Innovative Information and Communication systems- What innovations work and why?

This week we have been invited to share experiences of - innovative systems in information and communication for agriculture -: FAO has been working with Research and Extension Institutions to improve communication and access to information between these two large stakeholders - what I find innovative about this system is that through the pretext of coming together to create a communication and information sharing platform the two intuitions begin to change the way they work and use this platform as a springboard for more collaborative work. What I also find innovative, especially in Egypt where the VERCON project has been running the longest, is that over time the demands from the field are beginning to influence the research agenda [ftp://ftp.fao.org/sd/SDR/SDRE/Vercon.ING.pdf].

Greetings from Guelph, Canada Two areas of work really interest me - issues surrounding gender and the other area is rural radio. I work mainly in Africa and in rural Canada. In Africa, the area of rural radio is critical and I see it firsthand through my research on links between science and society and the work I do with organizations like DCFRN (www.farmradio.org). The arguments why rural radio can strengthen agricultural systems and community development in Africa are well documented. I'm not repeating them here. I offer any collaboration through this platform to reinforce the efforts made by many people and institutions in this area of work. Not just in theory, but in practice of ICTs and development the human right to communicate remains very important. Gender and ICT networks continue to push on. Gender related work is difficult due to the crises of the gender debate within development. Yet, simple as it sounds - few places in the world have overcome the gender bias of information and communication technology access and relevance of content. In this forum we should consider efforts towards ICT literacy, power relations from information control and denial of communication rights. I do think this the topic of ICTs and agriculture is a global issue - in Canada we are struggling for high-speed internet access in rural areas where the survival of small and medium-size family farms is difficult. HH

Greetings from Iran My name is Taraneh Ebrahimi. I am working as the Webmaster of the Association of Agricultural Research Institutions in the Near East & North Africa(AARINENA:http://www.aarinena.org .I am working as the webmaster of Agricultural Scientific Information & Documentation Center as well(http://www.agrisis.org). Therefore I have the chance to work at the national and regional level together. The main issue which I have found during my job, is the strong relationship which should be developed between national and regional levels. I have found that without a strong National Information System, you couldn't have a strong RAIS. Weak communication and Knowledge sharing systems is a big problem which you can see at the NAIS and RAIS . Maybe other colleagues in other regions have this problem as well. In AARINENA region we are working now on inviting Agricultural Information Centers in the member countries to act their role in AARINENA as the National Focal Points/Units. I hope we can invite people or encourage them to share their experiences and knowledge. Maybe we can also find together better solutions for that during this forum. Anyway, my colleagues and I do our best to facilitate exchanging information in the AARINENA region. Last year we have developed the database of Agricultural researchers in Western Asia(http://www.aarinena.org/database/index.htm). This Sub-Region consists of three countries which are Iran, Turkey and Pakistan .This database could be so useful to exchange information between researchers in the Sub-region. Sub-Regional Agricultural Researchers could lead and manage common projects with each other. We received about 500 records from Agricultural researchers in the sub-region, through the electronic form(http://www.aarinena.org/database/form.htm), but I am sure that we have more researchers in the region who didn't fill out the form. It returns to the problem which I have mentioned above: weak communication and sharing! We have two other information system in the way for AARINENA: There are NARIMS and NERAKIN. National Agricultural Research Information Management System (NARIMS) is another important Project in the Region, which has developed by CLAES in Egypt; The objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of the ARC to develop, manage and apply a relevant and effective national agricultural information management system in support of agricultural development and food security policies. It enables Researchers and scientists to carry out research more effectively by creating access to research and intuitional information from the region and as well as by providing modern tools for the managing researchers information, agricultural research project, plans, and other activities. NARIMS has four modules namely: • Agricultural Research Personnel • Agricultural Research Institutes • Agricultural Research Projects • Agricultural Research Results and Publication NARIMS is in final testing and training material would be delivered to AARINENA very soon. Near East and North Africa Rural and Agricultural Knowledge and Information Network (NERAKIN) is another information system for the region;it has been developed by FAO/RNE in Egypt and it will act as a platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration for development in NENA region. I am working now on the developing of the new website of AARINENA which will be available in next two months. I think maybe ,during this forum,we can discuss on the issues related to the unique formats and programming language for all Regional fora websites ;in this case we can exchange more information through our websites or through a search system with ability to search all data on all regional fora websites. Best regards Taraneh

