Browsing by Author "Lwoga, Edda"

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    Agricultural research online system: an approach to promote collaboration and sharing of agricultural research knowledge in Tanzania
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 2006) Lwoga, Edda
    The purpose of this study was to develop a prototype of an agricultural research online system in order to promote collaboration and sharing of knowledge among researchers in Tanzania. Major focus was on the application of the open access (OA) and community of practices (CoP) concepts in order to improve the process of capturing and sharing of the agricultural technologies and knowledge to researchers, subsistence and commercial farmers and other stakeholders for the sustainable development of agriculture in Tanzania. An exploratory survey, system analysis and ICT-based design were the used methodologies to convey the current state and challenges of knowledge sharing activities among agricultural researchers, as well as to assess the user requirements and develop the Agrinet-Tz prototype. Survey results revealed that the current state of knowledge sharing activities in agricultural research institutes is still not satisfactory within the country. This is mainly due to poor knowledge sharing culture, poor ICT infrastructure, inadequate funds, lack of awareness about the OA issues and inadequate knowledge management support by the research institute management. Major features to be included in the proposed system were also identified in the survey with a greater emphasis on both intrinsic and interpersonal motivational factors in order to stimulate researchers to share their knowledge online. Prototype (i.e. Agrinet-Tz) of the agricultural research online system in Tanzania was therefore developed with the application features geared at both intrinsic and interpersonal motivational factors. This was done in order to resolve some of the revealed challenges such as poor knowledge sharing culture among agricultural researchers. The selected open source software (i.e. Dspace, SMF forum and Joomla portal software) were re-designed to develop the Agrinet-Tz prototype. Additionally, the system was also tested in order to assess the system usability, where the positive feedback was received from the respondents. User roles for the developed prototype were also defined in various categories in order to ensure the system sustainability.