To  give an extra push to our efforts, we joined forced in the CIARD partnership. To ensure that public domain research outputs – in the form of information, data and knowledge – form part of a global ‘knowledge commons’ for agriculture, these outputs should be created, assembled, handled and disseminated in ways that ensure that they will be as Available, Accessible and Applicable as possible.

With our partners we have developed the CIARD Pathways to provide an introduction to the many ways in which research outputs can be made more available, accessible and applicable.

Who can use these pathways? policymakers, research directors, researchers and information specialists. There are pathways for everyone..

Amongst the CIARD Pathways, there are several which focus particularly on areas of change in both policy frameworks and individual researcher behavior which will help to prepare an institution to stimulate the dissemination of research outputs.  These pathways have been placed in Group 1, called “Developing Institutional Readiness”.

For those people involved with the development of a repository or structured website, some Pathways focus on best practice technical and policy approaches to ensure that websites/repositories fulfil their purpose of making research outputs more accessible and available.  These pathways have been placed in Group 2, called: “Increasing the Availability and Accessibility of Research Outputs – Collection and Preservation”.

Reaching beyond producing digital content and placing it in a repository or on a website, there are some pathways addressing making research outputs easily accessible and transformation of those outputs to communicate them to different stakeholders.  These Pathways have been placed in Group 3 called: “Increasing the Availability and Accessibility of Research Outputs – Making Content Widely Accessible on the Web”

We plan to revise these pathways periodically, add new ones, remove the ones that no longer make sense… This process of enhancement will be continuous, given that Pathways will change as new innovations arise.  You will notice now the Pathways are in English, but we have plans to translate them in French, Spanish, and possibly in other languages, so that they can be more widely accessible.

Our efforts go beyond… in a previous post, we introduced Mendley. We received very good feedback and now are planning a series of webinars to introduce this tool and train in its use…

Stay tuned for more…as our efforts to support researchers use effective techniques to better conduct their work are just about to step up again!

One step at a time we will make those pigs fly!

Related posts:

1. Making the most of our research outputs…or making our pigs fly!
2. Making agricultural research accessible: CIARD steps up
3. If a tree grows in a lab, will the poor eat its fruits? Opening Access to Agricultural Research: A Triple-A Approach to Make Research Available and Useful

One of the five AGCommons’ Quick Win Projects, Community Level Crop Disease Surveillance, has achieved an important result. As a component of the larger Community Knowledge Workers (CKW) Project implemented by the Grameen Foundation, it has contributed to demonstrate the potential of the CKW model. The CKW Project is scaling up its activities after receiving a huge boost in the form of a $4.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. AGCommons is proud to have contributed to its success.

The grant will enable the CKW Project to expand its activities in Uganda, where it is building a self-sustaining, scalable network of rural information providers who use cell phones to get vital information to smallholder farmers.

As one of the components of the CKW Project, the AGCommons Quick Win Project trained 40 CKWs in two Ugandan districts to interact with more than 14,000 smallholder farmers and conduct 6,000 surveys, all of which helped organizations such as the World Food Program and IITA better understand the needs of the farmers. IITA also created Geographic Information System (GIS) maps that provided farmers with vital information about crop disease outbreaks and the impact of disease control methods, to name a few.

During the Quick Win Project’s nine-month duration, farmers regularly turned to the CKWs for information on the treatment of pests, accurate weather forecasts, and how to maximize their crop incomes. For example, a groundnut farmer who lost his crop when the rains came late contacted his local CKW, who gave him access to regular weather forecasts and enabled him to plan the rest of his planting season and preserve his livelihood.

The CKW model is simple, efficient and effective. Once a request is received from a farmer, the CKW will use a cell phone to access the relevant information. At the same time, CKWs collect agricultural information from farmers, providing a vital link between farmers, government programs, and non-governmental organizations. The second phase of this initiative will enable more farmers to access a cell phone to contact trained professionals tasked with sharing knowledge and information with them. Indeed, the Grameen Foundation plans to build on its experience gained from the Quick Win Project to develop a self-sustaining national network capable of reaching more than 200,000 farmers.

