For those of you who may be reviewing the archives of the Opening Access to CGIAR Research and Knowledge e-consultation, you can find the summary of the discussions as an attachment to my message entitled "Summary and EConsultation CLosure" two messages below this one. The summary is also available on the CGIAR's ICT-KM Program's [url=http://www.ictkm.cgiar.org]website - [/url] - direct link: [url=http://ictkm.cgiar.org/downloads/e-ag_Consultation_Summary.pdf]Summary Report[/url].

On behalf of all of the e-consultation planning and facilitation, I'd like to thank you for reading and contributing to our e-consultation. Attached to this post is a summary of our proceedings. The report from the face-to-face in Rome will be made available later. We'll post a note here with a link to the document on the CGIAR ICT-KM site. The next steps will be to incorporate your input and use it in the user needs assessment process. So once again, THANK YOU! Nancy for the team

Greetings! The report -out from the F2F in Rome should be up on Monday. We'll then be able to add to/comment upon what our colleagues did in Rome. It was structured slightly differently than our conversations here, so it might offer us another way into the complex question about how to best share CGIAR's iGPGs. In the meantime, all our other discussions remain open for your reading and contributions! Thanks Nancy

Here is the input of Paul Sillu via email: [quote]On the issue of intensive study on the user needs, this is prime and should be done to understand the behaviours of the users, their levels of understanding of pieces of information given and how they have been searching for any information they need whenever they need it. This would help in the repackaging of the information for dissemination to different users. Access to global public goods regardless of the steward need to be done in a format which is accessible to all the users. When targeting farmers for example in East Africa, one may be forced to go multimedia to enable them to access it. Secondly, the information being communicated should be relevant to the group. Examples quoted should identifiy with the group. Farm fetched examples in terms of regions may not communicate to the users. In event of introduction of new methods and technologies, this needs to be demonstrative either in demonstrain plots/ farms as well as having the info in a reference format. Forming of networks among all the groups is vital. Info sharing in networks as peers or from Top-down or Bottom-up is good. One tends to learn easily and communicate freely. Research groups, farmers, farm groups and other information generators and users all need to form a network. Value addition of info gives it an extra taste to the users.[/quote]

Here are some comments that came in via email from Paul Sillu, ICT Specialist, ABS TCM Ltd, Nairobi, http://www.eadairy.com http://www.abstcm.com [quote]Generally, information flow between researchers and the consumers have not been effective. The producers of the information had left it at technical level and the interpretation left out thus, the users; farmers didn't find it easy to use. Avenues between the researchers and farmers need to be opened more to ensure communication of feedback to the farmers (since the researches were carried out among them). Secondly, most of the communications has been top-down, farmers were not considered to be source of good information which researchers could use/ document and help pass them over to other users. For example, ethnoveterinary activities in Kenya revealed that farmers used some herbs to treat animal diseases as opposed to going to the vet shops to buy "expensive" drugs to treat their animals. This exemplifies that the farmers are in custody of some vital information which, if well tapped and communicated among other groups could be helpful. Access to the research findings in developing nations has been limited to those who are privileged to get the findings. Researchers should create avenues of meeting people and disseminating their findings and soliciting for feedback from the audience. In the fora with the audience, they will also get enlightened as to the user needs (education level which affects interpretation of the info, formats, user behaviours and also other unexpressed information needs). For example in Kenya, in efforts to inform farmers, ABS TCM Ltd. with other partners set up different information centres. These were done at "Successful farmers" homes/ farms. These farmers are always visited by others to learn from them, so the farmer would help in interpreting the info to them. Monitoring of the info needs revealed that farmers were at ease to access these materials from these strategic points. We could also get farmers feedback in form of questions, quest for more information etc. So the strategy to be set to bridge the info gap between the generators and users of the same need to revolve around the needs of the users. The demographic details of the target group studied and involve the target group also in the study, so that they feel they are part of the whole system. [/quote]

Important suggestions, Ekanath. You mention practices here - this might be an area others can chime in. What are the practices - from any of the stakeholder perspectives, that we might pay attention to? For example, what practices encourage useful participation (with respect to the note "stakeholders (researchers, community, and local /extension practitioner and data manager) should participate equally.") What does that participation look like? What makes it useful to any/all of the stakeholders? If any one has specific examples or stories to share, that is helpful.

(Facilitator's note: I was going to save this one for later in the week, but a post by Gurusamy Gandhi in another area related to this, so I thought I'd go ahead and put it up and move his post here!) Value added services is an important part of the strategy. How can we make data work for us in more ways? What "value added" services can help us do that? Here is what is in the strategy: [quote]Activities addressing this component will be refined and informed with inputs from the user study proposed in Section 3.1. Coordinated activities designed for the creation of value-added information products and services from CGIAR Centers and NARs partners could include: • Centers' research management, impact assessment and marketing people working together to define information products that can improve the impact and uptake of their research. A priority will be given to cross-sectoral, cross-regional activities that are sustainable and bring together two or more CGIAR Centers and NARS partners. • Creation of CGIAR System or theme-level information products and services designed to inform and influence boundary partners to take action. • Creation of information products and services that synthesize and combine information from across thematic areas or regional priorities, involving several Centers and national partners, e.g. through using GIS technologies. • Joint CGIAR/NARS information products and services designed to provide information to support the NARS rural development agenda. • Innovative information activities or campaigns that encourage change in practices, scaling up of technologies and ideas. • Strengthening of information intermediaries to leverage and transform GPGs for other audiences (such as extension workers [in the case of farmers] or journalists [in the case of taxpayers and decisions makers in developed countries] • Identification and sharing of lessons learned through analysis of selected value-added products: the way they were created, the networks that were involved, their impact, and the actions needed to promote and increase their use. • There is a large number of software tools developed by the CG Centers which could be made available to the NARS on-line and which could provide a very important pathway to them to manage and analyze their data.[/quote] Which of these is most relevant to your context? What is least? What is missing?

In the strategy document, there is a section on Standards and Metadata. [quote]Implementing standards and metadata approaches in cooperation with other Centers and partners. The capacity of NARS partners will be enhanced by working with the CGIAR to create and implement these common information standards approaches and metadata activities. The CG must recognize NARS GPG inputs and support, and partner with the NARS in generating GPGs. By doing so this will promote lasting cooperation between the NARS and CGIAR partners. Projects needed in this area will: • Build frameworks and implement services that promote the sharing and exchanging of global public goods within and across NARS and with the CGIAR System, as well as with the international science community. • Build the capacity of some NARS researchers to take responsibility for implementing standards and metadata approaches in cooperation with other Centers and partners. • Build the connectivity capacity of some strategic NARS for enhancing access and use of data. • Develop codes of conduct for data sharing, IP and security with collaborators; [/quote]What feedback can you offer from your context and perspectives on these elements of the plan? Can you offer any examples of where this or similar work is being done?

Here is some additional input that came via email from Paul Sillu in Nairobi [quote]User needs forms the biggest bulk of solving the maze of info dissemination. The accessibility, format and direction of communication would be vital. Channels of info access to the different groups need not to be complicated. For example scientist-to-scientist communication should eased that one doesn't need to go through long channels to access the research findings. The findings should be "free" or affordable to a certain group of users. Scientist-to-farmer and vice versa communication should be made easy that each can communicate with each other without fear. Researchers should not intimidate farmers with "technical" jargon or even by being too theoretical. They should create a conducive environment and mood for communication because a lot of unseen noise occurs at this point. Scientists should lower themselves to farmers' level and talk to them not the way they would address their peers in conference. [/quote]

Raj, can you tell us more about using the kiosks for translating into local languages? That sounds very interesting!