Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Near

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010

Near East Plant Protection Network

Magdi LatifKnowledge and Information Management Officer

FAO, Regional Office for the Near EastOffice of Knowledge Exchange, Research and Extension



Outline

• Why Thematic Network.

• Thematic Network Development Process and Functions.

• Near East PP Network (NEPP-NET) Definition.

• Near East PP Network Development Process and Functions.

• TK Components.

• TK Capabilities.

• Overall Benefits of Near East PP Network.



Why Virtual Networks?

Virtual community of professional staff and collaborating centres with common interests and objectives related to sustainable agriculture and food security built around plant protection priority areas.

These networks aim to:

Strengthen links between communities of practitioners;

Allow individuals to gather and gain access to policy and technical information;

Facilitate sharing and exchange of complementary knowledge and resources;

Organize and create knowledge in ways that are flexible.



Geographically dispersed individuals can work together across different time zones• Knowledge networks can exist “virtually” without any physical meetings.

Online NEPP-NET provide users with new ways to share and generate knowledge and information • Knowledge and information can be generated and captured from the community’s electronic communications and collaborative work.

Why Virtual Networks?



NEPP- NET TKN Definition

Near East Plant Protection Network (NEPP-NET) is a web-based integrated, multilingual regional thematic information and communication system.

It enables plant protection specialists to capture and disseminate information and knowledge about plant protection institutes, specialists including researchers working in those institutes, publications issued by those specialists, completed or currently active projects, and good practices and successful stories for knowledge management on plant protection research and activities in National Agricultural Systems.




It also enables plant protection specialists to access, share and exchange information and knowledge and experience and innovations on Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Phytosanaitry, and Pesticide Management Systems including code of conduct, pesticides agreements and Conventions, and country profile and performance database system.

It would play an enabling role in promoting collaboration between countries and institutions in the field of pest and diseases control based on successful experiences




It is the knowledge sharing and collaboration platform in the field of plant protection for agricultural and rural development (ARD) platform which is initiated, developed and facilitated by FAO, endorsed in 2010 by member countries in the region participated in NERC-2010 held in Sudan, NEPPO, ASPP, AARINENA, GFAR and other regional and international organizations, for improving regional and national plant protection information infrastructure and building common standards and platform for knowledge exchange and information management in the Near East and North Africa region.




Near East Plant Protection Network (NEPP-NET) is a thematic knowledge network. It is virtual community of Plant Protection professional staff and the rest of stakeholders and the development community with common interests and objectives related to sustainable agriculture and food security built around priority areas.



• Share (one-many) • Store / Retrieve• Collaborate / Interact• Decide• Learn• Notify• Support• Monitor

Thematic Knowledge Network

• Definitions– Problem/Purpose/Benefits

• Guidelines– Categories– Functions– Resources: TKN Support

Group• Workplan

– Tools and methodologies– Pilot network selection– Training– Implementation and analysis– Upscaling

FunctionsDevelopment Process



What is NEPP-NET TKN Designed to?

Preserve needed resources,

Prevent redundancy and duplication,

Create access to research information, knowledge and innovations,

Ensure maximum knowledge sharing among various agricultural research institutes, programs and personnel on regional, national and institutional levels,

Provide enable environment for good coordination.



Principal messages

Lack of ICM planning and development means:

I. outputs are not disseminated effectively

II. Output are not accessible and shared

III. R&D resources are wasted

IV. the NARS public image is poor due to lack of credibility

V. In the extreme, NARS institutions become obsolete



NEPP-NET TKN Interfaces

Front end Interface The front end components

provide the information retrieval/browsing

functionalities, and are available to any site user.

Backend Interface

The backend components provide the data

management functionalities that enable system

administrators to input/update/delete data items into

the NEPP database.

SYSTEM/NETWORK COMPONENTS



• AGMES – Agricultural Metadata Element Set• AGRIS Application Profile • AGROVOC Arabic/English• Software – MySQL Open Source• Open Archives Initiative Compliance• Online Web services• Social Networking

Information Standards and Toolsfor Content Management

www.fao.org/aims

To develop and promote interoperability standards to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content.

interoperability is connecting people, data and diverse systems.



Bottom-up approach (institutions/national/regional):

NEPP-NET cannot therefore exist at a regional level without national contributions and institutional systems/networks,

Centralized and Distributed System:

Its architecture enables all participating institutions to upload their materials in a centralized system, and allows for the development of distributed systems at institutional levels.

NEPP-NET Thematic Knowledge Capabilities



PortabilityIt is capable to be deployed easily in other

machines and portable devices

User Friendly It has a friendly interface and it easy to use and

simple to configure.

Open System Architecture The system is fully dynamic, built and developed under object oriented concepts using the latest technology and modern object oriented language.

NEPP-NET Thematic Knowledge Capabilities



It is facilitating Interoperability and promoting coherence in knowledge management and information exchange among PP Specialists.

Full Multilingual Network (English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Turkish, etc…)

Dynamic Workflow Back end Interfaces The system has a dynamic workflow in the advanced Content Management System (CMS).

Thematic Knowledge Capabilities



Benefits of TK Network for PP Specialists

• Address stakeholders’ needs more effectively,

• Coherence and Synergies in information management,

• Use of agreed standards, methodologies and tools.

• Sharing and Exchange of information and knowledge,

• A collaborative system and effective communication,

• Enhanced technical cooperation and collaboration,

• Reduced cost of operation, Reduced time/cost/effort of

developing national information systems/networks,



How the knowledge network functions:

Help!

Help!

Help!

Help! Help

!

Help!

Moderation Team

1. Member sends the Community a query via the Moderator



Try this

I did this

Read this

Contact her

Desk Research

2. Community offers the Member solutions from their experience plus desk research on the topic

Moderation Team




Cons. Reply

Thank you!

To the Solutions

Bank

3. A Consolidated Reply is prepared, sent & archived

Moderation Team




Thank You For Your AttentionThank You For Your Attention



NEPP-NET TKN Modules/Information Systems

News

Events

Good Practices

Country Profile

Projects

Experts

InstitutesOrganizations

Document Repository

TKN

NETWORK COMPONENTS



NEPP-NET TKN Modules/Information Systems

News

Events

Good Practices

Country Profile

Projects

Experts

InstitutesOrganizations

Document repository

TKN

NETWORK COMPONENTS



Regional/Inter-Regional Thematic NetworksEstablished in collaboration with GFAR, FAO and ICARDAEstablished in collaboration with GFAR, FAO and ICARDA

NENARNAPNENARNAPNetworkNetwork

Water Use Water Use Efficiency Efficiency NetworkNetwork

MedicinalMedicinalAromatic Aromatic

PlantsPlantsNetworkNetwork

Olive Olive NetworkNetwork

CottonCotton NetworkNetwork

Date-Palm Date-Palm Global Global NetworkNetwork

BiotechnologyBiotechnology NetworkNetwork

Regional Thematic Knowledge Networks

Other Regional Specialized Networks



Documents

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Near