Dear Taraneh I am happy to learn about this new development. As you may know there are anumber of activities in the region, which could possibly call for collaborative ventures. This is only true if the definition of Near East included the horn of Africa,i.e Ethiopia, Sudan,Somalia, Eritrea and Djbouti.Let me know, first the geographic meaning of your domain and let's expand it if it is possible and work together. I believe that there is huge amount on information/knowledge that could be used in common among ourtheleves in this sub-region Best regards Abebe Kirub Head, Information and Communications Department Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research

I am the regional coordinator for the SADC Question and Answer Service supported by CTA. The service started off (1999) by the University of the Free State Library and Information Service answering agricultural requests for information on demand. Malawi and Botswana was first followed by Namibia, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. We are hoping to establish a node in Zimbabwe before the end of the year. We supply information mainly to farmers. The national centres now supply information to their spcific regions and where they lack relevant information, requests the regional office at the UFS to spply the relevant information. CTA has also furnished the national nodes with additional sources. The success stories sent in by farmers of the results of their receiving information really shows the value of the access to information in improving livelihoods and reducin g hunger in the SADC region. Visit the service (PRAIS- Programme for Agricultural Information Services) online at http://www.uovs.ac.za/faculties/content.php?id=3475&FCode=12&DCode=431 We are planning to implement the use of mobile phones soon in order to supply relevant market information

My name is Benjamin Kwasi Addom, a native of Ghana in West Africa but currently doing my doctorate in the United States. I look forward to learning a lot from this forum as I work on my research. My research interest has been to identifying ways by which ICTs can be used for agricultural development in the developing nations. Most of the time, researchers and policy-makers have forgotten that the linkage between research and production of agriculture in the developed nations is different from that in the developing nations. In the developed nations such as US, most farms have their research units and apart from the land grant universities that are mandated to serve their communities with their research works, all other research institutes are commercials just as the farms are. Ghana's agriculture especially depends on small-holder farmers who live in "communities" and are mostly illiterates. The exchange of knowledge between farmers and the researchers is therefore critical. The issue of making scientific knowledge in the form of "street knowledge" for our farmers as well as the reverse is therefore needed to be addressed. We can initiate all kinds of community technologies aimed at agricultural development but they will all go to strengthen the barrier and make the linkage more porous if we overlook the nature of the client system. So in other words, how do we support the result of the 2006 forum that favors information over technology? How do we make scientific, technical information/knowledge usable by our illiterate farmers for quality production, storage, processing and distribution? Is the ICTs hope or hype for agricultural development? Ben

Hello, My name is Emanuel Sampaio. I'm a Professor of Cooperartive Finance and Marketing in a Northeasten University in Brazil (www.ufrpe.br/pape). As a member of a network of university in America - UNIRCOOP (www.unricoop.org) we have been in a work to development virtual class to members of small cooperatives. Best regards

Hi, I am from Bangladesh. I am working as an Information Management Adviser for the Agriculture Sector Support Programme implemented jointly by the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock and Ministry of Local Government. As you know, as like as other developing countries Bangladesh cann't do much in ICT development for rural farmers. Main reason is digital divide. We are looking for a innovative ICT programme for the rural farmers. Any suggestion in this regard is highly appreciated.

I'm the director of Vanilla-Jatropha Development Foundation an NGO collaborating wity Trees on Farm Network of ASARECA to promote the development and promotion of Jatropha curcas as an energy crop in East and Central Africa. ASARECA member countires are about 10 and there is great contast interms of bio-physiscal features even within the countries themselves. Biofuel crop in this region is at the early stages of development and it is now that we are trying to develop and disseminate information to promote the Jatropha Value chain. This therefore depends entirely on Innovative information and communications systems to enable all stakeholders inthe value chain from farmers-processors-marketers and even policy makers understand there role inthe value chain. As you may be aware that east and central african countries is not well developed in ICT, we as agricultural scientist have to develop innovative ways of disseminating information to opur members since agricultural development depends entirely on information given to the producers. It is sad that greater percentage of producers lack information and therefore production is not as required. It is therefore our challenge to develop Innovative information and communication systems that considers all members along the agricultural value chain. Let us therefore discuss and slot ideas that can bring development in to this subject. Waiting eagerly to read from fellow members of the forum. Regards.