The grant is part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development initiative and was announced as part of a larger package of agricultural development projects in conjunction with Bill Gates’ keynote address at last week’s World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa.

The five Quick Win project funded by AGCommons cover a range of technologies and African geographies. They span a variety of different links with end-users – from direct work with farmers (“Seeing is Believing” project) to collaboration at the research level to create access to valuable data sets that can be used on the farmers’ behalf (“Africa Trial Site Catalogue”). Scheduled for completion by the end of 2009, they are already meeting one of their goals: to provide a learning opportunity that offers the potential for scaling up benefits to farmers in the future.

Photo courtesy Guido Ric via stock.xchng

Related posts:

1. Mobile phones fight disease and poverty – An interview with Whitney Gantt
2. Village Phone, Grameen, farmers opportunities and gender challenges…
3. "Sharing knowledge-tell us a story"–article on KSinR project in latest New Agriculturalist

Much energy and care went into the blog, which the team used for reporting on keynote sessions, announcing presentations and updates as they became available, highlighting the main articles published in the media and in other blogs about the Congress, and publishing the occasional opinion piece on what was being discussed in the sessions.

It was a challenge having to set up a reporting process in a few days, especially since there was so much more going on during the Congress, but the energy and motivation of the people involved helped with this unprecedented task.

However, the real challenge was getting started on Twitter. First, we had to get the team organized into ’shifts’. We were lucky to have two volunteers joining us, enabling us to cover the keynote sessions. Second, we tried to keep an eye on how word was spreading about the Congress themes and speakers. And that’s when we found another ‘twitterer’ who was sharing info bits containing the Congress’ WCA2009 hashtag.

Curious and excited, Vanessa Meadu (ICRAF) and I tracked down our fellow twitterer and discovered it was Tom Vandenbosch, Programme Coordinator in the Training Unit at ICRAF. A scientist on Twitter? Yes. And much more, as you’ll find out from the following conversation we had with him.

Tom Vandenbosch (ICRAF)

[Antonella - AP]. Tom, who did you have in mind when you were tweeting from the WCA?
[Tom - TV]. Nobody in particular, because I have a few followers. It was more about taking notes and bookmarking interesting things for myself.

[AP]. How long have you been on Twitter?
[TV]. I haven’t had my personal account for a long time. I’m doing a PhD in e-learning, and as part of my studies, I have been testing many social media tools under different names.

[AP]. Did you follow the @icraf tweets?
[TV]. Yes, I followed them from the sessions. But honestly, I think it was overwhelming to have a sort of play-by-play report of what was being presented. Just the key facts emerging from the sessions would have been okay. People are following so many Twitter accounts, so it’s a bit of overloading. On another front, it helped me discover that it’s possible to have RSS feeds for hashtag searches on Twitter, so you can follow the conversations on a given topic with a RSS reader as well. Moreover, I think it’s good that we have the Twitter account labelled ICRAF, it’s short and handy to quote in re-tweets and replies.

[AP]. Do you think that tweets from the various sessions added any value to your Congress experience?
[TV]. It added a lot of value, especially because there were many things going on at the same time. They made it possible me to follow the sessions that I couldn’t attend. The next time Twitter is used for ICRAF events, there will hopefully be more followers and less irrelevant tweets. For example, a tweet like “#WCA2009 Noordwijk leaves the podium to a round of applause following a lovely sing-song!” is not very relevant to a person who is not at the event. Tweets should be used sparingly to avoid flooding followers’ Twitter streams. Potential followers will automatically be attracted to Twitter accounts that tweet high quality information, since this information can be re-tweeted by others. On the other hand, ICRAF might considerr promoting its Twitter account more widely in order to get more followers.

[AP]. Have you been to other conferences where people were on Twitter?
[TV]. I attended one in FAO last June, where some participants were posting to Twitter but not in a systematic way. But FAO now tweets from a number of interesting accounts, including faonews for news releases and related coverage, and FAOWFD for World Food Day.

