Question 1: What are we sharing and what needs to be shared?

Key questions addressed in the SADC AICKMS matrix for the development of a regional AICKMS:

Current Status of Communication and Knowledge Management:

1. Current status of knowledge on AR&D (what do they know)

2. Contribution: What knowledge can the stakeholder contribute on (AR&D)

3. Current attitude towards AR&D

4. Current practices: Channels/mode/of comm. & KM on AR&D

Definition of information needs and appropriate packaging:

5. What are their information needs on AR&D

6. Why do they need that information on AR&D

7. Who could provide this information on AR&D

8. What channels of communication to use to provide info on AR&D

Challenges and proposed action plan

9. Challenges faced to access the information

10. Challenges faced to make the information available

11. Proposed actions/activities to overcome constraints

Now, the similarities with the tasks on this forum is striking. So since Krishan is on this forum, may be I would invite him to take this matrix concept applicability w.r.t our current task forward.

In my opinion "Target" is a key word for answering this question.

What kind of information we share depends first of all on the overaal goal of information sharing - should it facilitate the work of scientists or should relevant infirmation/ the information platform also rais the interest of other stakeholders like policy makers etc

If the latter, the information base has to address certain target groups which will easily loose their interest in the djungle of research papers, directly, has to index less scientific-like sources and has on long-term to provide meta-data, in that sense that research results are summarized for non-scientists.

Furthermore, target-oriented search, is crucial for scienists as well - compared to the internet, the data base has to provide a guide through the landscape of information potentially available. - If the information base only meets the challenge to register the links of all Libraries with specific ARD relevance, 95% of internationally published journals in this field and further open sources, a considerable step has been done and technical refinements, which may indeed be relevant like indexing may follow.

Such an initial situation could be an incentive (beside those already mentioned by other participants in this forum) not only to use the data base but also to contribute to the data base, keep their interest and to care it.

Another will be as already mentioned in another context to make tacit knowledge from stakeholders who should benefit from ARD, accessable, which is particularly relevant for socio-, politically, and economically research. From personal experience, I would say for this an additional data base on experts ordered to region and topics might be most helpful.

I totally agree

Last year, during a regional workshop, a colleague was reminding us of the guidelines of writing news articles as we discussed RSS feeds. He reminded us of the 5Ws that we need to address when we write an article (What happened, When, Where, To/By Who, Why). Then he added that we also now add the H (How)...

The audience was in a good mood and started to add a few of their own and we ended up with:

Who did What with Whom, How, Where, When and Why? (WWWHWWW)

Then someone added another W:

What will it take to do the same? (not just cost, but also other resources)

and finally another RSS-savvy person added another W:

Weblink?

So sharing news in the age of RSS feeds may now be summarised as :

WWWWHWWWW!

Who? did What? with Whom? When? How? Where? Why? What did it require? Weblink?

Does this principle improve the way we now want to share information? I can see some people itching to add a few more alphabets to this list...

"Data" is maybe too general. Maybe we ca distinguish

statistics

data from research

catalogues of things (e.g. germplasms)

........

Assume that be resources you mean links to information sources?

I have been reading the responses so far to Q1 and many of them of have talked about the audience for shared information.  We've seen discussions about African researchers, the needs of small holder farmers, those with a specific interest that are addressed with projects like the Borlaug Wheat Rust project, etc. 

However,  I'd like to suggest that in the context of "what kind of information is shared" that the audience is not the end user of the information.  Granted,  the information being shared is not really useful unless it provides  end users get a tangible benefit, but when discussing about what kind of information can/should be shared, aren't we really talking about the sharing of information between systems?   To me,  in order satisify the desires of users like Johanness with the description of a customizable "smart" desktop,  or researchers in the field,  that interaction is between the end users of information and some sort of delivery platform.

Technologies such as RSS, OAI-PMH, LOD, etc. are just tools for encapsulating information, perhaps structuring that information and including linkages to related information but they don't try to dictate how that information is formatted or how it should be delivered to end users.

