Spring 2007


Snippets

A Symantec Success Story

Symantec, a global company that provides organizations and businesses with online and IT security solutions, is featuring the CGIAR on its website as one of its success stories. Read how the company's services have helped Centers block more than 55,000,000 spam and 1,200,000 viruses per year by clicking here.

New Team Member

The ICT-KM Program is happy to announce that Shawn Landersz has recently joined the team as a part-time Program Assistant. While continuing his work with Bioversity's Administration Group, Shawn will assist the team in implementing System-wide projects. More about Shawn in the next issue of ICT-KM News.

CGVlibrary Makes Ex Libris News

The CGVlibrary continues to make waves with a mention in the Ex Libris newsletter. Find out what the global pioneer in software solutions and information centers has to say about the CGIAR's System-wide library at http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/ newsletter/?cat=113&parent=103

ICARDA Awards

The recipients of ICARDA's "Staff of the Year 2006" awards include Hashem Abed, Scientific Databases Specialist, and members of the Network & Desktop Support Team (Colin Webster, Michael Sarkisian, Mousa Tawaifi, Basel Gozem and Waddah Khairallah), some of whom were also actively involved in the ICT-KM Program's Enterprise Security & Business Continuity Project. Kudos to all!

Upcoming Events

KM4Dev Workshop

Egypt-Bound

G&D Get-Together

ICTD Conference in Bangalore


Events in Detail  bullet


ICT-KM Homepage




CG-MAP: Easing Center Workloads

What if your Center didn't have to spend precious hours inputting information related to projects and plans just to have to do it all over again next year? What if generating reports about the research being carried out in your Center was as easy as ABC? What if your Center could also have instant access to information and reports about the research being undertaken across the CGIAR System?

And what if your Center could have all of that at no extra cost?

The ICT-KM Program is pleased to announce that it is working on a system that will make the development and management of MTPs (Medium Term Plans) as simple as ABC, thereby increasing staff efficiency and reducing costs at each Center.

The CGIAR MTP Analysis Program (CG-MAP) will interface seamlessly with System-wide financial (FIS) and performance management (PM) systems related to MTPs, and permit aggregation and analysis of MTP data across the 15 CGIAR Centers and Challenge Programs. As a result, the need to re-enter data for different reports and analyses will be reduced and the workload of staff at each Center will be further lightened.


Center staff will also enjoy improved access to project information for communication, marketing and advocacy purposes, and be able to share and access selected information with other Centers and authorized external parties. Easy access to project information across the Centers will tell staff exactly what other Centers are doing, thereby avoiding duplicated efforts while highlighting research gaps and collaborative possibilities.

The system under development is based on input from Centers that have already developed or are developing applications for System-wide use, along with suggestions from representatives from several CGIAR System Office Units. Priority was only given to those applications that are compatible with existing workflows and capable of helping all Centers fulfill their reporting requirements and information needs without encumbering staff with additional administrative or programmatic responsibilities.

Upon implementation of CG-MAP, each Center will have a local MTP application modeled on the module developed by Bioversity (Click here to read more).

This application will communicate and submit information to a centralized MTP system, which will be accessible to all Centers as well as the CGIAR Secretariat, Science Council, etc. The resulting standardization and linking of information will facilitate the planning, analysis and assessment of Center and Challenge Program activities and their contributions to the CGIAR agenda.

Confidence in the system is running high. Seven Centers (Bioversity, CIP, ICARDA, IITA, IRRI WorldAgroforestry Center and WorldFish) have agreed to assist in the development and application of CG-MAP and will be the first users of the prototype.

With a dedicated technical team under the guidance of subject matter experts, the ICT-KM Program is confident that this system will be approved and fully functional in time for AGM07.


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