[AP]. Do you have colleagues at ICRAF or other institutions who are bloggers and twitterers?
[TV]. Besides Vanessa, who blogs at ASB (Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins) and PRESA (Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa), there are some others, but I don’t know if they’re real staff, students or interns. These blogs usually contain personal stories.

[AP]. Would you recommend your colleagues at ICRAF to get engaged with social media?
[TV]. Definitely. There’s a lot of value in Web 2.0 tools, but I think we’re over-creating new blogs and Twitter accounts, instead of consolidating what we have already, including our presence on other high-impact blogs.  It would be better to liaise and engage with those who are already out there, the same way you want to be on high-impact research journals. To give you an extreme example, if Britney Spears were tweeting about trees on farms, that would be excellent. She has more than 3 million followers on Twitter now, while ICRAF has about 100.

Vanessa Meadu (ICRAF)

[Vanessa - VM]. ASB has contributed to a new blog, the Rural Climate Exchange, where the CGIAR is bringing together the Climate Change and Agriculture initiatives from across the System. Most of the content is developed by professional writers working closely with communications staff in the Centers. This type of collaboration, especially on such a high-profile issue, is bringing a lot of added value with minimal additional cost.

[TV]. When blogs get linked by popular traditional media, they often get a big boost. For example, a blog called Africa Expat Wives Club became one of the most popular blogs in Kenya after being featured in The Times.

[AP]. Do you think that social media have a role in mainstreaming agroforestry research?
[TV]. Yes, but it is different if we talk about the general public or the scientific community. With the general public, we need to target people on social networks who are interested in receiving information about agroforestry. That’s what my PhD research is all about: me-learning, a new form of e-learning, based on individual requirements, on recommendations based on the user experience history, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach. Through cookies or other existing technologies, e-learners can receive learning propositions that suit their interests, experience levels and learning styles.

The role of social media would be different within the scientific community. Scientists tend to have a more traditional approach to publishing, through papers, assessments, journals, etc. And this has an influence on how they perceive the worth of a communications channel. It could possibly take another generation of scientists to start realizing the value of social media for science.

Perhaps it would be easier for them to perceive this value if more projects used these tools to gather data, such as via SMS-based systems. I’m thinking, for example, of an adaptation of Ushahidi for the collection of scientific data from a range of specific locations. Ushahidi is a platform that crowdsources crisis information: people can report incidents via the Web, email and SMS. The reports are then aggregated, geo-referenced, browsable and searchable on the Web.

[VM]. Many projects I’m working on at the moment have a knowledge sharing and communications component built in the design, so this is changing… like with the PRESA, it was a direct request from the donor, IFAD. Impetus is coming from different places, and this could shift research priorities. Many of the scientists I work with understand the value of integrating knowledge into a proposal, with proper funding for it. Hopefully the trend is over, of asking the communications unit to churn out a policy brief at no cost, after the project is already finished.

Related posts:

1. Social media at the 2nd World Congress on Agroforestry, Nairobi
2. The Social Web at WCA2009: monitoring the buzz
3. Social Media: Are You Listening? (#5 – Social Media Tools Blog Series)

To help answer those questions, visit ‘Improving impact through knowledge sharing in research‘ the newest context page to be recently added to the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit.  The new page offers people ideas, experiences and inspiration on recommended tools and methods to share knowledge during the research project cycle.

The Knowledge Sharing toolkit has consistently provided lots of information on tools and methods for knowledge sharing. However, it has been striving to make this information more relevant and accessible to people’s needs and situations.

To help its visitors even better find what they are looking for or figure out what they may need and could use- a ‘What is your context?’ page was also developed.

The new context page on knowledge sharing in research-’Improving impact through knowledge sharing in research‘- takes people right into the research process with a basic diagram of the research cycle and its key stages.

