banner
3rd Quarter 2008


ICT-KM supports events and conferences

"Making Our Research Outputs Available - the AAA Approach"
Co-organized with FARA, this event will look into methods and systems to ensure research outputs are available, accessible and applicable. Tentatively scheduled to be held December 1st 2008 during the CGIAR 2008 Annual General Meeting in Maputo.

"Knowledge management- Why and Who for?"
The session will look into the "why" of knowledge management and sharing and discuss the challenges and opportunities afforded by implementing knowledge management techniques. The sessions is tentatively scheduled December 2nd, 2008 during the CGIAR 2008 Annual General Meeting in Maputo.

"Knowledge Management and Sharing: How?"
This all day event will specifically look into different strategies and methods and the benefits and or shortcomings. Scheduled for December 4th 2008 in Maputo

Extra Extra….

Read more about the Knowledge Sharing in Research project in the September issue of CGIAR e-News.

For more information on ICT-KM activities and events, visit our website and blog at http://ictkm.cgiar.org/

Snippets

Are you setting comfortably? Farmers share knowledge through storytelling
"My story with farming began when I was a child," says Mahmoud Shlash, whose village lies near the ancient city of Aleppo in northern Syria. "At that time, the rainfall was high unlike the rainfall this season. I watched my father when he collected spikes (barley seedheads) from here and there and brought them home. I asked him, 'Why are you collecting the spikes and nothing else?' Now I realise that he was doing the same as ICARDA is currently doing with the farmers."
For more information, please visit: http://www.new-ag.info/08/05/develop/dev2.php

Strengthening Partnership through increased collaboration: ICT-KM and FARA
Working with partners to increase effectiveness continues to be an important aspect of the ICT-KM Program. With this in mind, the ICT-KM Program, represented by Enrica Porcari recently participated in the CGIAR-FARA (Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa) consultation held in Accra 2-4 September 2008. The consultation aimed at increasing this strategic partnership and harmonizing research in Africa.
Taking into consideration past successful collaborations, representatives of FARA (Myra Woopereis-Pura and Francois Stepman) discussed with Enrica ways forward to increase ICT-KM/FARA partnership and joint activities.
More information about the consultation can be found at http://farastaff.blogspot.com
/2008/09/cgiar-fara-consultation.html

Pilot projects paving innovative paths to sharing information
The Institutional Knowledge Sharing project is supporting three pilot activities in three CGIAR centers in order to contribute to institutional innovation, and learn about the effectiveness of KS approaches. Two of the pilots have now made available their products.
“Recovering from natural disasters” A ‘Storymercial’ by WorldFish
“The storymercial is e a combination of video, audio and images. At the heart of the storymercial is the story; the oldest most proven way humans learn and remember information.” says Helen Leitch, Pilot Project Leader. “Despite a huge investment in communications, awareness of the CGIAR Centers’ work and contribution to development is often low. Since knowledge products with more mass appeal are needed, this project examined the role storymercials can play to attract our donors and partners to knowledge, thus increasing the uptake of research outputs”. Have a look at: http://www.worldfishcenter.org
/v2/rehabilitate%20livelihoods.html
Best Practices in Research data Management (IRRI)
“There is still little experience in using wiki technology within CGIAR. The openness and visibility of a wiki is often seen as a risk, rather than an opportunity for increased participation and collaboration in communities of practice.” states Thomas Metz, Project Leader. This project developed, collected, recorded, and applied good practices in research data management, and initiated a communities of practice for research data managers. It is enabling scientists to produce better quality research and release their primary data as global public goods that will be available and usable for future secondary use. See the wiki at: http://cropwiki.irri.org/everest/



ICT-KM Homepage



KS Workshop runs, runs, runs with FAO

When the ICT-KM Program started the adventure to develop a workshop on knowledge sharing under the leadership of the institutional KS Project we were all far from imagining the positive impact and feedback we would receive and the positive spin offs of our workshop concept.

After a first edition of this workshop that involved mainly CGIAR staff we are now in the middle of a second edition led by FAO in strong collaboration with our Program.

Here are some of the results and observations so far that make us "feel good" about our initiative:

Both workshops reached staff of 13 of the 15 CGIAR centers, for a total of 70 participants from all continents.

The participation of FAO staff in the first edition of the workshop led them to take the leadership of a second edition, including administrative and financial resources.

7 participants from the first workshop joined efforts and will co-author an article about challenges and experiences in their areas of work at the moment of the workshop. This initiative is supported by the IKS project and a professional writer will serve as a guide and coordinator of the process.

The second edition of the workshop includes two new facilitators (Peter Shelton from IFPRI, and Gauri Salokhe from FAO), both participants of the first edition. We also welcome two additional mentors from workshop one (Michael Riggs from FAO and Alexandra Jorge from ILRI-Bioversity) who bring in additional experiences and observations and just "can’t get enough of it" as Michael states. This makes us hope that we could actually get a pool of possible facilitators for future workshops.

The links between the KS Toolkit and the workshop that enrich each other help create a stronger user community within the CGIAR. The Toolkit was a joint effort by FAO which is an additional pillar. But we also receive weekly membership requests like this PHD student who is doing ICT training in Burundi and added three methods pages in one week!

Those promising indicators of success are topped off with the prospect of a third workshop led by the Forum of Agricultural Research for Africa (FARA) and the desire of offering the workshop format also in French and Spanish. But one thing is for sure among us, the workshop team of designers and moderators: Without a 100% of dedication, enthusiasm, and … love this workshop concept cannot be duplicated successfully. It requires indeed an enormous amount of time over a long period (3 months at least) but it seems to be a worthwhile investment as we observe the emergence of a network of people dedicated to KS.

See our workshop blog for further information

http://ictkm.wordpress.com/category/ks-course/

Back

We welcome feedback on the ICT-KM News, so please feel free to contact us at ictkm@cgiar.org