CGXchange Project

Status

Concluded in 2008, the Project output lives online at cgxchange.org; read more about CGXchange 2.0

History

The CGXchange Project was born out of the need for collaboration between the Centers and their partners, support for communities, and the sharing of common information. As such, a common portal technology in the CGIAR was seen as the best vehicle to achieve this.

CGXchange’s portal technology created a gateway that allowed users to access all CGIAR information, tools and services through a central entry point. With the launch of this intranet/extranet system, which spanned the CGIAR’s 15 Centers and beyond, the more than 8,500 scientists and members of staff (partners were to be included at a later date) had the opportunity to come together as a unified system – regardless of their location. People working in more than 100 geographically scattered locations were given the opportunity to share information and collaborate in a way unprecedented in the history of agricultural research.

While the technical platform was established, with the first set of tools and some applications on board, there was a need for more content; mechanisms for sustaining the provision of this content; and training. The system also needed to be opened up to CGIAR partners.

The general objective of this Project was to make CGXchange fully and sustainably operational and an indispensable tool for most if not all CGIAR staff, as well as for CGIAR partners. However, there was a marked decrease of adoption of the portal concept, partly due to the software platform selected for the portal and the cost involved, so it was decided to dismiss the BEA Aqualogic platform and invest the reduced funds in EasyMTP/CGMap. Regarding collaboration technologies, a case study of the Google Apps suite or tools was conducted between June and September 2008 and was positively received and tested by 200 users across the System. The Program then decided to provide the Google Apps platform to meet the requirements of online collaboration and information sharing.

Lead Administrative Center

Bioversity International (Bioversity)

Project Coordinator

Antonella Pastore