Eng. Mohsen KRICHI Agricultural Higher Education and Research Institution (IRESA)

IRESA is the Head of 20 Institutions : 12 Agricultural Higher Education ( Education + Research ) 8 Agricultural Research ( RD)

In IRESA : Division in charge of ICT (DTTIC: Division of information technology and communication) 4 engineers: 3 in computer network and 1 in computer programming 4 analysts in computer programming 1 technician NIFU is located within this Division.

IRESA is an Internet Service Provider (ISP ) for the agriculture sector : Web and information system hosting, provider, Security, Management of the agricultural national network, Development and management of RAIS.

Current status and strategies in building information content All agricultural higher education institutes started to educate their students ICT, few of them are going through e-learning technologies.

Library information systems : IRESA use Horizon for virtual library improve the library information systems such as: - Cataloging and classification, - Circulation, - Provision, - Procurement. The library of the agricultural scientific resources allows reaching electronic resources with knowing: - the national and foreign collective catalogs in the agricultural field - bibliographical databases - dictionaries and thesaurus (agrovoc) - electronic resources (thesis, memories...). This library is actually accessible from the intranet and will be available in Internet in 2009.

Distance learning This experience started in 2004 with Water resources courses for technician degree. Many efforts were deployed in capacity building for teachers in digital pedagogy. Other specialties: (field crops, animal health) Number of courses: 40 This distance learning system is composed of the following items: courses, discussion forum, chat, agenda and mail. Learners having had their diplomas: 500

Existing mechanisms of accessing and exchanging information: All scientific and technical staff of the NARS has Internet access from their office an . All institutes have electronic library subscriptions such as American Chemical Society, Blackwell, Elsevier, IEEE, Informs, Proquest and Thomson Scientific. All of their scientific and technical staff and students have access to these libraries. The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) (an easy-to-use database that gives users immediate access to full-text PDF articles) is used over the local area network and is updated every year.

Available infrastructure and financial facilities: All institutes are connected to the Internet and intranet by the national agricultural network (AGRINET) which is managed by the IRESA and they are also connected to EUMEDCONNECT (The EUMEDCONNECT network serves the research and education communities of the Mediterranean region, and is linked to the pan-European GÉANT2 network) Each institute is connected with a leased line and at least 512 Kbps of bandwidth. Number of scientific computing servers: 2 Ratio of Number of computers with Number of Scientific Staff: 1

Development of strategies In 2008, IRESA organized a steering committee in ICT and a steering and management committees for information security. These steering committees are headed by the president of IRESA. The NIFU is represented in these committees. At the national level, a study is lunched and is at his end step, the aim of this study is to define and adopt a national policy/strategy in ICT ( E-gov) ( benchmarking, policy/strategy, roadmap) IRESA participated in the evaluation and validation of this study. An activity has been carried to develop institutional and human capacity building in workflow (5 days). An open source solution will be tested during 2009.

IRESA is member of : FARA ARIMNET AARINENA