Hi, my name is Francesca Solmi and I am from Italy. I have been interning at FAO all summer and I have had the opportunity to look more closely to examples of e-agriculture. Here is one based in India that I found interesting. The Swaminathan Research foundation is a non-for profit trust funded in 1988. Its mandate is to impart a pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation to a job-led economic growth strategy in rural areas through harnessing science and technology for environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development. The organization focuses on several research areas, including food security, biotechnology, biodiversity, and information/education/communication. Its website provides a database of monographs, working and research papers, some of which can be consulted online for wider accessibility. One of the Foundation's main programs is the Information Village Research Point (IVRP) created in Pondicherry, India. The rationale of the project follows from the Foundation's acknowledgement that often food security is more a function of efficient information and knowledge flows than it is of intensive rural production. The location for the project was chosen because of the already established presence in the village of reasonable telecom infrastructures and because of the high responsiveness that it had shown to a previous development project. The objective of the IVRP - which connects 12 locations through a hybrid system of wired and wireless network including phones, PCs and radios - is to diffuse ICT among the poorest strata of society and to provide them with both a greater understanding of governmental policies and essential information for their agricultural practices. One of the main challenges faced by the organizers of the project is that of maintaining the users' attention as they need to have access to constantly up-to-date information and to receive prompt replies to their queries. For such reasons, the information delivered varies across the different villages in order to meet their precise needs and it is divided into "frequently updated sections' (i.e. weather, crop prices, wave heights) and into "long term content', providing details on government programs for specific groups. (http://mssrf.org/iec/601/index.htm) This system has become rather famous in the e-agriculture circles. Do you think it could be applicable in different environments? If not, what would be the issues involved in applying it elsewhere?

Hi! This is Janaki from India. In India in the state of Andhra Pradesh we have 'e-seva centres' established by the state government even in the rural districts. The e-seva ('seva' means service) experiences from these centres in India can be emulated while designing and provding 'e-agriservices to the farmers. The 'e-seva centres' basically act as clearing houses for paying taxes, electricity and telephone bills, booking train, air tickets, applying for passports etc. However the concept can be adopted for disssemination of agricultural information through electronic media. Details can be viewed in the www.aponline.gov.in. Regards, P S Janaki Krishna, Faculty (Biotechnology) Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad - 500 007.

Dear all, For those posting with innovative systems could you perhaps elaborate more on what are the features that makes it innovative? What ingredients do we need to have to maintain effective I&C systems. I know in my experience in VERCON Egypt, some of the key ingredients had nothing to do with ICTs per say but had a lot to do with 1. creating a win-win situation for all stakeholders so they were motivated to participate and 2. to establish an efficient management structure so that problems were quickly highlighted and address as the project evolved. What was your experience? Clare

