Emerging market SMEs in the information and communication technologies (ICT) and agribusiness sectors

May 30 to June 3, 2011. infoDev’s 4th Global Forum on Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship was held in Helsinki, Finland. The event was carried out within the framework of a joint program with the Government of Finland and Nokia on Creating Sustainable Businesses for the Knowledge Economy. 

This €12.9 million program, running from 2010-2012, focuses on enhancing the competitiveness of emerging market SMEs in the information and communication technologies (ICT) and agribusiness sectors in particular. The program will also employ the use of the mobile communications platform to grow content, services and applications for developing countries.

The Global Forum focused on the Mobile Applications, Agri-business and Clean Technologies. The Global Forum attracted hundreds of attendees, business incubator managers, policy-makers, SMEs, financiers and development agencies from all continents for a unique South-South and North-South networking and knowledge-sharing experience.
May 31. The World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development department and infoDev teamed up to launch two sourcebooks on agriculture innovation and ICT in agriculture at infoDev’s 4th Global Forum on Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship .

BACKGROUND
The program is creating two sourcebooks: one on ICT for Agriculture and another on Agricultural Innovation Systems, in collaboration with a wide range of authors and agencies.

Both products are intended to offer agriculture and other development practitioners a set of tested solutions, good practices, and methodologies, along with promising applications, that enable them to leverage ICT and harness innovation for more effective agricultural and rural development outcomes. The sourcebooks bring together thematic notes and over 200 case studies from all over the world into a single easy-to-use compilation for those working in the agricultural sector.


FORTHCOMING WEB PLATFORM
The ICT for Agriculture e-Sourcebook is being designed as an electronic publication to maximize its outreach, with the intent of maintaining it as a “living” updatable document through the web. The website domain: www.ICTinagriculture.org, which is currently under construction, will include the full sourcebook text, as well as updates on projects, new tools and applications, user interface, and research focused on the impact of ICT. This e-strategy will improve global access to the sourcebook and foster a community of practice both inside and outside the World Bank. The website and sourcebook have an expected release date in autumn 2011. For more information on the ICT for Agriculture e-Sourcebook: Brief (PDF)

The SME Fair highlighted the products of the top 50 SME’s out of over 700 which had entered the competition for space at Helsinki. Entrants came from all over the developing world with Africa being represented by M-Farm, livestock vaccines, and Avnon Consulting, which is a South African start-up which has developed soft ware for tracking the activities and performance of incubators and incubates.

Related: the African Incubator Network.  The growing Africa Incubator Network includes groups that have recently planned and opened incubators with infoDev support, existing organizations that have added or expanded incubation facilities, and a regional network support organization that is facilitating the further expansion and strengthening of the Network.

Healthy Soils Make Healthy Farms

Soil is the foundation of farming. When farmers take care of the soil and ensure that it’s healthy, the farm will be more likely to provide the food and income that is needed. If the soil is not healthy, farmers cannot produce what they need.

Soil is more than just a thing in which farmers grow plants. It is a living, dynamic environment, which is like a human body in several ways. Like a human body, it needs good nutrition, good things to eat and drink. Like a human body, it needs to be healthy in order to support growth. And like a human body, its sub-systems need to work well individually and cooperatively to support maximum health and growth.

Two central ways to support soil health are to ensure that soil is fertile, and to ensure that soil is protected from erosion (this is called soil conservation). This script package explores these two critical aspects of soil health.

Click here to read the scripts.

How researchers perceive and use web 2.0

9th July 2010

This project looked at the extent of adoption of different web 2.0 tools in different subject fields and disciplines, and the different types of researchers who are using them.

The RIN commissioned a team from Manchester eResearch Centre (MeRC), University of Manchester, and the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI), University of Edinburgh, to conduct this project and the team’s own project homepage is here.

The project enquires into the factors that influence researchers to adopt and use Web 2.0 tools, and conversely the factors that prevent, constrain or discourage usage.

