AARINENA-RAIS Progress Report,Mrs.T.Ebrahimi

11 th General Conference of AARINENA 12-14 October 2008 Damascus, Syria AARINENA-RAIS Progress Report Dr. Mohamed Sallam, ICT-RAIS Chairman Taraneh Ebrahimi, AARINENA-RAIS Secretary

11 th General Conference of AARINENA, 12-14 October 2008,Damascus, Syria AARINENA-RAIS Progress Report

Outline

History of AARINENA-RAIS

Main achievements of AARINENA-RAIS

ICT situation in member countries

ICT-RAIS Work plan (2007-2009)

AARINENA-RAIS Network Map

AARINENA Website and its new features

Future plans and required support

11 th General Conference of AARINENA, 12-14 October 2008,Damascus, Syria AARINENA-RAIS Progress Report

History of AARINENA-RAIS

In 2001,Regional Agricultural Information System (RAIS)of AARINENA was established to improve sharing and exchange agricultural information in the WANA Region.

In 2002, the AARINENA-RAIS Secretariat has been established in Ir an.

ICT-RAIS steering committee composed of specialists from the five sub regions and representatives of FAO,GFAR, ICARDA and AOAD initiated its activities in 2003.

11 th General Conference of AARINENA, 12-14 October 2008,Damascus, Syria AARINENA-RAIS Progress Report _____________________________________________________

Main achievements of AARINENA-RAIS

Introduction and development of AARINENA Website with its own URL ( www.aarinena.org ).

Identifying the NAIS status within member countries.

Identifying Information Focal Units in member countries.

Initial capacity building of established Information Focal Units.

11 th General Conference of AARINENA, 12-14 October 2008,Damascus, Syria AARINENA-RAIS Progress Report ________________________________________________________________

Main achievements of AARINENA-RAIS (cont.)

Establishing inter-regional collaboration with APAARI, FARA, etc.

Establishing forum discussions and main steps of developing national information systems as an important step in developing regional and international information systems.

Preparation and development of WANA/RAIS Information systems and information portals (NARIMS and NERAKIN)

ICT situation in member countries

Strengths

Rapid development of ICT infrastructure (Population covered by telephones, PCs, Internet subscribers, websites &ICT specialists).

Increased use of GIS in agriculture.

Increased involvement of the private sector in ICT business (new ICT companies)

ICT situation in member countries (cont.)

Weaknesses

Lack of development and up-dating ICT systems.

Low awareness & inefficient use of ICT.

Lack of clear and precise policy and strategy regarding the development of the ICT.

Lack of capacity building (Lack of investment and planning of training opportunities).

Language barriers (No multilingual system).

Poor communications at the sub-regional level.

Identifying focal units in member states.

Capacity building activities.

Consolidating the preparation of ICT national strategies and policies.

Articulating outputs from the former steering committee.

Thematic linkage with RAIS.

Measure impact of ICT on agricultural development.

Advocacy issues.

Use of GIS in improving data processing and data use.

AARINENA-RAIS Social Network Analysis(SNA)

Social network analysis is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organisations, computers or other information / knowledge processing entities.

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a method for visualizing our people and connection power, leading us to identify how we can best interact to share knowledge.

We use the analysis to :

Visualize relationships within and outside of the organization.

Facilitate identification of who knows who and who might know what - teams and individuals playing central roles - thought leaders, key knowledge brokers, experts, etc.

Identify isolated teams or individuals and knowledge bottlenecks.

We use the analysis to :

Strategically work to improve knowledge flows.

Accelerate the flow of knowledge and information across functional and organisational boundaries.

Improve the effectiveness of formal and informal communication channels.

Raise awareness of the importance of informal networks.

All activities related to the AARINENA web site ( http://www.aarinena.org) , by the AARINENA-RAIS secretariat .

The first AARINENA website realeased in 8 th General Conference of AARINENA in Jordan,in 2002

In 2003 and 2004 AARINENA-RAIS Secretariat has made some changes related to the website design and content in collaboration with GFAR.

Enhancement of Arabic version of the website by the valuable efforts of the FAO/RNE

What we want:

Moving forward a content management system.

Interacting and exchanging

Sharing Knowledge and experiences

Involving more people

Collaborating and exchanging with Focal Units

Collaborating and exchanging with Regional Networks

What we have done:

Developing the new website.

Member area

Electronic archive

AARINENA RSS

Regional Researchers database

Regional Institutional database

Discussion forum

KS tools( Blogs, Wikis,…)

Member Area

To manage information

Member Area

Regional Agricultural Researchers Database

The electronic form has been developed to get Researchers’ data directly through AARINENA Website:

http://www.aarinena.org/database/Researchers/form.htm

The form has been designed in two pages.

Easy to access and follow the steps.

Regional Institutional database

It is provided to enter data related to the Regional Agricultural Research Institutions, Universities, farmer’s organizations, NGOs, Private sectors, useful links,etc.

Based on username and password which will be provided for Focal Units.

Two level of actions are required to complete the proccess.

AARINENA Discussion Forum

The virtual place where conversations can take place and information can be shared more easily among the region .

It could be useful for the Regional Networks to collaborate more effectively.

Knowledge Sharing tools

Websites or softwares that can be used to support personal and group knowledge sharing.

Blog : an easy-to-publish web page .

Blogs can give the world a window on your work.

Blogs provide an easy way to communicate knowledge.

Knowledge Sharing tools (cont.)

You don’t have to know any special computer programming to write or read a blog.

Allow readers to comment on a blog post.

Blogs can have one or many authors.

Knowledge Sharing tools (cont.)

Wiki is an effective tool for collaborative writing.

Allows users to add, remove, and otherwise edit and change content.

no special software or third party webmaster is needed to post content.

contains a discussion page where editors and readers can talk about the document.

AARINENA Wikispace: Thinking together

Future plans and required support

Give more attention to intensive capacity building to strengthen NAIS, RAIS, and foster ICT development.

Focus on Focal Units Collaboration.

Encourage using of web tools between the FU and RN to exchange and share experiences and knowledge.

Urge FU to Use the NERAKIN as on of the best information systems in the Region to share and exchange information and knowledge.

Future plans and required support (cont.)

Developing inter-regional communication channels and linkage mechanisms

Facilitate the development of ICT training manuals, source books, and training materials in Arabic language.

Encourage the creation of strong cooperation with local, regional and international agencies and institutes dealing with ICT sector.

Future plans and required support (cont.)

Encourage the establishment of common standards and methods for data collection, storage and dissemination mechanisms related to agricultural R&D.

Increase cooperation in E-publications.

Moving forward content management.

collaborative programs with other regional fora like APAARI,FARA,… and learning from their success stories.

Thank you http://www.aarinena.org

AARINENA-RAIS Progress Report,Mrs.T.Ebrahimi

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