These stages are presented as ‘entry points’ through which knowledge sharing approaches can be made use of to address certain shortcomings and limitations which traditional research may experience such as:

1. a lack of inclusion of priorities, needs and realities from the ground
2. inadequate use of other sources of knowledge in planning research
3. poor collaboration with stakeholders during research activities
4. limited understanding of how research results can most effectively be made use of
5. ineffective ways of getting knowledge to target groups
6. limited opportunities for learning within research process

To address these, the context page invites visitors to consider which stage of research they are in- and asking a key question related to improving that stage. The page then provides a list of suggested methods- both Online tools and Methods as well as Other Knowledge sharing Tools and Methods- to try out. These tools and methods are linked to other pages within the toolkit. Tags of related topics are also provided.

Example:

Stage 1: Identifying research (questions) to undertake

• How can we share knowledge, methods, experiences and ideas to help identify research questions or concepts which are necessary and will provide knowledge and solutions which will have an impact?
  Online Tools and Methods: Online Collaboration Platforms, Online Surveys, Wikis, Blogs, RSS, Discussion Forums
  Other Knowledge Sharing Tools and Methods: Impact Pathway approach, Outcome Mapping, Learning Alliances, Visioning
  Tags: relationship, collaboration, inclusion, prioritization, knowledge sharing, demand

This information has come out of the resources collected, knowledge generated and experiences of the recently concluded two-year CGIAR ICT-KM Program’s Knowledge Sharing in Research project (2007-2009). The framework on which this context page is based was developed and tested particularly through 6 Pilot Projects.

These Pilot Projects are all projects of CGIAR Centres or System-wide or Challenge Programs which proposed to pilot the use of various knowledge sharing approaches and principles in their activities. This included:

• The facilitation of sharing of methods and experiences for research prioritisation assessment which was developed into a book-lead by a CIFOR scientist

• The convening of a Farmers’ Conference to bring out the knowledge, experiences and needs of farmers to help in planning of activities of the Participatory Plant Breeding department at ICARDA

• The use of a learning alliance approach by the IWMI WASPA project to bring together relevant stakeholders to link research to action

• Another IWMI Pilot Project-working across a number of wastewater projects, made use of World Cafes, radio programs, and flip charts to figure out with target stakeholders what messages would work to promote adoption of better practices in wastewater irrigation

• The IRRI-lead Pilot Project worked with key stakeholders to understand how to write and package research results from projects working on rice in the Northern uplands of Laos, and created factsheets which were uploaded into the Laos Rice Knowledge Bank (online tool)

• The use of outcome mapping and most significant change approaches to increase the knowledge sharing and learning together with stakeholders as part of monitoring and evaluation activities by a fish culture project of WorldFish

The selection of tools for each of the stages of the research cycle is based on the results and experiences of these 6 Pilot Projects as well as other projects and other documented cases. Documentation of the Knowledge Sharing in Research project, its pilot projects and other activities  can be found on the Documentation and Outputs page of the KSinR website section.

But this is not a blue print approach and each research project needs to find what fits with its own context, needs and objectives–the tools presented in this context page are just some suggestions to help.

If you have also used knowledge sharing approaches in your research let us know what you have done and how it worked. If you try any of these suggested approaches out, also let us know how it worked. You make contributions to the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit to keep it a living and dynamic resource by signing up and adding your methods, ideas and experiences.

Related posts:

1. KSinr Pilot Project to share knowledge to improve research prioritisation at "International Workshop on Methodological innovations in Impact Assessment of agricultural research"
2. Outcome Mapping as a Knowledge Sharing approach to enhance research impact
3. WorldFish KSinR Pilot Project 're-thinks impact'-based on initial use of KS tools for M&E

Simply put, this activity allows us to measure our (the CGIAR Centers) research outputs in terms of availability, accessibility and applicability. My colleague Peter Ballantyne and I have been collecting, collating and analyzing data from various Centers to find out exactly how available and accessible their research outputs really are. But that’s a different story.

