegle can suggest related documents from its growing pool of content which has already been indexed using the API. Allowing websites to share content helps them to cover more angles on a given topic. At the same time, users of the tagging tool can add their own publications to the common content pool, ensuring they are available for others to access.
Increasing impact through partnerships
With funding from the Climate Development and Knowledge Network (CDKN), REEEP developed the Reegle Tagging API and the associated clean energy thesaurus in close collaboration with three project partner: Eldis, we ADAPT and OpenEI. The initial phase of the project was successfully concluded in 2012.
Already, the Reegle Tagging API has been widely adopted in this field:
- More than 1.3 million documents have been tagged in total (over 395,000 in 2013)
It is used by over 60 organizations, including World Bank (Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, Platform for Climate-Smart Planning), Institute of Development Studies, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, weADAPT, European Copper Institute (Leonardo Energy), Climate Tech Wiki, Mitigation Action Plans, PV Grid and others
Roughly 14,000 documents have been recommended through the content pool
Applications to green growth and the GGKP
The tagging tool’s underlying thesaurus covers a number of clean energy and climate change subjects, including renewable energy technology, REDD, adaptation, mitigation, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Most recently, with additional funding from CDKN, REEEP worked with the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) to enlarge the tagging tool’s underlying thesaurus to include relevant green growth concepts.
With the expansion of the reegle thesaurus, the GGKP was able to integrate the reegle Tagging API into its new web platform, launched this past January. The tool allowed the GGKP to automatically tag the 650 publications currently including in its resource library. Through the tagging, users are provided with consistent concepts by which they can filter their search results, allowing them to easily and quickly access all relevant resources in their area of interest.
In building up its resource library, the GGKP ultimately decided to use the reegle tagging tool for a number of reasons: 1) Automated tagging of publications saves both time and money versus the need to manually tag every individual document; 2) The tool ensures consistency across tagged terms and allows for similar concepts to be considered together (e.g. the tool will recognize and tag resources on solar or wind energy but will also tag them both with the broader “renewable energy” concept); 3) The tool minimizes tagging errors ensuring that important terms are not missed completely.
As the amount of information available to us continues to grow, the use of smart-tools will become increasingly important in ensuring we can turn this flood of information into knowledge.
You can learn more about the reegle tagging API in their video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swliprMRcuI
Or by visiting their website: http://api.reegle.info/