To me, when we talk about the "audience" for information that is  going to be shared, the audience is other systems.   In order to be successful, the interoperability between systems providing (sharing) information and other systems consuming that information, is the crux of what we should be discussing here.  That means identifying and agreeing upon useful standards like OAI-PHM, LOD as RDF, and ensuring that the systems that are sharing information support those techonolgies sufficiently.  Once a system is able to consume shared  information, it's really up to the system (and those that develop it) as to how it's delivered.

I do think that "discovery" of   the type of information that is being shared is an important piece here.   For example,  a site which is delivering content related to Aquaculture is going to want to be able to discover and consume information from other systems providing information about Aquaculture.  This is where systems like the CIARD RING come in.  

In any case, as we move forward in the questions in the consultion I think we'll find more clarity between information sharing and information delivery. 

In my experience of working with lots of diverse socio-economic and bio-physical data at CIMMYT and CIAT, I did not notice resistance by researchers to share their data, however, they expressed concerns that some data might be incorrectly interpreted. For instance, when seeing the first results of data analysis, several decisions might need to be taken, e.g. whether to exclude or include outlayers, whether to consult original field data to correct obvious errors, etc.  Outsider, not being familiar with the context, might not be able to take correct decisions, and therefor come to different results. 

I am very happy to be with the discussion of this hot topic.   I agaree with what the theme of the subject. The main thing we wish to establish is the transormation of technology from developed nations to the underdeveloped and developing nations.  In this regard, the CIMMYT has to take much initiative.  As I feel, the initiative in this issue is very less.  Let the international organizations taken into consideration of knowlege manaagement and technology transfer, as both of them are main research oriented aspects to enhance the efficiency of resources.

This is an example from Mauritius.

http://areu.mu/apmis/

http://areu.mu/apmis/fcs/dataview.php

Above is an example where data is not being processed into some information package. It is being delivered to the crop producers community 'almost live' (with a delay of 2-4 weeks) and figures displayed are what were collected in the field.

You also have figures for prices.

Farmers accessing the website can now have an indication of the surface area under cultivation (new plantations) and based on previous prices can anticipate approximate prices of their produce in the market at havest.

Obviously, this allows farmers to better plan their production, such that

1. they do not flood the market and get low prices

2. ensure regular supply of produce

3. invest in commodities that will fetch them a better price (=avoid shortage of produce)

And all this = food security.

The APMIS is implemented by the AREU - Agricultural Research & Extenson Unit. It is not perfect but u can see the potential.

Through this example, I wanted to point out that:

1. These figures although intended for farmers, are also being used by researchers, extensionists, lecturers, policy makers, ngos etc... Each harnessing the figures as per their needs.

2. APMIS is providing raw data (although you also have the possibility to populate charts) - which means that to a certain level, when it can make sense, we can share raw figures instead of packaged information. But then we need to make sure that the figures can be understood universally.

Any thoughts?

It is thrilling to see all the comments coming. But, pls let us keep focus.

This thread is about: What are we sharing and what needs to be shared?

Let us not confuse our colleagues with the HOWs and PROCESSES of sharing.

Surely, they can be tackled under therads:

2. What are the prospects for interoperability in the future?
3. What are the emerging tools, standards and infrastructures?

So let us keep focus!

One of the main questions I had in reading the intro doc was "Is it important to share social networking data?" It is easy to agree that research publications and field data are important areas to focus on for sharing, but in order not to spread ourselves too thin, do we need to set some limits on how much is enough.

I know from working with CrisisCommons that there are structured tweets, email chains and skype chats that are important to capture for future reference. Forums are perhaps more formal ways of capturing discussions, but in some cases the immediacy of chat is necessary. Do we rely on the conversation participants to capture the info into more traditional forms (wikis, summary papers) or do we need to somehow tap into live discussions? What does this entail when older chats/emails may be archived?

In the effort to translate research results for the smallholder end user, perhaps we should consider the limitation of agronomy and other bio-technical research developed from small plot analysis, particularly those with a high manual labor component such as land preparation and weeding. The agronomic research does an excellent job of determining the phyiscal potential of a given environment, BAS!!! What it can not do is measure the drag on this potential resulting from the limited operational resources available to extend the research from the small plot to the whole farm, particular for smallholder who may only have sufficeint calories to work 3 or 4 hrs per day, if lucky.