While your Center may advocate potatoes, maize, rice or tilapia to tackle the food crisis, in the longer term we all share a common goal: to reduce poverty in underprivileged communities. The science we do is practical – it has application. While classical research is also important, we do not have the luxury of time in the CGIAR. Our research has to show impact where it’s needed, and this can only be achieved if it reaches the right people in the fastest, easiest way possible.

“Now where do social media tools come in?” you may ask.

Besides our final products (journal articles, reports and other Center publications), we should consider making our research by-products, such as slideshow presentations, photograph collections and video clips, just as accessible. When we make our work available to a wider network; when our work is accessible in a way that it may be used, re-used and adapted for application; and when we make our PIGs fly; only then can we say we are truly “nourishing the future through scientific excellence”.

Last week, when I wrote about using newsfeeds to establish a scientist’s or professional’s credibility as an expert, the underlying idea was that when we share our research outputs with colleagues, peers, national partners and the scientific community at large, we create a credible resource into which others can tap. In the same vein, we can be the first place scientists or potential science partners go to when they need photos, videos, presentations, etc.

So if you wonder why you, the CGIAR scientist, should consider using social media tools to share your photos, videos, presentations, etc., here are two reasons:

• Internal: social media tools minimize email clutter. Large files that would normally clog up your inbox, can now sit comfortably on the Internet, ready for you or your colleagues to access as and when required.
• External: establish your presence as an expert. Social media tools allow you to reach many different network groups. You no longer need to stay within a tight circle of the usual suspects. You have greater outreach.

When we share our information via social media tools, we make it available and accessible in a location where everyone else is hanging out these days: the Internet. Photo, video and slideshow sharing sites often have their own search and tagging facilities that allow anyone interested to discover your information.

I’d like to stress that sharing information with social media tools does NOT mean you should give up publishing the same information on your own Website, and it most certainly does NOT replace the good practices of storing and cataloging your files in Center databases/repositories that maintain institutional memory. Imagine these tools as a variety of fishing nets that can be used to capture as many fish as possible in that huge virtual sea commonly known as the Internet.

Or as Simone Staiger-Rivas put it in her presentation on making the most out of social media, it’s about reaching out to as many users as possible. After sharing her presentation on Slideshare for just one day, five times the number of people who had seen Simone’s live presentation had seen it online – four months later, a whopping 1,839 people have viewed the presentation online.

Where to share photos, videos and slideshows

There is an overwhelming array of social media tools that can help you share photos, videos and presentations easily. Without needing any IT-related knowledge, it’s all a clichéd click away!

Photo sharing:

• You can sign up for a free account, or a “pro” account that entails a charge for unlimited uploads.
• Upload and share photos.
• Categorize photos as either public or private, and attach copyright permissions ranging from reserving all rights to sharing the photos freely for others to use.
• Photos can be organized into sets and tagged, enabling people to find specific photos and allowing publishers to point out their photos of choice.
• Re-use Flickr images, especially those labeled ‘Creative Commons’, on web pages, slide shows and publications.
  o Consider those photos you’d like to share with others, make them accessible, and assign copyrights, watermarks or Creative Commons as appropriate. Think big! Your photos could well end up on a major website or in important blog piece!
• Examples on Flickr:

o   IRRI Images and Photo Sets (note the number of views)

o   ICT-KM Knowledge Sharing Projects Photo Sets

o    WorldBank Photo Collection

• Similar to Flickr.
• Integrates well with Gmail and free server space on PicasaWeb to store photos just like Flickr.
• Share albums via a ’secret’ URL, so search engines won’t find your photos – only those people to whom you send the link. This is useful, for example, if you need someone to select pictures for a publication or a site.
• Good photo editing tools.

Video sharing:

• The biggest video sharing site at the moment.
• Huge audience base to tap into when embarking on an event or campaign.
• Videos need to be compelling as they will have to compete with thousands of others for attention.
• Keywords or tags should be well thought-out.

• Supports a variety of video formats.
• Hosting, distribution and advertising platform for creators of Web shows.
• Provides content creators with free hosting.