Hello from Holland! The striking thing for me about the 2006 e-agriculture survey was the emphasis placed on information and communication processes and systems, as well as technologies. This despite the whole initiative coming out of the WSIS discussions that focused on ICTs - see [url]http://www.itu.int/wsis/c7/e-agriculture/index.html[/url] For me the real questions are indeed around ways to enhance the contribution of knowledge and information to overcome rural and agricultural problems and grasp opportunities. So I was very pleased with the result. ICTs, if we mean computers and telecommunications (including phones), have a great deal to offer. But they are not themselves alone going to be the solution. I think we need to 'blend' different tools and approaches to make the tastiest dishes. And recognize that the tastiest dish in holland (pickled herring) is nothing like the tastiest dish in Ghana (yam fufu). One set of real innovations we need is therefore to combine the 'old' non ICT tools with the new 'e' ones. I think much is being done already - Helen Hambly mentioned rural radio. Some people also experiment with theatre, and some even use paper! We also need to recognize that there are indirect ways to support rural communities. Last week in Brussels I attended a meeting about rural development ( [url]http://www.brusselsbriefings.net[/url]) in ACP countries - what became clear from the speakers is that the solutions to many rural problems - eg markets - are not in rural areas. So it is with information and communication. For a farmer to benefit from ICTs, it is not necessary for each farmer to have personal access to a computer. By applying ICTs in research, policy and extension systems, we help to make their activities more efficient and effective - and we assume this will produce benefits to rural communities. A second set of innovations we need to make is to make sure that the 'support' systems for rural issues - research, policy, advice, markets, international negotiations, etc - make effective use of knowledge and information. For which no farmer may ever need to be 'connected'! Clare mentioned VERCON in Egypt, Taraneh the AARINENA approach, Joel mentioned Ghana and GAINS. There is massive investment around the world in e-science, e-research, e-markets, e-libraries, e-networks, e-communities, e-extension ... for e-agriculture. Do we know what works? Which are the tasty recipes? How do we make sure these 'systems' also listen to, and respond to, the demands of rural communities and do not share information among themselves only? Finally, a lot of contributions to this forum talked of 'getting information to farmers' and 'using ICTs to connect farmers' - to us I suppose. We MUST recognize that the best rural knowledge is often in the heads and memories of farmers, especially women. A third set of innovations is therefore to see how we can overcome the divide that excludes us from the knowledge of the farming community... And which also tends to discourage rural communities from directly sharing their knowledge with each other. This is really an empowerment agenda, nothing to do with ICTs, that requires a shift in mindsets to give high value to the knowledge the 'beneficiaries' have. I am personally very heartened by some projects and cases - IFAD is supporting work with local learners in africa; prolinnova and others like ileia are documenting farmer knowledge so we can learn from it; and groups like BROSDI in Uganda are actively seeking to promote this 'local content' - even with a blog: [url]http://celac.wordpress.com/[/url]. There must also be other innovative approaches in this area we can learn from? Sorry for such a long message! Peter [/url]

This is Khalil from Yemen greeting all team and community members of e-agriculture. In general there is a great variation among different countries in different regions. However, with regard to AARINENA work, I think for many years back we have been already talking much about Information systems and the regional agricultural information systems (RAIS) for many years. In my point of view, little has been done so far such as the database mentioned by Ms. Taraneh from Iran. Many meetings and workshops have been organized by AARINENA with little output mainly because of what is clearly observed in the existing variations between countries. Some countries are still using the traditional information system (paper work). There is a very low movement of transformation into a digitalized information system. Those International and regional relevant agencies are not much concerned with the necessary required remedy of such existing gaps. Even the VERCON system pioneered in Egypt, by this time it could have alreay been expanded to include other neighboring states in the region with due assistance from concerned centres/agencies. The developed softwares of NARIMS and NERAKIN by this time too should have already been tested and circulated in all member states of either FAO or AARINENA and on bases of trial application an adequate adjustment have been integrated. Given such realities, countries with established IS or AISC only could contribute to the development of a larger IS or benefit from whatever softwares or systems of a joint nature but certainly not a country like Yemen where IS is possibly growing more rapidly in the other development sectors such as telecommunication, commerce and idustry, but not in the agriculutral sector. Much could be said in this regard

I am Rafaa Ashamallah of Sudan National Centre for research who is responsible to make information. I am interseting how to make Sudanese Agriculture Knowledge accessible because the agriculture is back bone of our economy benefiting of e-intiatives rafaa