The problem is that this whole idea has fallen through the cracks into what appears as an administrative void in the research/development process. Who is responsible for determing the amount of labor and other operational resouces needed and available to manage the land either at the farm level or the community level. The latter when involving hired casual labor that migrates through a community. Historically the default has to be concider it infinite or at least unlimited. This is doubtful.

Thus who is or should be responsible to determine if the farmers can effectively use the technology promoted for their benefit? Or conversely given the labor available how long will it take to complete various activities and how will that impact on the yields, quality or other factors. Is it the agronomist, but they are poorly trained for this analysis? Is it the economist, they can tell what is needed but usually fall short of the amount available? Is it the sociologist? who. I think there is a whole set of information that needs to be evaluated in integrating the research results to the smallholders' limited capacity to utilize the data.

Thank you,

Dick Tinsley

Continusing on the previous contribution and effort to relate research results to smallholder agriculture it might be useful to make a distingtion between the science and art of farming. In this case:

Science vs. Art

The science of farming is the result of the research effort that as mentioned previously is largely defining the physical potential of the environment and represent the maximum yield potential. This is all well documented and effectively shared among the agriculture scientists including extension officers. As mentioned before it does not factor in the drag imposed by the limited resources available to manage land and assume the are no restriction.

The art of farming is the manner individual farmers, smallholder or large, optimize the science of farming to the limited resources they have to manage their land and the different enterprises they are involved to maximize their total returns to all farm enterprises, deliberating reducing the returns to some enterprises to optimize the returns to others. This may not be as well documented and may actually be difficult to generalize, but needs to be appreciated. But as mentioned previously this is the drag the limited resources places on the physical potential.

Research/Extension vs. Development

In this case the role of the research/extension officers working from experiment stations or relying on the result of experiment station work is broad base mandate to develop and promote the maximum yield potential of area. Basically a top down technology transfer activity. 

The development officer, usually working through some NGO and in a more confined area of a beneficiary community is mandated to take a closer look at the research information and work with the farmers to optimize their use of the technology with the limted resources available. It also includes facilitate access to such additional operational resources as contract tractors for basic land preparation that will expedite activities and allow better use of the research information. This also needs to be fed back up, but that link tends to be considerable weaker than the downward flow. However, the research/extension programs need to be much more aware of the limited resources farmers have to accept the research results, and not simply write off the lack of use to lack of interest or limited knowledge, etc. This is where some additional information needs to be developed and distributed.

 http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/Adoptors.htm

 http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/Integration.htm 

I hope this makes some sense,

Thank you,

Dick Tinsley

I work with the Grameen Foundation which is currently implementing a Community Knowledge Worker Project in Uganda funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  We are deploying a network of Community Knowledge Workers, equiped with phones, to provide actionable agricultural information to their communities.  We would like to be in a position to more easily share that information coming from research institutions with small holder farmers.  

There are a few obstacles to that sharing including:

• Content is in many different forms: books, .pdfs, .xls etc
• It is often too complex for the average small holder farmer to use
• It may or may not be appropriate to the geographic area of the small holder farmer

We would like to see a common format for sharing agricultural information that makes it easy for small holder farmer service providers like ourselves to push that info to small holder farmers.  In our early thinking we envision this format would use tags both subject and geographic coupled with a standard simple language, and a standard format for the length of the agricultural tip.  It would be good to know how others would tackle this problem.

Best,

Jason 

The clients for information diversify geographically, economically, socially, from a wide range of literacy, and practice and there are language barriers amongst. Therefore, a unified information system cannot provide an answer to all players. Almost none would be interested to know that the north-east edge of a certain tomato field was infested with Helicoverpa armigera by the end of April.  But for the neighbor grower, this information might be indispensable. If integrated pest management is practiced in the region, then the moderators would want to know what pesticide was applied. Crop growers fifty km away would be alerted that there is a changed trend in pest population and might start with prophylactic measures. The target market might be interested to know that crop reduction might be expected and would look for alternative sources.

Everyone in the food chain uses as much information as they can get and digest. The level of details should harmonize with the needs and abilities. The data that is available to the user should match his language, terminology and cultural associations.

