Survey on accessing and sharing soil health knowledge resources
From HarambeeWiki
Contents |
I Problem
Soil health issues often determine the success or failure of agricultural production. Thus soil health is vital to the future of Africa. Researchers and practitioners throughout the continent are conducting soil health-related research and applying the results of this research. Sharing research techniques and results is essential for effective research and extension. Scientific literature on soil health abounds, however, many who could make use of this material are not currently accessing it.
There is a lot of relevant research material available in print and electronic formats, but it is not easily found. Some of the most relevant African material is not online and can be nearly impossible to find. For people with adequate internet access, there are several good programs that provide access to expensive agricultural journals online at low or no cost. These include AGORA and related initiatives such as OARE and HINARI and also PERI and similar library consortial agreements. For those with bandwidth problems, TEEAL, while not entirely free, provides 130 journals on an external hard drive that institutions can run on a local area network. Professional societies and networks as well as newsletters, websites and conferences are other sources of knowledge-sharing. Nonetheless, many people do not know how to navigate the oceans of disorganized information to locate what they are looking for.
II Project Objectives
- Identify networks and other communities of practice working on “soil health” issues in Africa;
- Understand how they operate and relate to each other;
- Understand the types of soil health information that researchers are seeking;
- Find out where researchers currently get soil health and other agricultural information, including the communications tools they actually have access to and use, and constraints they encounter;
- Identify pathways that will allow those carrying out soil health-related research in Africa to cost-effectively locate, share and acquire information they need most.
III Methods (project implementation during 2007)
- Locate relevant networks, associations and communities of practice
- Locate soil health information resources
- Soil health “user” survey made available through
1. online through an interactive Survey Monkey advertised on the ITOCA website
2. e-mail or e-mail attachments forwarded to listservs operated by the African Soil Fertility Network (AfNet) and ITOCA and selected member of the East and Central Africa Bean Research Network (ECABREN) and the Soil Science Society of East Africa
3. personal contacts working on soils in Africa-based institutions
4. as hard copies distributed to interested parties attending the January 2007 4th International Conference of the African Soil Science Society (ASSS) in Ghana, the June 2007 FARA meeting in South Africa, and at two universities in Zimbabwe.
IV User Survey Findings
- 122 total respondents. 73 surveys from 23 countries were complete enough for analysis. Geographic distribution of survey responses was as follows: 29 (40%) from Eastern and Central Africa); 27 (37%) from West Africa; 17 (23%) from Southern Africa.
- 78% of respondents identified themselves as either researchers and/or teachers. The majority were affiliated with Universities (45%), National Agricultural Research System (NARS, 27%) and International Agricultural Research Centers (IARC, 18%). A small number were employed by government ministries, non-governmental organizations or other institutions.
- Respondents indicated they are getting their information primarily from the internet, but also from colleagues, conferences and (except for the NARS), newsletters. Nearly 40% of IARC respondents reported getting information from colleagues frequently and nearly a quarter of respondents across institutions reported conferences as a frequent source of useful research information.
- IARC respondents had better internet and journal access than university faculty or NARS. Except for private groups and IARCs, many researchers in NARS (especially those in more remote areas) and universities have problems with bandwidth, connectivity and computer hardware and software.
- 50% of NARS respondents belonged to at least one network, while 64% of those working at a university and 69% of those affiliated with an IARC belonged to at least one network. Of networks listed by respondents, more than 10 were related directly to soil health.
- Of a provided list of possible internet sources of soil health research information, Google Scholar, AGORA and CABI were the only sites that can be considered key sources across institutions (≥ 35% citing frequent use). IARCs also cited frequent use of African Journals Online and NARS showed ≥ 35% frequent use of both FAO and CTA sources. Universities also cited frequent use of CTA sources.
- When asked to write in their preferred internet sources, Google was listed by over half of the 122 respondents, followed by AGORA (16%), FAO (14%), Yahoo (13%) and Google Scholar (8%).
- regard to the use of more “advanced” interactive internet sharing techniques, few people had ever used any Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, or social bookmarking, though Skype (VoIP) was mentioned by a number of survey respondents. Many admitted that they had never even heard of the newer applications.
- Most researchers at IARCs, universities and NARS had access to a staffed library or resource center. Most reported that they used their institution’s library. A number of people said they did not consult the institution’s librarian because the librarian was not well-trained or the library resources were so outdated that the respondent considered them of limited use.
V Implications of Findings
1. Those involved directly or in a support capacity in soil health research in Africa are acquiring their information from a variety of sources, including primarily the internet, colleagues, conferences and newsletters.
Therefore: It is probably unwise to simply place sources of information in places where we think they will be found and hope for the best. Information strategies need to be tailored to the different capacities in information literacy and technology access of different audiences.
2. Soil health survey respondents across institutions generally have access to libraries or resource centers and often belong to one or more agricultural networks or associations or professional societies.
Therefore: Proactive “knowledge brokers” rather than passive access centers could improve awareness of and acquisition of useful research material. Most likely candidates for knowledge brokers may be 1) librarians/agriculture information specialists and 2) network staff. This will likely involve not only capacity building for the staff in ICT use and accessing soil health-related resources and databases such as AGORA, but increased outreach strategies to alert potential users of their services.
3. Soil health-related networks, societies and associations seem to be poorly funded and have a low profile on the internet except for several associated with CGIAR centers. However, network membership is significant and members come from all types of research and educational institutions.
Therefore:
a) These groups could be further developed to increase sharing between those who have access to knowledge resources and those who do not. The development of subject-specific listservs moderated by networks could allow for greater sharing of experience and resources between those who have access to different resources.
b) Encouraging wider membership in soil health-related networks and associations is also important. Active recruitment of graduate students by offering relevant services and subsidized memberships could help to bring members into agricultural networks at a younger age.
4. There is overlap in membership between the various soil health-related networks. Therefore: A collaborative inter-network problem-solving listserv could be beneficial for sharing throughout the wider soil health community in Africa.
5. While respondents are often using the internet to find information they rarely use older technologies such as e-mail-based listservs or any of the newer generation of interactive web tools (blogs, wikis, RSS, social bookmarking, etc) to share information. Interactive knowledge sharing appears to be largely limited to face-to-face at the workplace, conferences or workshops, or e-mails to individuals.
Therefore: It is probably wise to begin improving knowledge access and sharing through the current channels and build the advanced web applications little by little as the connectivity and bandwidth problems become less grim. Sources of information can be promoted on websites that soil health researchers are known to frequent.
6. In addition to the all-pervasive Google search engine, the most noted sites on our survey included AGORA, FAO, CTA sources and Google Scholar.
Therefore: Even though these resources are not specific to Africa or to soil health in particular, it would be worthwhile to investigate how and where promotions of new subject-specific knowledge resources could be included. Meanwhile, there are a number of subject-matter specific websites that, while visited less frequently by soils researchers, either have, or could incorporate, “new resources” sections. These include, among others, country-specific NARS sites, the African Soil Science Society website, African Crop News, and the CG Virtual Library, and individual CGIAR Center sites. Lastly, online and hard copy newsletters continue to be an important source of information dissemination.
7. The AGORA database of journals, which is free to almost all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, includes 1122 high-quality, peer-reviewed journals, many of which are relevant to soil health. However, there is currently no way for scientists to get alerts about new relevant articles without subscribing to each journal.
Therefore: It would worthwhile to explore the possibility of developing a peer-based Current Alerts system drawing on articles readily available to researchers through AGORA. A possible model/partner is the Faculty of 1000 Biology project. This initiative could also be linked to the new AGORA/HINARI User Forum just launched by ITOCA.