The study also explores whether and how web 2.0 tools are changing researchers’ behaviour in significant ways, and what implications this might have for researchers, institutions, librarians, information professionals and funders. We sought evidence on whether web 2.0 tools are:

• making data easier to share, verify and re-use, or otherwise facilitating more open scientific practices
• changing discovery techniques or enhancing the accessibility of research information
• changing researchers publication and dissemination behaviour, (for example, due to the ease of publishing work-in-progress and grey literature), and
• changing practices around communicating research findings (for example through opportunities for iterative processes of feedback, pre-publishing, or post-publication peer review).

The report and briefing sheet are available to download here.

Related:
The IAALD Africa Chapter will hold a training workshop (in Botswana) on social media in agriculture in December 2010 - download the announcement.

Using EpiSurveyor to collect agricultural data in rural areas and swine-related surveillance projects

The Animal Health Laboratory (AHL) at the University of Guelph (Canada) and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) are running a pilot system to record mortality and morbidity rates on high-risk hog farming operations. Amish and Mennonite producers make up a large portion of this population. These producers traditionally employ few biosecurity measures and do not rely heavily on veterinary and diagnostic laboratory services. These producers are also limited in their access to modern means of communication as many are without a telephone. Consequently, it is difficult to assess changes in morbidity and mortality and to promptly identify disease outbreaks when they occur. This surveillance study is designed to access regular health information on these herds that previously existed in relative isolation from veterinary care and diagnostic services.

Farms enrolled in the surveillance study submit weekly mortality and morbidity data from all areas of their production system (including the breeding/gestation, farrowing, nursery, and grow/finish sections). Producers have the option of mailing in hard copies of the surveillance form or using a Nokia 6086 phone with Episurveyor to electronically send in the weekly data. The data from all farms is compiled in a central database and analyzed weekly for increases in morbidity and mortality. If a problem is identified, the farm’s local veterinarian is informed. The veterinarian is compensated for their professional services and laboratory diagnostics associated with the surveillance study. Producers access veterinary services at a reduced cost, thus significantly increasing contact between the herd, veterinarians and producers.

The study began in June of 2009 and runs until June 2010. The goal is to collect data on each farm for 12 months and have several meetings with the producers to present findings and discuss common health problems during the data collection period. The Episurveyor program has been functioning cell on farm and data downloading has been problem-free. Episurveyor is now being considered for future swine-related surveillance projects.


Reference:
Datadyne 24/10/2009: EpiSurveyor Case Study: Animal Health Laboratory at University of Guelph and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture
Related:
DIGITAL PLANET BBC World Service 11/03/2010 Mobile boom fuels health work in developing countries

EpiSurveyor startup guide

Interview with Geoffrey Mimano, lead DataDyne.org programmer on the upcoming wireless version of EpiSurveyor, and Joel Selanikio, DataDyne.org co-founder. Geoff talks about the project and demonstrates how quickly he can upload a form to the web and download to his phone. Filmed in Nakuru, Kenya, in August 2008.

Related:
Joel Selanikio represented on 29/01/2010 DataDyne at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, participating in several discussions and finally a panel on "Technology in Society" with Eric Schmidt (CEO, Google), Didier Lombard (Chairman, France Telecom), Rainer Bruderle (German Federal Minister for Economics and Technology), and William Green (CEO, Accenture).

The Role of ICT in Agricultural Value Chains

7 - 18 December 2009. The e-Agriculture Community is hosting a global online forum about “The Role of ICT in Agricultural Value Chains”. The forum will discuss the key opportunities and challenges of ICT interventions in agricultural value chains with a special focus on the most beneficial interventions in rural areas.

It is an opportunity for knowledge sharing on good practices, presenting expectations of future challenges and outcomes, and considering the critical role of policy makers, rural service providers, and the agricultural community at large.

Through the use of experienced facilitators and selected subject matter experts, we will develop focused discussion topics in order to achieve beneficial outcomes from the forum. We look forward to your inputs! The outcomes of this forum will be disseminated through a policy brief written for the e-Agriculture Community and used in upcoming face-to-face meetings.

Register on the e-Agriculture platform, if you haven’t already done so.

Information and communication management and agricultural research for development and innovation

7 December 2009 - 11 December 2009. Hyderabad, India. APAARI-GFAR-FAO-ICRISAT. The objective of this event is to identify and define concrete areas of action that address emerging challenges, and exploit opportunities for information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of Agricultural Research for Development.