• More polished than YouTube.
• Growing audience base.

Examples:

• Bioversity International on YouTube
• ICT-KM on Blip-TV
• IAALD on Blip.TV
• Charity: Water

Slide presentation sharing:

• PowerPoint slides can easily become huge once you’ve added pictures – and a pain to send to colleagues. This option lets you place your slides on a website.
• Add your comments to each slide so that your audience doesn’t lose the context of your presentation.

Google Presentations:

• Lets you create, share and edit presentations online with colleagues in different locations.
• You can upload ready-made PowerPoint or pps presentations of up to 10MBs in size, which can then be shared or embedded into any website. See this handy tutorial: http://www.cgxchange.org/collaboration-tools/get-started-with-google-presentations.

Examples:

• Agroforestry
• Social Media presentations on SlideShare

I’ve only highlighted a few tools for sharing photographs, videos and presentations. For others, do go to the KS Toolkit . There are more sprouting up even as I write this. There are also social media tools that allow you to share pictures, send and receive emails, and connect with friends, all in one place. Yes, I mean Facebook, which I latched onto when Yahoo! Pictures shut down a while ago.

So as always, keep an open mind and try these tools out! There is no “ONE” perfect tool for sharing your work. We’d love to hear about your experiences using these tools, so please feel free to leave a comment.

Till next time …

My thanks to Antonella Pastore and Tania Jordan for their technical input.

Related posts:

1. Social Networks: friend or foe? (#4 – Social Media Tools Blog Series)
2. Social Media: Are You Listening? (#5 – Social Media Tools Blog Series)
3. Microblogging (#1 – Social Media Tools Blog Series)

Our work in Knowledge Sharing is featured in this month’s Making a difference edition.

Thanks to IFAD colleagues for making our work known!

Related posts:

1. Knowledge Sharing fair at IFAD – releasing trapped knowledge
2. Work of 'Knowledge Sharing in Research' Project featured in latest edition of CPWF's Water and Food Newsletter
3. Knowledge Sharing in Research featured in GFAR newsletter

The think-piece and presentation based on it given during the  Science Forum, were part of the background material contracted by the conveners of the Science Forum Workshop 3:  ICTs transforming agricultural science, research & technology generation.

The think-piece was found to be very interesting by a number of participants and it was asked whether this piece could be ‘re-published’ in other places.

Therefore, it is now available on the Web2forDev: Web2.0 for development gateway (website). To view the think piece–see the full article

Title and Opening part of the article:

Changing the Emperor: ICT-enabled collaboration transforming agricultural science, research and technology into an effective participatory and innovations system approach

The CGIAR Centres and Programs with their many partners are together creating a wealth of knowledge to help increase agricultural productivity and improve livelihoods of poor communities, primarily in developing countries. The knowledge the CGIAR produces is vital to addressing and finding solutions for food (in)security around the world.  However, despite the creation of this wealth of knowledge, certain obstacles to uptake and impact of agricultural research remain. Many of these obstacles are related to the way in which knowledge and innovation are treated within the research process.

To view the think piece–see the full article

Related posts:

1. ICT-enabled collaboration: a presentation at the Science Forum
2. Impressions from the Science Forum
3. ICARDA KSinR Farmers' Conference project chosen as one of poster winners for Science Forum 2009

Banking your knowledge for others:

An interview with Benjamin Samson from the International Rice Research  Institute (IRRI) on the KSinR Pilot Project – ‘Knowledge Management Harmonizing Research Output’

Communication is important. And how to do it. Leaflets? DVDs? Workshops?

But, regardless of method, something that should never be overlooked is the message.

Ben Samson has been thinking about all of this as Project Leader for a project working with rice farmers in Laos funded by the CGIAR Knowledge Sharing in Research Project.

“The situation we have in northern Laos is that farmers, because there is very little arable land, are constrained to grow crops on sloping areas,” he says. “Because they are cropping on sloping areas that are much more susceptible to soil erosion, the fertility of the soil rapidly decreases. You may get a good crop this year, but crop yields will be much less in the succeeding years. Typically farmers will only use land for one year. That’s the old system.”

