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In this issue...
News
Highlights of the Statutory Meetings at Marrakech
High Level Consultation on Biodiversity and MDGs
FARA: Inclusive Research Partnership
IFAP Research Committee
High Value Crops Workshop
ICM4ARD
DURAS Project Leaders' Workshop
The first Meeting of the YPARD
GFAR-DURAS Roundtable on CGS
Articles
GFAR Communications Strategy
The re-redesign of EGFAR
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Articles
The re-design of EGFAR
EGFAR, GFAR's website and keystone to its communications, is being redesigned to keep pace with GFAR's continued evolution in facilitating and fostering effective networks for agriculture research and development. With the redesign of EGFAR, GFAR's stakeholders and partners will gain improved access and usability to ICT mediated communications. EGFAR, over several years of its development, has been viewed as a system of web pages, a digital information repository, a discussion list etc. After consolidating various perspectives of EGFAR, it can now be considered as a virtual space that provides, through use of ICTs, an information and knowledge sharing platform for all GFAR stakeholders. EGFAR has to mimic the physical space GFAR creates for discussion and action on ARD.
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EGFAR as a "Virtual Space" mimics the physical GFAR as a neutral platform to facilitate and foster discussion and action on ARD issues. As in a physical space, through EGFAR, stakeholders and partners of GFAR can meet other stakeholders and partners to access, share and exchange ARD information and knowledge. Within the virtual space, partners with specific and mutual interests can invite each other to joint activities and share their common information space. |
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EGFAR, while continuing to provide the most current information about GFAR, its stakeholders and programs, by its redesign will extend its information and knowledge services. The new EGFAR information services from will include:
- The pilot EGFAR Web Ring, to provide easy access to stakeholder websites and globally integrated ARD related databases
- ARD events information through an RSS feed
- Access to ARD documents and media such as photographs and video clips.
The redesign of EGFAR also aims to further realize, according to GFAR's principles of subsidiarity and decentralisation, improved access to relevant information resources of its stakeholders and partners available at their websites and in distributed databases that they maintain. Its knowledge services, after the redesign, will include access to the GFAR Knowledge Base. This knowledge base will provide support to GFAR stakeholders in contacting institutions and experts and finding out details of ARD projects, their outputs and impact.
A new customizable section available to registered users, called My EGFAR, is being included. This will allow GFAR's stakeholders, partners and individuals to customize EGFAR to fulfil their needs. My EGFAR will include a customizable appearance, alerts, the ability to share documents and link them to other documents available on EGFAR, setting up electronic discussion lists, creating and editing wikis and even creating "rooms" to discuss ARD issues. In future, My EGFAR plans to offer blogging space to its stakeholders. My EGFAR, as a new section, imbibes key concepts identified when EGFAR was initiated. These were that the EGFAR website should, as a communication tool "be managed, as much as possible, in a decentralised mode by the different RAIS and GFAR stakeholders" and the role of the website should be in "converting information into knowledge that is useful for different end-users and stakeholders".
In order to streamline maintenance, EGFAR is being totally re-engineered. EGFAR will now use the Struts Framework to manage its architecture and have a Content Management System to manage its content. It will use middleware to isolate content both from its web server applications and from its presentation interface using modern tenets of web space management.
EGFAR will fully exploit the power of XML to render all its information on web pages. This will enable partner websites to automate access to EGFAR content. The choice of XML complies with the principle of standardization, adopted by EGFAR since its project phase: "EGFAR will have to promote standards (use those already available) to be shared by the various stakeholders". Information has to be stored and shared in a standardized way so that it can be integrated with information coming from other sources. This means making use of standards at all levels: format (XML), cataloguing, taxonomies and indexes. The same concepts of using global standards apply to the choice of the database engine (standard SQL compliant) and the programming language (platform-independent Java and Javascript).
The use of the new ICTs and compliance to and active promotion of widely adopted standards will help improve EGFAR's response to its main objectives by providing an interactive communication system and space among the stakeholders of ARD and enhance access, sharing and exchange of information resources by GFAR stakeholders and partners.
A.M. & V.P.
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