A network of distributed information systems allows local centers to manage their information efficiently. They can efficiently ensure data veracity and integrity. These local centers can be located and managed in farms or regional centers. They should be able to provide information services to queries from other centers, and that requires to have adequate thesaurus systems to ensure that differences in terminology would not render the erroneous information.

The fear from sharing information can better be managed locally where culture issues can be handled by natives to the region, yet this is certainly a long process.

Two observations on this a personal and a more institutional although in the latter i don not represent the institutional policy per se.

From a personal perspective you share what you would like to share and usually sharing in a trusted network with peers gives more confidence that the knowledge shared is (hopefully) used and applied. Sharing beyond a trusted network has more things to consider such as for instance speaking at a conference to share findings of a survey or publishing in a journal.

The role of our International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is to act as a regional knowledge learning and enabling centre. In general we consider the generated knowledge within our Centre as a public good and our findings are freely available on our Internetsite. In addition we host visiting scientists from all over the world doing specific redearch on climate change, hydrology, biodiversity and share with them data and information. In reaching out to grassroots level we could do more but face often financial barriers to make our knowledge avaliable in local or regional languages or ensure that our knowledge is disseminated through more appropriatechannels such as radio, drama and the like but within our means we are trying to get the best leverage of our research findings. One of the avenues we are experimenting reaching out is through youth networks, e-discussions and social media.

I have been scanning through messages. It is quite a caleidoscope and I may have overlooked but I miss one dimension: creating new knowledge by combining things from different sources.

Let  me take the example of climatic change:

Climatic change affects the environment in which agriculoture operates. But it also causes climatic change, emitting CO2 ,  methane etc. And it can also mitigate climatic change by absorbing gases like CO2, N2O etc. To get an overview of how all these processes interact one has to combine

- climatic data

- economic / social data at farm level

- spatial information

- crop growth data

and more. An example of an attempt to develop a model combining these things is http://www.seamless-ip.org/

Scientists from different disciplines will have to learn to talk to each other, as they are used to communicate in the very specific language of their specialization. A biomathematician said about working with social scientists: "you really have to be patient and like each other to make it work". But can we make  the different types of data talk to each other? That  is an issue that we can discuss under question 2  on this forum.

It is true, that interdisciplinarity might be challenging on the one hand, but mostly very fruitful on the other hand.

From the perspective of integrated rural devevelopment, which follows an horizontal approach, it is no novelty and evaluation results show resulting synergies if applied at regional level.

Nevertheless it has proved difficult to bring the different stakeholder together and make them successfully communicating, both, at local and national/ international level. Examples for the latter are for instance EU driven National Rural Networks across Europe. 

Just to remind everybody that the forum thread on question 2 is open!

I am a software engineer working as an Intern/Consultant at CIMMYT, www.cimmyt.org.

I mainly work on a project called Wheat Atlas, wheatatlas.cimmyt.org

The majority of my work at the moment involves collecting data on biotic and abiotic stresses for wheat and i have been communicating with over 1200 stations that we at CIMMYT have an established relationship with to collect data, through means of a survey, to populate the Wheat Atlas. Most stations have replied and we have gathered, over the past 6 months a working level of data on wheat diseases mostly from developing countries, data for which is live.

In addition to this searchable database, we have also started looking at future possibilities of integrating social networking into the Wheat Atlas, but at the moment this is on the back-burner due to concerns that much of the scientific community in Wheat is not fully engaged yet with using social media. However, CIMMYT does utilise and have a presence on facebook and twitter.

We also, are in the process of implementing a fully searchable directory of individuals and institutions working in wheat.

Wheat Atlas also holds data to do with country Wheat Statistics and data as well as information on Megaenvironments and wheat types/varieties. More data on Wheat Diseases & Pests are found on another CIMMYT website, Wheat Doctor, wheatdoctor.cimmyt.org

I hope this is of interest to this discussion and look forward to discussing this further on this discussion board.

Please indulge me while I provide a brief discription of the economic and administrative environment found in most developing countries and how that could impact on data that can realistically be collected and how information flows.

