WESVARRDEC leads FITS-IS training

By RACG Staff Niño Manaog
Photo by RMISG Staff Bill Gange
30 September 2009

Under the auspices of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), the Western Visayas Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium (WESVARRDEC) hosted some 27 managers, information service specialists (ISS) from various Farmers Information and Technological Services (FITS) centers and representatives of the Regional Management Information System Group (RMISG) across Western Visayas in the FITS Information System (IS) Training on September 17-18, 2009 at the Computer Laboratory of the Polytechnic State College of Antique (PSCA) in Sibalom, Antique.

Led by RMISG Coordinator Nilo Araneta of UP Visayas, the training covered a two-day hands-on and discussion on FITS-IS, an online database which contains farmer’s and expert’s profile that can be accessed by the farmers seeking information and technology services from FITS.

Developed as a Web-based system, FITS-IS is composed of six major databases namely: technology, experts’ profile, farmers’ profile, contact firms, publication, and technology video materials.

Training participants were made to understand the importance and new features of the enhanced FITS-IS and learn to use the enhanced FITS-IS with ease. They were also made to understand their role with regards to FITS-IS maintenance and content development so they could also help develop a mechanism for sustaining its content buildup.

By and large, added knowledge for the participants was directed to ease and speed up the dissemination of information for the consortium.

The training reaped a number of feedbacks from across the range of participants. ISS Janet Argamaso of FITS Kabankalan said she learned so much from the training because it taught them “how to look for our fits center records.”

Similarly, ISS Kathylyn Esperida of FITS Igbaras considered it well-organized, citing the expertise of knowledgeable speakers. Esperida also deemed well that every participant had a computer for a hands-on workshop and that almost everything was covered.

ISS Joey Oncio of FITS Lemery echoed Esperida, saying he has gained additional knowledge while also being given additional workload, while ISS Danlee Mangao of FITS Moises Padilla considers the training successful because it was “interactive.”