Dear Colleagues,

Collaborate, Create, Communicate..

Welcome to 2004. With enormous help from Florine, I am pleased to re-start the tradition of providing you all with an update on the developments around the ICT-KM program.

This is a tool for all of us, so if you like to provide comments, ideas, text to be shared, news .... please send your contributions to ictkm@cgiar.org.

Some of the items below ask for your contribution....please provide your input!

The last twelve months have seen unprecedented growth for our ICT-KM program. It is now time to meet the new challenges and opportunities the New Year has to offer. Last year we saw the program growing from an idea to a full-fledged program originating and supporting exciting projects and championing talents and efforts by the centers. This year will be another big year for the ICT-KM Program. With the implementation of ICT-KM Investment Plan 2004 expected to start in February 2004, and many more activities planned, there will be plenty of opportunities ahead for us all.

ICT-KM 2004
INVESTMENT PLAN DEVELOPMENTAL UPDATES

On 28 January 2004, the ICT-KM Investment Plan 2004 was submitted to the ICT-KM Sub-Committee of the Center Directors Committee. The Investment Plan describes the CGIAR ICT-KM Strategy and the rationale for supporting a portfolio of projects designed to address the goals of this Strategy. The Plan together with a set of 15 Projects was submitted to the Advisory Group and External Review Panel for revision. The External Review Panel was represented by Dr Bob Day (Chair of Panel), Dr Nancy Hafkin, Robert Valantin and Prof M M Pant.

On 21 January 2004, an audio conference was held with the ICT-KM Sub-Committee of the Center Directors Committee to discuss issues arising from the review. Between 21 and 27 January, we incorporated the decision of the ICT-KM Sub-Committee into the Plan.

The Investment Plan is currently with the ICT-KM sub-committee. We are hoping to soon obtain the approval to the Plan and the go-ahead to start implementing the projects.

As the Chair of the External Review Panel (ERP), said, The strategic ICT-KM/S process currently being undertaken by the CGIAR shows that the organization is a pioneer in this area.

The funding now available from the World Bank presents an excellent opportunity to implement these projects that we believe will make a significant difference for our research agenda and the vitality of the CG as a whole.

I would like to take this opportunity to personally commend our Project Coordinators and the Advisory Group members who worked extremely hard the past few months to complete the projects documentation. We look forward to the fruits of your hard work bringing benefits to CGIAR system as a whole.

I will keep you updated on the developments!

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PROJECT UPDATES

Collaboration Software

A study on practices and recommended software was carried out last year and 3 software packages were recommended for adoption. This year we will concentrate in updating the software review to ensure it is relevant to our needs.

There is an interesting discussion going on among IT managers and we are currently searching for expertise / volunteers / consultants to facilitate this project.

Should you know any suitable candidate, please forward their CV or credentials to us.

Library Consortium

The signing of Multi-Site License agreements with CABI Publishing and Kluwer Academic Publishers has brought about additional savings to CGIAR as a whole. This consortium-style subscription allows participating members to share online access to list of journals electronically at a much lower subscription rates than by individual centers. The agreement with CABI is for a duration of one year starting 2004 and Kluwer two years. To date we have five multi-site license agreements signed.

The Library and Information Services Consortium (CG-LISC) is considered within the CGIAR as one of the most successful cross-center activities. The benefits of this consortium beside bringing considerable savings to CGIAR includes increasing efficiency and reducing the duplication of work in the CG system, sharing of resources and knowledge within the CGIAR and partner institutions, facilitating the access to information for all centers and partners as well as contributing to reduce poverty and hunger through the dissemination of GC research output.

I take this opportunity to thank all the Library and Information Services Consortium (CG-LISC) members for a job well done!

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TECHNICAL CORNER...

Active Directory Project

With ICRISAT successfully joining the CGIAR Active Directory forest on 19 December 2003 and ILRI on 23 January 2004, we now have 9 sites on the Active Directory system, 5 sites scheduled to do so by May and 2 sites to plan for.

ICRAF, ICARDA and IFPRI have scheduled to join the forest in February. Also in the queue for joining the Active Directory forest are IWMI in March and WARDA in May. IITA will soon provide a final schedule date and IRRI will follow, as they have always declared that they would like to be last to join.

Reminder: weekly updates on the Active Directory project are posted on the IT collaboration site at http://forum.ipgri.cgiar.org/cg-it/. Please check the site for details.

Exchange 2003

With the completion of Active Directory migration in sight and following the IT Group discussion last year about Exchange 2003 upgrade, I had requested CGNET to provide a proposal on supporting the migration of the CGIAR centers to Exchange 2003 within the current Active Directory and NT infrastructure.

The proposal was sent to CG-IT Listserv on 28 January for their inputs and comments. As the lead time between starting the project and migrating the first center is approximately 4 months, we look forward to closing the negotiations with CGNET and starting the project.

CGNET Contract

At the IT Managers meeting in Mexico in June 2003, it was agreed that the services offered by CGNET are of very high standards. However, concerns were expressed on the pricing scheme. Given the fact that the migration to Active Directory may not have been completed by the time the contract expires, the meeting recommended an extension of the current contract with some minor modifications. As the current contract will expire on 31 March 2004, the negotiation with CGNET is currently underway proposing to provide more services to the system at more competitive prices. We expect that by early February we should receive the new proposal from CGNET.

I am receiving names for volunteers from the IT managers community who would like to join me in the negotiation with CGNET.

Good Practice Notes on Usage of Emails

Following IT audits last year, four good practice notes in cooperation with the CGIAR System Office Internal Audit Unit were produced in the area of IT management ranging from IT Risk assessment to IT Performance Indicators to IT Business Continuity Planning. These Notes are useful for helping to avoid unnecessary duplication and for encouraging the adoption and adherence to best practices, standards, policies and procedures. In the coming year the Program plans to develop another series of notes on issues such as Data security, Connecting laptops to your network and Computer virus countermeasures. Ideas on topics to be addressed are welcome!

TECHNOLOGY WATCH

Let's keep a regular watch for emerging ICTs of potential interest to the CGIAR....

• Have you heard about any new technology that is applicable to CG and we can learn? Share this news with the whole community.
  
• Currently we have a good team of consultants whom we can utilize regularly. However, we feel that we may want to expand this roster of consultants. If you come across any potential candidates please forward their CV or credential to us.

Web Usage Information

In 2003 we witnessed a huge increase in the volume of access to our websites and databases. We are now looking into the figures in detail to understand trends, patterns and any interesting insights that this data can provide. I will get back to you with information as soon as the review analysis is finalized.

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Collaborate, Create, Communicate...

this is the motto of the ICT-KM Program. We believe that by expanding the CGIAR's opportunities to work together and communicate we will produce better science to help poor in developing countries, and we will get that knowledge to them.

Your comments are especially welcome. Please visit the Website, http://ictkm.cgiar.org/ or write to ictkm@cgiar.org with comments and/or ideas for the next monthly update.

Working together for a better future,

Enrica