Financiall Suppressed Economy

I usually define the economy of developing countries as financially suppressed. I confess that is my own term and the economists may have more academic term to describe the situation. What I mean by this is that while consumer prices, particularly of goods produced in country, maybe 1/3 to 1/5th what they are in the US or EU, wages are perhaps 1/12th what they are in the US or EU. The result is that while we may spend 15% of our income for food, out colleague may be spending 65% and smallholder beneficiaries may be spending in excess of 80% of their wages or produce. The result is that, since you cannot tax what people have to spend to survive, the tax base for which to provide civil services including support for agriculture programs of most governments becomes virtually non existant.  

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/FinancialSuppressed.htm

Financially Stalled Government

The major impact of this on agriculture services is that the are no operating funds to undertake programs. Virtually all government revenue must go to meet the contract obligations of the civil officers, after that very little is available for fuel for transportation, laboratory supplies, and field supplies, etc. Thus unless supported by some NGO project officers have little choice but to sit around their offices hoping to get some support, or under take consulting opportunities for some of the larger farmers who can afford to pay for the services. This is not a conflict of interest as it would be in the US, but perhaps the best opportunity for officers to come in contact with growers.

The result is that most of the research is deferred to collaboration with NGO with the most noticable the variety development work in colloaboration with the CGIAR centers. Also, most of the extension is in collaboration with NGO as part of development projects, and extension personnel migrating from project to project where supplemental income is available. The host officers ultimately ending up with supporting roles. Data collection is also limited to what can be easily observed with limited potential for any supporting laboratory analysis.

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/FinanciallyStalled.htm

It also means that many of the services available on paper may not be up to international standards. Perhaps the prime example would be certified seed and regardless of how well trained or motivated the certification team may be if they don't have the funding to make 3 field visits a season nor the supplies for running germination test, then the program has to operate mostly on the honor system.

http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/VarietyImprovement.htm

Under these conditions libraries are mostly irrelivant with books left over from expatriates project and well out of date, journals subsctiptions are impossible to maintain. Thus what is left is the freely circulated material like that coming from FFTC in Tawain and used to come through DIFD until funding ended.

Fortunately there is the internet but the most reliable and sustainable would be from the cafe near the offices as these computers tend to be maintained and serviceable while those associated with host government offices tend to break down after which there are no means of repair.

Kind of a dismal picture, but I think fairly realistic.

Thank you,

Dick Tinsley

Dear All,

I work in NARO Uganda. I have been away facilitating an International Course in Participatory Planning Monitoring and Evaluation in the Netherlands. I returned this week. I am glad to be part of this discussion and to appreciate the level of discussion already going on. The topics discusses are very partnent to agricultural research and development especially in Africa. I will add my voice tomorrow to this main topic and I will contribute to all later

Dear All,

Good day!

Data sharing in Web 2.0 based ICT initiatives suffers from jumbling of data which does not recognize the end user--whether it is for researchers, extension specialist, farmer, policy maker, so on and so forth. A multi-stage data storage management system with proper credit of sharer is essential.

Thanks and regards.

In agriculture sector we are sharing both basic and applied information notably, market information, information regarding improved technologies including varieties, breeds, husbandry practices, processing or value addition and appropriate engineering. It is important to note that it is a small population that is “truly” sharing. Many people all over the world even in developed countries do not want to share. It is worse In Africa where researchers want to receive or access information that is available but they do not want to make theirs available for others. This is poor culture which we have lived with and it will take long to get out of us. Many breakthrough findings are many times kept in individuals’ homes or computers. However, the younger generation is very open to making their information and knowledge accessible. There are some who need to share but they do not know the different ways of making their information and knowledge accessible. This requires capacity development to gain skills in how to do it. ICT infrastructure in some organizations is poor. Computers are shared if available, otherwise it is only the head of the organization who has a computer (his or her secretary), Internet access is inadequate and very slow and in some cases applications that allow sharing are not available to the extent that no matter how much one want to avail what he or she has, it is impossible. Lobbying for continued Investing in ICT by countries and organizations will go a long way to equip the researchers and supporting staff with prerequisite infrastructure.

Research scientists typically collect data, analyse the data to produce results, then write the results up in a paper.  