The outcomes of these action agendas will be linked to major development goals in agriculture, highlighting the specific role/contribution to be made by information and communication management, bringing together all appropriate categories of actors. They will feed into the GCARD2010 process of global consultations.

Key Questions

• What new strategies and policies are needed to enhance and sustain adoption of ICM that contributes through ARD and agricultural development, especially of resource poor farmers and other actors in market and value-addition chains?
• What needs to be done to make content available, accessible, applicable, and appropriated/used effectively by at all levels and among all actors in ARD?
• How can be ICM capacities in ARD be developed sustainably across all the dimensions of enabling environment, institutions and individuals?
• How can investments be targeted effectively?

Reference Information and communication management and agricultural research for development and innovation

The next generation of mobile phone e‐service delivery

2 to 4 November 2009. Wageningen. The ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), together with its partners, held its 2009 meeting of its ICT Observatory on ICTs on the theme of “mobile services” for agricultural and rural development. The next generation of mobile phone e‐service delivery using web technologies can only become a reality if a number of conditions are met :

• Making usable mobile web browsers;
• Defining guidelines on how to make usable web content and applications for people without previous computer experience;
• Defining guidelines on how to identify needs and requirements of communities for ICT based services.

The meeting gathered some 20 experts around the discussion paper: The potential of mobile devices in wireless environments to provide e-services for positive social and economic change in rural communities. By Pete Cranston.Download in PDF format (35 pages, size: 620 K). An open session at the start of the meeting was addressed by a number of international speakers.

During the CTA ICT Observatory 2009 Mark Davies from Esoko, in Ghana was interviewed. Esoko is a software platform licensed to facilitate the flow of market information between farmers, governments, researchers and other stakeholders involved in agriculture and rural development. It is used to share information on prices, offers, price of fertilizers etc.

It is managed by the web, but delivered via mobile phones. Mark underlines the potential positive effects that Market Information Services such as Esoko can bring about, both in agriculture as well as in for other sectors. He then concludes talking about the difficulties he has encountered in this initiative, such as the lack of content available and the lack of right capacities to build and develop such software.

For Kafui Amenu (One Village Foundation, Ghana) the second day on the Observatory offered great opportunities to discuss business models, how these can be leveraged, and how ICTs can be applied in different situations. He concludes with a note of appreciation for the participatory and interactive approach adopted by the facilitators, which make possible for people to engage at a different level and really think out of the box.

For Edna Karamagi from Brosdi the first day of the ICT Observatory 2009 offered quite some interesting topics for discussion and ideas. In particular, for Edna the issue of sustainability of ICTs initiatives should be really at the center of the debate. Further, she underlines the importance of the quality of information that is made available through ICTs.

Jacqueline Nyagahima from Asareca took few minutes of her time to share some ideas with us on ICTs and agricultural research. In her views, research has the role to validate information: the current ICTs however might allow also some information not yet validated to circulate and people might take decisions upon this same information.

Dorothy Okello presented the work of WOUGNET in Uganda. Her organisation has been using mobile services to enhance the outreach of ICTs, to reach also rural and remote areas. However, there are also some challenges: the costs are still high; access to power and energy is an issue, and innovation in this field is very much needed; there's also a lack of skills in using these technologies; lastly, the policy environment needs to support the development of these services She concludes with some reflections on the day discussions.

Other presentations:

• Developing, Deploying and Accessing ICT services on Mobile Phones Presentation by Stéphane Boyera

References:
CTA ICT Observatory 2009

ICTs Transforming Agricultural Science and Innovation

16-20November. CIRAD, Montpellier, France. CTA convened its 8th meeting of Advisory Committee on S&T for ACP Agricultural and Rural Development.

Investments in physical infrastructure and human resource development must increase if the ACP region is to fully participate in the global knowledge system. There is need to overcome the barriers to making optimum use of science and technological innovations. Over 60 senior officials and scientists from the ACP region and Europe met at CIRAD, Montpellier, France from to deliberate on the future of agriculture and science and the opportunities and challenges for ICTs for improving ACP knowledge systems to enhance agricultural performance.