But, while working on these issues in Laos, Ben has seen the length of time during which land is left to rest decline. He thinks that it is now beginning to cause problems.

Rice farmers in the northern uplands of Laos

“Because of increasing populations and government policy, the length of time in which land goes back into resting periods – or fallow periods – has decreased. What used to be 21 years is now only three years. That is amazing.”

Now the rice farmers in Laos – the poorest of the poor – have been forced to year-in-year-out use sloping lands that are difficult to farm.

There are agricultural researchers, scientists and government extension workers who can help. But there was a problem.

“We used to write papers and report, conduct training, transfer to extension,” says Ben. “But when we evaluated the problem we realised that those that were carrying out research were writing in a way that the extension people didn’t understand. And even if the extension agents did understand it, they didn’t know how to express it in such a way that the farmers would be able to understand it. So we recognised that there is a difference in ‘language’ between the various groups involved in transmitting technologies to farmers.”

The team decided to pilot a way of adding on to an existing  ‘knowledge bank’ of information in order to help farmers and government extension workers gain better understanding and access of the knowledge contained within the bank. They knew that they would have to be careful about how everything was phrased and said was a key issue towards understanding and usage of knowledge.

“The issues for the project were how to get researchers to write for the knowledge bank in such a way that when extension people accessed it, they would understand it,” says Ben. “And, further, how to get the extension workers to use the knowledge bank. So those were the problems we were dealing with.”

So with help from the Knowledge Sharing in Research project’s grant that was

awarded to IRRI, Ben was able to get everyone together to talk- the extension workers, the scientists, educators—all in one room. The idea was to identify the needs of the farmers and extension workers and then for the researchers to tailor their knowledge so it would be of the most use.

“That was the whole scheme of this project,” he says. “It was very simple. Get them together and get them to write for the knowledge bank in concert with each other so that they agree that the material coming out is first of all useful and second of all is understandable.”

Ben thinks that knowledge sharing and his experience through the Knowledge Sharing in Research project will inform they way he works in the future.

“What will become part of my work in the future is the impetus to make better use of the knowledge that we generate through research by making use of various knowledge sharing techniques that I have experienced using and have heard others talk about in the KSinR projects,” says Ben. “I think everyone wants to be able to make a difference in other people’s lives. I come from an academic background where writing and publishing about my work are valued activities, but these tools and methods that I have used and come in contact with make the results of my work more accessible to the people who can use it and improve their lives using it. I work in Laos and I see what it is like for people to try to survive on the meagre resources. It behoves me to try to find ways to make a difference.”

“This is one way I am making a difference – helping people have access to knowledge they can use through banking knowledge in a good way”

For more information and outputs from this project-see the IRRI Research outputs harmonisation KSinR Pilot Project page

Related posts:

1. IRRI holds first KS Workshop for Laos Rice Knowledge Bank
2. 'Sharing knowledge can save lives'-Final interview with IWMI Wastewater KSinR Pilot Project
3. IRRI News Bulletin highlights the Knowledge Sharing in Research Project and its Pilot Projects

It’s good to talk:

An interview with Alexandra Clemett from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) on the KSinR Pilot Project – ‘Learning Alliances for Wastewater Agriculture and Sanitation for Poverty Alleviation (WASPA-LA)’

Achieving complex change often involves many different people, with many different priorities, who are engaged in many different things. And, if you need all of them to cooperate for your change to be successfully implemented, you have quite a challenge.

This was the challenge faced by Alexandra Clemett, Project Leader of a Knowledge Sharing in Research Pilot Project awarded to IWMI, when working on a wastewater agriculture project in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

“In each of the cities where we work you’ll quite often have different organisations that are responsible for quite similar things,” says Alex. “You might have the urban development authority that does the planning and then the municipal council that has to implement. So you really need them to know what each other is doing, planning together and working very closely.”

