Project PAEPARD

Workpackage 3 : information and communication system

Platform for African European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development Phase II

Procedure to use the PAEPARD regional platform

(Thierry HELMER - Version 1 - 05/02/2013)

What can you find in a PAEPARDs regional platform?

This paper aims to describe the structure and content of a PAEPARDs regional platform

1 Structure of a PAEPARDs regional platform

The concept of a regional platform was developed to support the five regional groups in the development of the process guided by the user. The platform has been designed to meet the following objectives: 1 - Inform the PAEPARDs community and all about the stages of advancement made by the group in the User-Led-Process 2 - Have a set of tools and a space for group works, prepares and performs the steps of User-Led Process. 3 - Feed the regional and national actors of information (web articles, publications, studies, websites, news) to federated themes discussed by the group 4 Possibility of reuse approach, tools and IT structures set up for the group after the project for other User-Led- Process partnership initiatives

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Project PAEPARD
Workpackage 3 : information and communication system
Platform for African European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development Phase II

To meet these objectives, the regional platform was built as a Web site that contains three distinct parts:

1 - A space "General Information", for everybody, whose aim is to present the User Led Process, the regional group and gives the group progresses in this process

2 - A space "Following User Led Process" for everybody, whose aim is to describe the different stages of this process and especially to post all information and results generated in these steps.

3 - An Intranet, which is accessible only to members of the group, and in which will be built collectively all the necessary documents to the steps of the Use-Led-Process.

The User-Led-Process has been formalized under seven steps:

1 - The Desk Review

2 - National workshops

3 - Regional Workshop

4 - The inception workshop

5 - The Concept Note

6 - The writeshop

7 - The research project These 7 steps User-Led-Process will naturally be represented by web pages in the three parts of the website regional platform.

The diagram below shows the functions tree of the regional platform website

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Project PAEPARD
Workpackage 3 : information and communication system
Platform for African European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development Phase II

The URL of the five regional platforms are : PROPAC ROPPA EAFF FNARPAN/SACAU COLEACP http://paepard.org/consortia02 http://paepard.org/consortia03 http://paepard.org/consortia01 http://paepard.org/consortia05 http://paepard.org/consortia04

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Project PAEPARD
Workpackage 3 : information and communication system
Platform for African European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development Phase II

2 How to use the platform?

Mthod
The principle adopted by the groups to work on the platform is as follows: 1 - Each event (whether the preparation of a workshop, or writing a document) is first prepared in the Intranet site. This is the place where you will produce, share, discuss, modify and validate the information. The intranet is structured according to the seven stages of User-Led-Process. Documents or information that will be produced in the part of the intranet on stage-User-Led Process concerned. For example, the list of participants to the regional workshop and the proposal from the workshop program will be deposited in the "Regional Workshop" Input dedicated to the document reposittory. 2 - When the document or information is mature and has been validated by the group, it will get out of the private area (the Intranet) and exposed in an public area. In the previous example, the list of confirmed participants and the final program of the workshop will be copied to the next part of the Internet website called "Following the User-Led-Process" in the "Regional Workshop" pages. So, interested people, or any user or any member of the community PAEPARD or workshop participant will be able to view information relating to the preparation of the regional workshop. 3 - Finally, for the uninitiated Internet users who know nothing of User-Led-Process, it is good to add information in the "General Information" in the "Summary of the progress of User-Led-Process" to explain that a regional workshop is planned and to give a link (on the section described in n 2) that will allow to know more about this workshop

Expected contents
Each group is free to publish the content they want on the website. However, we suggest to include the following contents: HOME PAGE An explanation of the goals of this site and on what the User-Led-Process is Group and workshops photos Logos

GENERAL INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PAEPARD project presentation A short text summarizing the project (this text should be produced by our co-managers) A link to the PAEPARD project website : http://paepard.org A text giving explanation on what is the User Led-Process Group presentation

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Project PAEPARD
Workpackage 3 : information and communication system
Platform for African European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development Phase II

Objectives of the group List of group participants

Synthesis on the User-Led-Process progress in the region A synthetic text that is the state of the progress of work Links to relevant parts of the website in "Following User-Led-Process" (for example, if we speak of the Dessk review that has been done, we will link to the web page where it is available on- line in the "Following User-Led--Process" under "Desk Review." pages) Information on the federated themes A set of links to web pages on the federated theme lead byf the group The display of RSS items containing specific article related to the federated theme of the group The consultation of documents (if the intellectual property rights allow) Contact A contact form where the user can ask how to participate in the process or where it can leave questions or suggestions

FOLLOWING THE USER-LED-PROCESS ------------------------------------------------------------------------Desk review A desk review available online and downloadable Listing of consultants LLinks to documents relating to the review National workshops For each country in which organized a national workshop is, we find the same items as those described below for the regional workshop Regional workshop A page that describes the objectives of the workshop and its context The list of confirmed participants available online and downloadable The program and agenda of the workshop validated viewable online and downloadable Practical information for participants Presentations and documents preparatory workshop available online and downloadable Summaries and conclusions when they have been written, searchable and downloadable online Concept note Core Group list members Concept note available online and downloadable Research project List of the countries concerned by the project (map)

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Project PAEPARD
Workpackage 3 : information and communication system
Platform for African European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development Phase II

The project team The document project available online and downloadable

INTRANET -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Discussion Forum It is in this space that all the discussions relating to the preparation and drafting of documents or information necessary for the User-Led-Process can be led. To avoid saturating the mailboxes of members of groups, discussions may be conducted directly in the forum installed on the platform. It is thus possible to maintain traceability of all decisions and discussions. Only discussions are concerned. Documents involved in these discussions will be deposited in the "Shared Documents" section of Intranet. Discussions are managed and classified according to the different stages of User-Led-Process as defined earlier in this guide, but members of the platform are free to add discussion topics if necessary.

Documents sharing It is in this space that will be stored all documents in preparation. This space is divided into directories, each directory corresponds to a step of the User-Led Process. Each member of the group has registered on his computer this directory structure. When an authorized user put a document on his own computer in this structure, then the system will automatically retrieve the document in the same directory on all computers in the group. And each participant has at any time locally on their computer the latest versions of shared documents. Documents are managed and categorized in folders that reflect the different stages of the UserLed-Process as defined earlier in this guide, but members of the platform are free to add the directories they deem appropriate.

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