The objectives were among others:
(i) To identify and discuss windows of opportunities within the emerging evolution in the field of ICTs which can support the ACP region in improving the environment for agricultural science and innovation? What are the priorities and options for policy intervention?
(ii) To identify and discuss investments that are needed in infrastructure to realize the potential of ICTs in transforming agricultural science and innovation for meeting present and future needs.

Speakers related to ICT:

• ICT - Its role in Fostering Learning, Knowledge Generation through Research and Dissemination: Current Status, Lessons and Future Implications - Dr Towela Nyirenda-Jere, Programme Manager, NEPAD e-Africa Commission, South Africa
• ICTs and Agricultural and Rural Development in the ACP Region: Experiences of CTA – Mrs. Oumy Ndiaye, Manager, Communication Services Department, CTA, The Netherlands
• Opportunities, Priorities and Possible Investments for ICTs in Agricultural and Rural Development: Lessons from India and Finland – Dr. Silvia Galvani, Research Fellow, University of Joensuu, Finland
• Networking for Improving Data Management, Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing in Agricultural Research: Experiences from CIRAD - Dr. Joel Sor, Head, Department of Information Systems, CIRAD, France
• SupAgro/ University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) Cooperation: Lessons from a joint North/South University Course using ICT – Dr. Dominique This, Lecturer, Department of Plant Sciences, CIRAD-SupAgro, France
• Information Technology Initiatives for Improving the Nigerian University System: Prof. Julius Okojie, Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Nigeria

Reference:

Final Programme 8th Advisory Committee Meeting November 2009.pdf

The marketing of agricultural products through ICT

23, 24, 25 November 2009. Ouagadougou. The forum ‘The marketing of agricultural products through ICT’ aimed to increase the impact of the lessons learned and build the national network for ICT and development in Burkina Faso. The event was organised by Burkina NTIC, in particular its ICT cluster Agriculture.The typical method of collecting market price information in Burkina Faso.

The organisers collected best practice examples of marketing agricultural products through ICT, to understand where the opportunities are and to draw lessons for the future. Best practices will be gathered from Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries.

Hereunder is a training videos by TV Koodo, introducing the agricultural market information systems launched by Burkina NTIC and IICD.

TV Koodo chooses puppet tv presenters as carriers of the instructional message. This choice demonstrates the significance of efforts to make e-/m- learning technologies more accessible and more responsive to the needs and educational backgrounds of African users. The coupling of learning technologies with ICT services geared towards enabling market transactions, could hold the key to the adoption, the popularity and the value derived from market services.

Related FARA blog post:
23 Oct 2009 Announcement: Marketing of agricultural products through ICT
MMD4D Mobile Market Design for Development

7th EC EuroAfrica-ICT Concertation Meeting

1 October. Brussels. The EuroAfrica-ICT Project (supported by the EC DG INFSO and coordinated by Sigma Orionis) aims at enhancing S&T cooperation on ICT research between sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Europe by:

• Supporting EuroAfrica-ICT dialogues
• Strengthening concertation between key stakeholders in the field
• Supporting the development of emerging Euro-African cooperation projects on ICT research
• Raising awareness in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Caribbean on FP7 and ICT
• Developing a web-based communication platform

Since an increasing number of regional, national and international initiatives addressing Euro-Africa S&T cooperation in ICT have been developed, EuroAfrica-ICT concertation meetings have been launched in the framework of the START FP6 project (in 2006) and are still organised on a regular basis (every 6 to 8 months) by the EuroAfrica-ICT FP7 project in Brussels, Belgium.

One of the interesting things about the latest EuroAfrica-ICT 7th Concertation Meeting was the opportunity that it provided to learn about the large number of overlapping initiatives funded by the European Commission that are exploring ways in which ICTs can be used both to support development initiatives in Africa, and also to facilitate increased collaboration between European and African researchers and organisations.

In particular, presentations by four of the European Technology Platforms drew attention to the potential for the work that they are doing in this ’space’:

• Networked and Electronic Media (NEM) ETP
• Networked European Software and Services Initiative (NESSI) ETP
• Integral Satcom Initiative (ISI) ETP
• Mobile and Wireless Communications (eMobility) ETP

Science 2.0: Communicating Science in a Web 2.0 World

The increasing popularity of blogs, social networking sites, and twitter has created many new and interactive forums for people to communicate about science.