Hello everyone, My name is Dorothy Okello and I would like to share with you WOUGNET's experiences with agriculture information and communication systems. Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET)'s mission is to promote and support the use of ICTs among women and women organisations in Uganda. Our key program areas are Information Sharing and Networking, Technical Support, Gender and ICT Policy Advocacy, and Rural Access. The experiences I share below are from our Rural Access program area. To begin with, in 2005, a project on "Enhancing Access to Agricultural Information using ICTs (EAAI)" was initiated by WOUGNET with support from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP EU (CTA). The project is implemented in twelve parishes (villages) in Apac District, Northern Uganda, targeting grassroots women farmers as the main beneficiaries. Its main objective is to develop and improve information and communication systems so as to enable easy access to agricultural information for rural women farmers in Apac district. ICTs in use include community radio, radio cassettes, audio/video cassettes, CD-ROMs, and these are complemented by regular face-to-face meetings. The project staff also have access to the Internet. A rural multipurpose telecentre has also been established - Kubere Information Centre - to support information dissemination and project coordination activities. The main activities include the generation, collection, repackaging and dissemination of local agricultural content and content in the local language - Luo, building the capacity of rural women in the use of radio, radio cassettes, mobile phones and SMS, computers and the Internet. The internet remains something we are experimenting on in terms of how to get more out of this tool, in spite of the difficulties in connectivity. For one, we are revamping our website to make it more interactive compared to our current website www.wougnet.org and for the KIC at www.kic.wougnet.org. Also the KIC is a partner in the FAO ARENET project that seeks to use the internet to bring the gap between researchers, extension workers and the farmers. The KIC's primary role will be in submitting queries received from the field into the ARENET system and returning the responses to the farmers. Currently we have queries available in text and audio format but have recently received a digital camera from the ARENET project which should enable us capture pictures/images as well. Another project I should mention is the CELAC project, www.celac.or.ug, which is run by Busoga Open Source Development Initiatives (BROSDI) in Uganda. A variety of ICT tools (including web2.0 techniques) are used to interact with farmers and partners as appropriate. In particular, the Kubere Information Centre in Apac has greatly benefited by the SMS farming tips distributed by CELAC. Originally in English, the tips are now also available in Luo, which means that the women farmers supported by the KIC can receive the SMSes directly. Previously, the SMS messages were received by the KIC, translated, and then distributed to the women farmers. Some of the challenges faced by WOUGNET and the KIC include the typical of unreliable, if available, and costly infrastructure including access to power and to connectivity. However, again technology can come into help. Some of the areas we are looking at are community wireless networks to support communications and Frontline SMS to automate the reception and delivery of SMSes. We are also engaged in capacity building to enable the rural women farmers engage directly with the communication systems. To-date we do offer free computer training (with very low uptake I should add) as well as we have organised training in video production and in presenting on radio. Furthermore, based on our experiences working with both the District Agricultural Office and the civil society engaged in the Agricultural sector in Apac, we are now part of the Apac e-society Programme. This programme has been formulated as a joint effort between IICD, Hivos, local partners WOUGNET and I-Network and stakeholders from Apac, who include Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), the district local and lower governments, and the private sector. The purpose of the e-society programme is to have an improved service delivery and community participation through Local Government, Private sector and Civil Society collaboration facilitated by the use of ICTs. This is a new project and one from which we expect to learn plenty in terms of innovative information and communication systems. I look forward to learning from the experiences of other participants and happy to answer questions based on our experiences. Regards, Dorothy

Hello from Latin America. My name is Federico Sancho from IICA, headquarters in Costa Rica. Innovation for us has been the improvement of individual agricultural library services to collaborative national and regional networks. 141 institutions already has move forward into an open initiative of sharing agricultural content out of their library and full text collection. This service operating since 1999 in the region is called SIDALC. You can visit it at www.sidalc.net

