GRIN-Global Workshop 2017 for European Genebanks
Activity Coordinator:Ludmila Papoušková
| The GRIN-GLOBAL Activity is sponsored by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany. |
The proposal "GRIN-Global Workshop 2017 for European Genebanks", submitted by the ECPGR Documentation and Information Working Group under the Fourth Call of the ECPGR Activity Grant Scheme, was selected by the Executive Committee and awarded in December 2016.
- Activity proposal (256,6 KB)
Implementation
The GRIN-GLOBAL Workshop took place 29-31 August 2017 at the Crop Research Institute (CRI) in Prague, Czech Republic.
This Activity was sponsored by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and it was organized in collaboration with the Crop Trust who covered the costs of the trainer and also funded a few additional participants from other countries. The workshop’s purpose was to present and familiarize genebanks with the GRIN-Global documentation system (the first version, 1.0.7, was released in December 2011 in a joint effort by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Bioversity International, and the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA).
GRIN-Global is a software enabling genebanks to store and manage information associated with plant genetic resources and to deliver that information globally. Researchers, educators and breeders around the world can request germplasm through the GRIN-Global websites. Knowing how to use and apply GRIN-Global could solve the “documentation issues” of many genebanks in Europe, thus improving the quality of documentation and reducing the associated costs. There are no licensing fees for providers and the system operates on open source software. For global use there is an option to display the system in any language when translation is provided. It also provides access to a worldwide plant taxonomy database and the possibility to document not only ex situ collections but also in situ and on-farm collections.
Twenty-five participants had the opportunity to try GRIN-Global in a test environment installed on the CRI server under the guidance of specialized trainers. The workshop was opened by Martin Reisinger and Matija Obreza from the Crop Trust. Pavel Cermak, director of the Crop Research Institute welcomed the participants. Thanks were expressed to ECPGR for funding the workshop through its Activity Grant Scheme (Fourth Call, 2016) and to the Crop Trust as well. Martin Reisinger also thanked the local hosts. All participants were asked for a short self-introduction.
The workshop was organized in line with the prepared agenda. Individual parts of the GRIN-Global system and their function were introduced to participants. Further development of the system according to user needs was discussed.
Two presentations were given during the workshop. Firstly, Nick Martynenko from IT-company AimProSOft (Ukraine) presented the connection between Genesys and GRIN-Global; secondly Juan Carlos Alacron from CIMMYT (Mexico), introduced the GRIN-Global Help desk, which is provided by CIMMYT and details about technical and installation support. New features of the GRIN-Global system (upgraded or new Wizards, SMTA reporting, using bar codes, etc.) were mentioned.
At the end of the workshop, participants were encouraged to express their feedback and to join the GRIN-Global community. Most of the participants expressed satisfaction with the given information and indicated their intention to implement the system in their countries.
- Workshop report (368,1 KB)