The National Academies recently invited Phil Plait, author of the blog BAD ASTRONOMY and president of the James Randi Educational Foundation to speak about these technologies and how they are being used by science. This podcast provides some highlights from his presentation.

Listen to a podcast of 1 July 2009.

Research communication and the Danish Development Research Network

Research communication is gaining growing attention on the international scene. Donors as well as universities are required to demonstrate the value of the research they support and/or carry out, and a need for improved communication between researchers, decision makers and practitioners is addressed by an increasing number of stakeholders.

Furthermore, in a time of fast changes at global level there is a stronger need for quick and effective communication of research based knowledge that may have positive influence on meeting a series of global challenges related to e.g. climate changes, agricultural production, and health issues.

Against this background, the three Danish research networks, Danish Water Forum (DWF), Danish Research Network for International Health (ENRECAHEALTH), and Danish Development Research Network (DDRN) have decided to launch a new seminar series to bring the need for improved research communication into focus and:

1. Promote the use of research based knowledge in development practice
2. Help bringing development research on the public agenda; and
3. Strengthen the communication skills of members of the networks.

In the seminars, communication is approached as a two-way process of dialogue including engagement of all stakeholders involved in the researched context as this is a prerequisite for overcoming structural challenges that often hinder the effective communication and/or implementation of research results. For a more detailed description of the background and objectives of the seminar series, please read the concept note available on the DDRN website.

Reference:
08/05/2008 Seminar series research communication for development Report from Seminar 1
Related:
Professor Mkumbukwa MA Mtambo of Soikoine Universtiy of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania comments on the August 2009 workshop on Communication in North/South research partnerships for development organized by SUA, the Danish Development Research Network (DDRN) and the Danish Water Forum (DWF) with support from Euforic and CABI.

Announcement: Regional Research Education Networks (RRENs) for Socio-Economic Development

The University of Ghana, Legon in collaboration with The Royal Swedish Institute of Technology (KTH) and Ghana Academic and Research Network (GARNET) will host the 7th International Conference on Open Access in Accra Ghana from 2nd to 3rd November 2009.

Conference Theme"Harnessing the rapid growth of fibre infrastructure for Social Economic Development."

There will be a preliminary meeting on the 1st November, 2009 ushering the OA conference, and will focus on Regional Research Education Networks (RRENs) , by bringing together key players in West and Central African Universities and other participants who may share their experience in forming RRENs; it is expected that this meeting will lead to the formation of the West and Central African Research Education Network (WACREN).

Authors are invited to submit extended abstracts and original papers. Articles should be tutorial in nature and should be written in a style comprehensible to readers outside the specialty of the article. Articles should be submitted in any popular word processor format here
Important dates. Submissions are due on: 15th September, 2009

Reference:
The 7th International Conference on Open Access Harnessing the rapid growth of fibre infrastructure for Social Economic Development.

Related:
Study on how to Enhance e-Infrastructure Uptake and Use in Different Fields of Science
The University of Chicago/National Opinion Research Center, the Oxford Internet Institute, the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and Empirica Communication and Technology Research (Germany) collaborate on a study that will propose strategies to enhance e-Infrastructure uptake and use in different fields of science. The work is done on behalf of the European Commission, Directorate General Information Society and Media (DG INFSO).

Websites that use the spoken word will empower the illiterate

THE internet, wonderful though it is, reinforces one of life’s fundamental divisions: that between the literate and the illiterate. Most websites, even those heavy with video content, rely on their users being able to read and—if interactive—write. Building your own site certainly does.

Guruduth Banavar, the director of IBM’s India Research Laboratory, wanted to allow people who struggle with literacy to create websites. So he and his colleagues have devised a system based on what is known as “voice extensible markup language”, a cousin of the hypertext markup language used on conventional websites, that allows a website to be built and operated more or less by voice alone.

Dr Banavar thinks mobiles could be made to work much harder. His voice sites are hosted on standard computer servers and behave much like conventional websites. At their most basic they are designed for local use, acting as portals through which people can find out such things as when the mobile hospital will next visit their village, the price of rice in the local market and which wells they should use for irrigation. Instead of typing in a web address, the user rings the website up. Then, with a combination of voice commands and key presses, he navigates through a spoken list of topics and listens to subjects of interest.