Different stakeholders need to be connected

And this has not been happening-the results of which are reflected in sectoral planning, poor communication among government officials, no involvement of community members, lack of knowledge about other sectors and alternative technologies, and, sometimes, ignorance that wastewater irrigation is even taking place.

The team decided to use a ‘Learning Alliances’ approach to try to bring people together to share knowledge and collaborate more effectively to achieve their goals.

Stakeholders getting together to discuss in the WASPA Learning Alliance

“The idea was to bring all the different stakeholders together to talk to each other and understand each others’ issues so that they could try to build a better plan for addressing the wastewater and sanitation situation in the two Cities. So we brought together the municipal council, the water board, local government officials, the hospital, local people and farmers. We tried to bring in universities, too, because they could potentially bring in technical solutions.”

“A Learning Alliance is supposed to have platforms at different levels: National, intermediate, and community – which bring stakeholders together to promote and facilitate learning within them and also between the different levels. It is very strongly focused on effective sharing of knowledge and not just bringing people together.”

Although she believes knowledge sharing was useful, Alex says that she would, in the future, use an altered version of  the particular approach chosen- the Learning Alliance- if at all.

“The approach was very time-consuming and a lot of the research became geared towards learning about and evaluating the Learning Alliance methodology itself.”

“Unfortunately we haven’t really had any research results on whether this new approach improved health or livelihoods,” she says. “I think, whilst the method was useful, it was really time-consuming. I would not use it in that way again. I would modify it and use particular elements of it. And I wouldn’t even call it a Learning Alliance, because that just confused people. Not everyone knows the names of these types of approaches. It is what they do to serve a project which is better to focus on.”

For Alex, the overall goal of the project was to find ways that wastewater can be managed properly so that household sewage and industrial waste does not enter the canals which then run into the paddy fields. While this overarching ambition wasn’t completely achieved, something did happen while the project was running. People became more aware of the issues involved.

This is not something that Alex underestimates.

“If what we have achieved by the time the project ends is that all of the stakeholders are much more aware of the issue, then we still will have achieved a lot” she says.

Some people didn’t even know that wastewater was being used for agriculture, says Alex.

“And some didn’t want to know because it’s actually illegal. But because these farmers don’t have access to better quality water they just go ahead and use it. So I think that at least some of the people who were involved in the planning and management of wastewater through the Learning Alliance now have better understanding of the issues.”

The idea to involve universities in the Learning Alliance also achieved some new awareness and change amongst the other stakeholders.

“We’ve got some universities doing studies on small–scale appropriate treatment,” says Alex. “In the beginning the municipal councils were just not interested in things like this. They just wanted large–scale treatment, but now they’re starting to realise that these are good options that they can potentially achieve and potentially afford.”

So even if the situation has not been completely resolved, some changes – especially in awareness – have happened from the various stakeholders coming together and sharing knowledge in the Learning Alliance.

So it is in fact good to talk.

For more information and outputs from this project- see the IWMI WASPA LA KSinR Pilot Project page

Related posts:

1. 'Sharing knowledge can save lives'-Final interview with IWMI Wastewater KSinR Pilot Project
2. Second KSinR M&E Pilot Project visit- to IWMI WASPA LA in Sri Lanka
3. 'Vietnamese Visions'-Final interview with WorldFish KSinR Pilot Project

1. Workshop Announcement
2. Introductions Summary: A Mind Map
3. Conference Call 1A Summary
4. Conference Call 1B Summary
5. The Challenge of introducing new tools: About attitudes and preferences
6. The web site is not the community: it’s the people
7. You Mean Unfinished is Good? Yes!
8. Workshop Evaluation

For information about social media tools, please go to the KS Toolkit at www.kstoolkit.org.

Related posts:

1. Updates from Social Media Workshop 2 (VI)
2. Updates from Social Media Workshop 2 (IV)
3. Social Media: Are You Listening? (#5 – Social Media Tools Blog Series)