Notice something odd about this?  Yes, that's right: data and papers get a good mention in the introduction to this topic, and extensively in the many posts, while you have to look very hard indeed to find anything that vaguely touches on results.    

Now, this is really very strange, because:

• The results are the main thing the authors wish to communicate - that's why they did the research in the first place;
• Results are, in general, readily represented in a formal, symbolic way - we can easily come up with an XML Schema for (say) a regression equation;
• Publishing results as (say) XML enormously increases our ability to search for and find relevant information (compared with a text search through loads of pdfs);
• Many results describe relationships between quantities (typical paper: "the effect of A on B").   Expressing results symbolically means that the universe of all such results constitutes a massive, navigatable network - a genuine web of knowledge; and
• Generating this information could be virtually automatic - you just get your stats package to produce some XML as well as plain-text output.

So, in response to the question "What needs to be shared", I would put in a strong plea for research results.  If that's too broad, then "research results obtained by statistical analysis of raw data" would be a pretty good place to start.  

(I realise that there are plenty of issues regarding standard ontologies etc, but as a first approximation these are the same as the ones relating to actual data, so this suggestion does not introduce major additional barriers to implementation).

Good day,

I'm Sandra from Seychelles. Been wanting to participate in this forum since last week but our server was down, and this week when we are having internet connection its a health related issue keeping me from participating.

Nevertheless I will just give my view and experience from Seychelles for the past 2 years.

As mentioned by another participant, information in the context of Africa have not really been shared yet we all want information from others. Anything to do with research has been regarded as personal belonging or that of an institution. This is something which needs to be changed. If we really want whatever work we've done in terms of research, to be applied and help in the development of Agriculture and achieving food security, the only way forward will be to share the information. Even if we are not personnally acknowledge for the effort, at least we will get the personal satisfaction that we've made a difference.

In Seychelles under a SADC project we came to realise that we are having so much information lying in hard or electronic copies in different offices and results after so much hard work were not being used to help our stakeholders. Following our stakeholder information need assessment as explained by Sanjay and Krishan earlier, we manage to identify our stakeholders, their info needs, knowledge they were having and wanted to share and the medium they wanted the information to be given to them and the time they wanted it. So we started to compile the information that already existed so that they fit the requirement of our stakeholders. We have gone further to include the stakeholders in coming up with research program, by getting them to identify the areas they want to be addressed and prioritized their needs. We have started to put more emphasis on on-farm trials as requested by the farmers themselves. Hence it is easier to accept the results and apply it to increase their production. Since farmers are also invited to view on farm trials and result presentation in meetings, interaction between different stakeholders has increased and we have noticed that indegenous knowledge are also being shared. There is now information and knowledge sharing in a two way.

To conclude information were not being really shared, but now information which are of use and help in achieving food security are being given to different stakeholders and are being used accordingly. They include, plant protection, nutrient & water management, economic profitability, protected environment to name just a few.

Now the way forward is to put all the information on a website, where, other stakeholders can access the latter and make use of it.

Hi, Nikos from Agro-Know Technologies, working in the context of the VOA3R EU project (http://voa3r.eu) will collecting and exposing research publications and data sets, and in the context of the Natural Europe EU project (www.natural-europe.eu) with biodiversity collections/data.

We are trying to follow the whole process of researchers (working with a viticulture group and a herbarium as initial case studies) and documenting the steps that they follow (lifecycle) as well as the types of information/data that they collect and use. This helps us discover research data that are used in the process but not visible at the final stage (e.g. regular observations of some particular plant, geo/time-tagged photos and notes on the observation) as well as the format in which this information is collected and stored (usually in traditional media like notepads and CDs with photos).

We feel that a real challenge is using very simple media/tools/networks in order to help researchers collect and organise this information, without interfering with their regular processes. And at the back end, we want all this information to be exposed to the rest of the research community (the ideal/magical scenario that Johannes was describing).

Another interesting source of information is scientific but not formal sources such as Web2.0 environments. Scientists' tweet feeds or blogs are often a source of scientific information for non experts or in informal ways - e.g. sharing quickly ideas, material, news around some scientific topic. We are interested into ways to aggregate, filter, and present this information to expert and non-expert audiences.