References

The Economist 18/06 A Web of Sound: Talk about that
IBM to invest US$100 million in Mobile Communication Research
IBM India Research Laboratory (IRL) Spoken Web project

Related:

Voice Browsing: How Two Great Ideas Go Great Together
Voice browsing technology is a rapidly-growing field. Whether or not it proves to be the next internet, it deserves a careful examination in its present form. The programming language responsible for connecting voicemail, live agents, and speech enabled sites is called VoiceXML, which was devised by Lucent, IBM, Motorola, and AT&T. IBM has several patents on its natural language understanding engine which uses probability to guess what people mean if the words are unclear.

Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground

On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah.

When containers of old computers first began arriving in West Africa a few years ago, Ghanaians welcomed what they thought were donations to help bridge the digital divide. But soon exporters learned to exploit the loopholes by labeling junk computers "donations," leaving men like Godson to sort it out.

Update edition of infonet-biovision is online

15th of July 2009. An update edition of infonet-biovision is now online. http://www.infonet-biovision.org/ is a web-based information tool offering trainers, extension workers and farmers mainly in Africa a quick access to up-to-date and locally relevant information in order to optimise their livelihoods in a safe, effective, and ecologically sound way.

The information presented is specifically relevant for the african continent and its inhabitants, many examples and case studies are from Kenya or East African countries, but can be useful for other tropical countries as well. The topics presented on infonet like crop managment, diseases, pests and environmenally sound technologies are focused on the ecology and the species that are prevalent in East Africa.

Hereunder follows an interview with Gladys Nyambura who gives trainings to farmers about the use of Infonet in Kenya. She tells about the difficulties for farmers to access information on CDroms and on Internet. But once they are able to do this http://www.infonet-biovision.org/ is recognized as a unique and very rich source of information.

Click To Play

ICT-enabled collaboration transforming agricultural science, research and technology

16-17 June 2009. Workshop 3 at the Science Forum, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
The CGIAR’s Program on Information and Communication Technologies and Knowledge Management (ICT-KM) has been working over the past years on learning about and promoting ways of ‘connecting people, technology and knowledge for agricultural innovation’. With key projects dealing with a range of ICT and KM questions and topics in its portfolio it has amassed a wide range of knowledge, best practices, experiences and evidence on ICTs and KM in the context of (mostly CGIAR) agricultural research.

Simone Staiger-Rivas of the CGIAR advises research organizations thinking about knowledge sharing "not to start with a strategy."She suggests instead to start small with different projects and experiments. She concludes that we need to adopt the basic approach used in research - to learn, to think about, to experiment, have trials, then scale up - "that's exactly what we should do in knowledge sharing."


References:

• Knowledge sharing 'principles' for agricultural research 23 June 2009 IAALD
• More ‘impactful’ agricultural science and innovation by investing in ‘ICTs’ 22 June 2009 ICT-KM Program
• ICT-enabled collaboration: a presentation at the Science Forum 22 June 2009 ICT-KM Program - Nadia Manning-Thomas' presentation during the CGIAR Science Forum.
• Changing the Emperor: ICT's transforming agricultural science, research and technology
  22 June 2009
• IAALD blog 23/06: Knowledge sharing in agricultural research - let strategy follow actions
• Web2forDev: Web 2.0 for Development Gateway - article by Nadia Manning-Thomas, IWMI/ICT-KM : Changing the Emperor: ICT-enabled collaboration transforming agricultural science, research and technology into an effective participatory and innovations system approach.
• CGIAR ICT-KM Program (http://www.ictkm.cgiar.org/) and it’s Knowledge Sharing in Research Project (http://www.ks-cgiar.org/)

How important is internet visibility of African agricultural research outputs?

Click to Play

Interview with Harry Heemskerk, Head of Information Projects and Products at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

Agricultural research outputs need to be shared and made visible in order to increase the visibility of African agricultural research institutes, the visibility of individual researchers and the visibility of concepts and research outputs.

The digitalisation and digital repositories are important:

a) for the preservation of the content,

b) for the preservation of the URL-links to the publications,

c) to store publications in one place but with visibility in many other places.

