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Guidelines to users

The Gateway provides a single access point for international and national information related to farm animal welfare. It is a participatory platform open to a large contributors base and allows users to retrieve as well as to submit information. Its content is established by an open and transparent consensus. Censorship of opinions and points of view is not applied, however, content is intended to be pertinent, factual, notable, verifiable with cited sources, and neutrally presented. All submitted material has to be relevant for farm animal welfare.
It especially gives less economically developed country governments, professionals and producers online access to the latest information and the opportunity to contribute information relevant to their own situation; it therefore helps to improve livestock welfare and thus health and productivity worldwide.
These Guidelines provide instructions on how to use the Gateway, retrieving and submitting information.
As a first step, to submit information, users need to register, by using the apposite format on display when clicking on the button “To submit info”. Once registered, users can submit any documents and information of relevance in any given language, by logging, using their email as username and a chosen password, and then using the button “SUBMIT”.
Subscription is free of charge, though subscribers must register a valid email address to have the possibility to submit infomation. The process only takes a few minutes.
All contributors providing relevant information will be duly acknowledged in the portal. Submitted information, when being pertinent, factual, notable, verifiable with cited sources, and neutrally presented will be uploaded in the portal within 24 hours if in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German or Dutch; and in 72 hours, if provided in any other language. Contributors will be informed if the submitted material can not be uploaded because it does not comply with the criteria mentioned above.

Contributors that have distinguished themselves for the amount and quality of the information provided will be considered to take part in the Gateway Editorial board.

How can the Gateway be used?

The Gateway can be used in three main ways:

1. To search for information:
Depending on their particular interests and needs, users can search for:
Information on general topics e.g. international standards, national animal welfare laws, specific scientific or technical après, publications, guidelines and reports issued by a particular organization, etc.

2. To share information:
Users can use the portal to disseminate their own papers, laws, regulations, standards or other information of relevance. Information can be uploaded directly into the Gateway or linked through other websites where these exist.

3. To feed national or regional portals
Data in the portal can also be accessed to feed national portals. A simple HTTP-based query of www……. can be used to produce an XML output of selected information, which can then be incorporated into a national portal.

What types of information does the Gateway contain and can be submitted?

The Gateway contains documents and information on Farm Animal Welfare and related topics in the following categories:

1. News: including press releases;

2. Events: conferences, congresses, seminars, workshops, national, regional or international;

3. Publications: books, reports, factsheets, case studies, booklets, proceedings, flyers, etc.;

4. Legislation: national laws and regulations, including the European Community and the Council of Europe one, related to animal welfare and protection, cruelty against animals, standards of humane care and treatment of animals;

5. Codes of Practices and Recommendations: codes and recommendations by different institutions, stakeholders organizations and policy makers.

6. Newsletters: current and archived issues of newsletters; regular circular information regarding upcoming meetings, projects, specific news and applications of relevance to animal welfare;

7. Standards, Policies and Strategies: OIE internationally recognized standards, policies that lay down the basic rules and requirements to guide decisions and actions, and key strategies set out to streamline and implement the policies and to facilitate a coordinated and effective action;

8. Scientific and technical papers: articles in printer friendly PDF format or found on the Scientific Journals web sites;

9. Miscellaneus: opinions, statement, communications, etc.;

10. Training material: trainers’ guides or manuals, simple notes or handouts, illustrated posters or booklets;

11. Projects: any think of field or research project finally aiming at improving farm animal welfare;

12. Training: training and educational opportunities (short and long term courses, seminars, workshops, etc.) on Farm Animal Welfare

13. Funding: funding opportunities for research and field projects or any kind of activity finally aiming at improving farm animal welfare;

14. Employment: opportunities at national, regional and international level, offered by international organizations, government institutions, non governmental organizations, etc.;

15. Multimedia: Power Point Presentations, video and sound clips, etc.;

16. Web sites: any relevant website.

Users can submit documents and information either available for download or published as HTML pages, in any of the categories above.
By contacting farmanimalwelfare@fao.org, users can also ask to be included, or have their organization, educational or research centre or institution included in the available following databases:

1. Professionals: animal scientists, ethologists, veterinarians, layers, activists and other professionals engaged to farm animal welfare or related themes;

2. Organizations: international, regional or national establishments. Multilateral and non governmental organizations, producers and other stakeholders associations, etc.;

3. Educational centres: universities, training centres and all those establishments involved in educational and training programmes;

4. Research Centres: establishments engaged in research activities on farm animal welfare or closely related topics;

5. Governmental Institutions: competent authorities responsible for farm animal welfare at national level worldwide, their contact details and other relevant information.

What language are documents available in?

Documents can be submitted in their original language. All languages are acceptable.

How are records categorized and what types of search functions are available? How to
find information?

Each record in the Gateway is indexed by type of information (publication, legislation, scientific and technical papers, etc.), title, topic, author or originating organization, language, country, year, submitting users.
Events can also be searched by place and date. The Directory of professionals and organizations can also be searched by name, area and geographical region of expertise.
Users can search the contents of the Gateway in different ways depending on specific requirements:

1. Simple search: to quickly find records using free text terms, contained either in the record’s title, abstract, text or in the record information. The results are ranked so that the documents most relevant to the query should be presented first.

2. Advanced search: to search for a more specific expression in combination with topics keywords, date, type and/or source of document, country and language to retrieve the most relevant results.

3. Search by topics: to search or browse the list of topics used in the Gateway.

4. Browse by category or by topic: view information under each category or topic tab (i.e. publications, language, country, etc., narrowing or refining the search to find the most relevant results.