1. Dr. Kheder Durah
Regional Network & Information Manager
International Plant Genetic Resources
Central West Asia and North Africa
Tel: +963 21 223 1412, Fax: 2273681
Email: k.durah@cgiar.org
http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org

2. The Definition
 Knowledge is what people Know.
 Network is sharing resources.
 Knowledge Network is :
Sharing What People Know.
01/01/13 2 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

3. The Problem
 Farmers generate and use thousands of Ideas and
Experiences in the course of their activities.
 Administering This Knowledge and finding the relevant
information when required is time-consuming and often
ineffective and for sure non sustainable.
 Important experience go missing as individuals pass
away. One African say that when a farmer dies, a library
is burned.
01/01/13 3 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

4. The Solution
Having a sustainable knowledge management tool
is the key solution to address the challenge of
capturing Indigenous knowledge, analyzing it and
share it in a collaborative manner.
IPGRI CWANA Regional Office Developed GRIS
Which is an effective modeling tool to capture IK,
analyze and share among National Programs.
01/01/13 4 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

5. What is GRIS ?
 Genetic Resources Information system (GRIS) was conceived as a
modeling tool to document and manage the genetic resources both in
Ex-situ and In-situ.
 It consists of a static set of relational databases to document
passport data and a user defined databases. With the cooperation with
IPGRI-APO, GIRS was conceived at its inception to be less data
dependent and more integrated system for managing genetic
resources in a complementary conservation context.
 From the Main Menu GRIS provide information on:
Site Information including interactive GIS maps.
Taxonomy.
Echo-Geographic Surveys.
Collected Samples.
Germplasm Management.
Import/Export Germplasm Data.
Capture and view I/K information thru multimedia features that
was incorporated into GRIS (Video, Audio Clips, images, etc).
01/01/13 5 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

6. GRIS Technology
In order to maximize both operation and data management efficiency,
each accession has been tagged with barcode that allow:
Optical Identification
Collection Site Mapping
Automatic Data Entry/Retrieval
To manage the storage location and status of each sample in the cold
rooms, a 3D window has been implemented in GRIS to visually identify
by a red label mark the storage location of any sought sample for:
Monitoring number of seeds /accession
Monitoring seed viability
Estimating regeneration date
To enhance the reliability of collected information in a survey
mission,
remote and mobile technology was incorporated into GRIS to make use
of:
PDA Palm unit for digital survey forms.
PDA Palm Camera to capture high resolution digital images.
PDA Palm GPS for automatic detection of locations coordinates.
PDA Palm Modem to remotely transfer survey information to
GRIS host computer.
01/01/13 6 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

7. Furthermore to make GRIS a powerful Network Knowledge tool,
a centralized GRIS database was created and hosted at IPGRI-
CWANA office to allow publishing of passport data of accessions
from various National programs currently using GRIS and future
Stakeholders.
This collective
database is part
of CWANA
published
Knowledge
Center based on
MS SharePoint
portal
technology, thus
making it
available for the
public use.
01/01/13 7 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

8. 01/01/13 8 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

9. 01/01/13 9 Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

10. 01/01/13 10Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

11. 01/01/13 11Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

12. GRIS Network Model and
Peripherals
01/01/13 12Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

13. Challenges
Local Laws & Practices
01/01/13 13Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

14. Oman Biodiversity National Information System
OBNIS Model
NHM FRC ARC SQU
Intranet Dial-up Network
Bio
Diversity
Dept.
W.W.W.
Oman Telecom
01/01/13 14Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

15. The Future Ahead
Establish
AgroBiodiversity
Knowledge Center
• Universities
• Research Institutes
• Private Sector
• International Organizations.
01/01/13 15Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA

16.  Acknowledgment
 Huridocs by Manuel Guzman 2001
 Stefano Padulosi , IPGRI-CWANA 2003
 Useful Web sites
 http://www.huridocs.org
 http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org
 http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org/regions/cwana/
 http://cwana.ipgri.cgiar.org/cwanacollab
 http://gris.ipgri.cgiar.org
01/01/13 16Dr. Kheder Durah, IPGRI-CWANA