Therefore open decentralised standards are needed like the Open Archives Initiatives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). In African research institutes this expertise in more and more available and some additional training is needed on copy right issues. Policy/Decision makers need to be involved to create awareness about open access.

The Royal Tropical Institute organised with the Association of African Universities (AAU) and with the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) a workshop in Accra in March 2009 about experiences with digital repositories for Chief librarians and for vice chancellors.

Similar initiatives are taken by the Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL) and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP).

Harry Heemskerk answers the question on what convinces key decision makers and which resources are needed.

References:

Accra, 16/04 INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY ADVOCACY SEMINAR

Accra, 16/04 AAU holds seminar to improve access to African scholarly works

Related:

eIFL

Gaining the momentum: Open access & advancement of science and research, CSIR Conference Centre, Pretoria, South Africa 14 May 2009 - South Africa

INASP:

Training the Trainer in Information Literacy 20 April 2009 - Malawi
Institutional Repository Workshop - COSTECH 23 April 2009 - Tanzania
Training in the use of Koha Library Automation System 20 May 2009 - Uganda

D-groups partnership meeting 2009

On 15 and 16 April, the members of the D-groups partnership met in the Netherlands. The group last met in The Hague in January 2007. The meeting was organised by Euforic in its overall coordination role for the partnership. The members of the Dgroups Partnership elected a new Board to guide the Partnership in the coming years. The organizations elected were: Helvetas, Hivos, ICCO, IICD, Sula Batsu.

The meeting discussed:

• the new D-groups platform, its usability, hosting, and support provisions
• priorities for further platform development and enhancements
• election to the Foundation Board, discharging the current executive committee
• strategic directions for the coming years' management

Interviews:

New Helvetas Board member Riff Fullan reflects on the discussions:

For Riff Fullan from Helvetas, in spite of the limited amount of time availbale, the partnership meeting managed to get a lot done. The board has now some "concrete avenues to follow" and there's a lot of work to be done, but overall the feeling about this AGM is very positive.

Sarah Kerr has been involved with Dgroups from its early days. She sees Dgroups as a 'teenager', with the discussion focusing now more on the partnership than on the platform. She also highlights the importance of keeping alive the original ideas behind Dgroups, while letting them evolve at the same time. For Sarah, this is happening, and we see now things solidifing and going in the right direction, with the establishment of the Foundation and the election of the Board.

For Christian Kreutz, IICD, it's important that Dgroups partners focus their discussion also on dgroups as a community of experts on development issues. There's huge potential to exploit this element and bring people together to share their knowledge.

Patrick Kalas for the SDC (Swiss Development Cooperation) highlights the difference between Dgroups as a platform and as a partnership. While there's more agreement on the first, the discussion on the partnership needs to be deepened in terms of it's vision and objectives.

What are some of the things that Dgroups users expect to see in coming weeks and months?

• more usability improvements on the platform;
• a public directory of groups on the new platform
• extension of Dgroups help and FAQ resources
• plans for two Dgroups training and outreach workshops sponsored by ICCO

References:

• dgroups members meeting agenda april 2009
• dgroups member letter of agreement april 2009
• helpguide1.2.pdf
• dgroups members meeting 2009 - participants
• dgroups - 2004 support outline
• dgroups - creator management in 2009
• dgroups - support planning in 2009
• dgroups: report on migration 2008-2009
• Dgroups coordination report 2007-2009
• Dgroups strategy, version 1.1
• Dgroups AGM 2007 report
• Draft Rules and Procedures Dgroups Foundation

The use of D-groups at FAO

Click to Play

Interview with Kristin Koshus, main D-group administrator at FAO Rome. Kristin has been working for 9 years with FAO and is since one year and a half the D-groups administrator. FAO has about 74 active online groups: as well small groups inside FAO linked to specific events of discussions and bigger groups with partners ouside FAO.

• Large D-groups will often have a few active participants who communicate with a larger group. Smaller groups are much more focused with an active participation: they are time-limited and people know one another.
• E-mail functionality, low bandwith and the fact that D-groups are relatively inexpensive are key for the use of D-groups.
• The migration to the new platform caused a lot of frustration but his is now compensated by a much more performant platform. the new platform allows for better management of the contributions and for user analysis: who participates, from which countries, etc.