[url]http://www.e-agriculture.org/98.html?&view=single_thread&cat_uid=1&conf…] Innovative Information and Communication systems- What innovations work and why? In this thread we heard about many different systems and what makes them work. Major topics of discussion included: Systems to share knowledge between agricultural researchers - Systems for sharing agricultural information between researchers at the national and regional levels, such as AARINENA, were discussed, and several innovative methods, such as the Western Asia database of agricultural researchers, and the NARIMS information management systems and the NERAKIN knowledge and information network, were mentioned. - Also mentioned were the SIDALC system in the Americas, which shares content between 141 institutions, and UNICOOP, a network of university institutions in the Americas focusing on small cooperatives. - Problems mentioned in this type of information sharing were that national systems are quite varied in their information management capacities and often lack incentives to digitize information or share it. Systems such as NARIMS, which facilitate these processes, have not been very widely diffused. - Taraneh Ebrahimi said that "the main issue which I have found during my job, is the strong relationship which should be developed between national and regional levels. I have found that without a strong National Information System, you couldn't have a strong [Regional System]. Weak communication and Knowledge sharing systems is a big problem which you can see at the NAIS and RAIS.' Systems to help farmers access information - Many e-Agriculture systems focus on using ICTs to support farmers' existing sources of information, such as extension agents and radio stations - One method of support mentioned was the linking of research and extension services, through systems such as the VERCON in Egypt, and CTA's SADC question and answer service. Clare O'Farrell mentioned that increasing the capacity of research and extension to interact and their ability to help and influence one another can change both for the better. Success factors mentioned were 1. ensuring that systems really created incentives for all parties to participate and 2. efficient management for quick addressing of problems. - Other systems focus on helping farmers to access information directly. - These included the Kubere Information Center, in India, e-Seva, which helps farmers access government services and could be used for agric content, and the IVRP, run by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, which has created access points for agricultural and other information. - Capacity building is a major issue for direct access. - Other factors are 1. trying to make systems as easy to use as possible (for example, putting them into local languages) and 2. making them accessible through systems farmers already use, such as SMS. Systems for sharing farmer-generated information - Peter Ballantyne and others pointed out that we need to remember the value of farmer generated knowledge, and ensure that information sharing is not a one-way street. - Several participants mentioned that in many situations, such as Zablon Wagalla's promotion of jatropha curcas, information sharing at all levels is possibly the most important factor in the project's success. - Dorothy Okello mentioned that infrastructure (access to power and connectivity) is a major barrier. - Gender bias was mentioned several times in relation to access to information and ability to communicate QUESTIONS FOR THIS WEEK: - What are some successful solutions people have seen to try to solve the problems faced by agricultural research networks? - How can systems (research, extension, others) be properly incentivized? - How can infrastructural barriers be overcome? What are innovative methods that systems have used to overcome it? - Does "agricultural development depend entirely on information given to farmers'? Are market issues also important? - What are innovative ways people have heard of gender bias being overcome? Some Systems mentioned - AARINENA ([url]www.aarinena.org[/url]) - CELAC/BROSDI ([url]http://www.celac.or.ug/[/url] [url]http://www.brosdi.or.ug/[/url] ) - e-Seva ( [url]http://esevaonline.com/[/url] ) - GAINS ([url]www.gains.org.gh[/url]) - IVRP ([url]http://www.mssrf.org/[/url]) - PRAIS (CTA SADC Q+A System) ([url]http://www.uovs.ac.za/faculties/content.php?id=3475&FCode=12&DCode=431[…]) - Prolinnova/IFAD/ILEIA ([url]www.prolinnova.net[/url]) - VERCON ([url]http://www.vercon.sci.eg/Vercon_en/vercon.asp[/url]) - WOUGNET ([url]www.wougnet.org/[/url] [url]http://kic.wougnet.org/index.html[/url] )

Together with a colleague, I run the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog (http://agro.biodiver.se). We've found this to be an interesting way of exchanging information among researchers, but I've been surprised to receive comments and queries and requests for more information even from farmers and NGOs in Africa. I guess what I'm trying to say is that often information reaches an audience you did not necessarily set out to target or cater to.

My name is Peter Kimaile, Co-founder BioGreen Technologies, a private company which has worked with farmers in Cetral, Western and Nyanza provinces of Kenya on extension services, research, market linkages and value chain addition. We had independently been running radio Programme "Mali Shambani" in the national Broadcaster in the swahili language and apparently many repondents and contributers were rural farmers seeking answers and advice on farming tips, post-harvest handling, market linkages and animal husbandry. This was found to be a very effective way of information exchange and we have been sourcing for financil support to rollout such programmes to all local radio stations as part of our technology tranfer project. The Ministry of Agriculture through her information dissemination unit AIRC has also been airing a similar programme "Sikio la Mkulima" and still it proved to be en effective channel, sustainability is a challenge which we might require advice from e-agriculture comminity members where simillar programmes have succeeded. Regards Kimaile

My name is Luis Mauricio Pineda, the C-E-O. of Weinmannia, a private consultancy company which works in the forestry sector in Latin AMerica. Because information is very important I had been workin for many years developing a information system to manage teak information. Recenthly I finalized my thesis and the folowing is an abstract of it. ¨We present a proposal for the creation of an international system of compilation, storage, processing, and distribution of information for the species Tectona grandis, which is available in a web site designed for that purpose. We defined the fundamental principles under which the system must operate. It was possible to recover information about the origin of the teak in Costa Rica, and we develop an example of search of information as a model in the use of the software. Furthermore, in order to diminish the digital gap, we press the international cooperation for the maintenance of the system and the exchange of information¨. I hope it helps to demostrate that it is posible to create a system in which all around the table would share information for the best of the end users. regards, Luis Mauricio Pineda www.weinmannia.com