The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) is an international, non-profit agricultural research center established in 1999 through the visionary leadership of the Government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund, and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD). ICBA is a unique applied agricultural research center focused on marginal areas where an estimated 1.7 billion people live. It identifies, tests and introduces resource-efficient, climate-smart crops and technologies that are best suited to different regions affected by salinity, water scarcity and drought. Through its work, ICBA helps improve food security and livelihoods for some of the poorest rural communities worldwide. ICBA is an equal opportunity employer and appoints qualified staff regardless of race, creed, color, age, gender, religion, or national origin.
As part of ICBA’s efforts to reach more stakeholders around the world and transfer knowledge through capacity development offerings, ICBA is developing an E-Learning platform. This platform will provide a collection of digitized training courses on different topics. These courses will target stakeholders worldwide, including experts, technicians, extension officers, and graduate, and post-graduate students
The assignment for this consultancy is to develop an E-learning course material on “Agricultural Biocontrol Technologies and Management in Marginal Environments”. The course targets agribusiness managers, professionals, experts, technicians, extension officers, and students in fields related to agricultural biocontrol technologies and management. The language of the course is English.
This e-learning course on “Agricultural Biocontrol Technologies and Management in Marginal Environments” should be designed to cover various biocontrol methods aimed at improving vegetable and grain yield, nutrient density, and pest management. Biological technologies, or biological control methods, utilize natural organisms – such as predators, parasites, pathogens, beneficial microbes, and plants- to improve overall plant health, increase yields, and control pest populations in an environmentally sustainable way.
The learning objectives of the course are:
· Understand the concept of agricultural biocontrol in arid and saline environments.
· Identify the key challenges and constraints in managing agricultural production, including maximizing yield, nutrient availability and pest management in arid and saline environments.
· Evaluate and select appropriate biocontrol technologies and management methods to maximize agricultural production yield in open fields and protected production environments.
· Learn about the best agricultural biocontrol technologies, best practices and case studies.
The consultancy will include the following deliverables:
1. Course syllabus, including introduction, learning objectives, modules overview and learning outcomes.
2. Course modules in PPT format with graphs, images, illustration and tables.
3. Learning assessment of around 15-20 multi-choice questions for each module.
4. Reading material – open sources – for each module.
5. Learning assessment (post-test) of around 25-30 multi-choice questions to test the accumulated knowledge of the learner.
· Ph.D. in agricultural biocontrol technologies or related field.
· At least 10 years’ experience in agricultural biocontrol technologies and management.
· Previous experience in developing educational or training contents, especially e-learning contents.
· Fluent in English.
Other requirements
· The consultant will prepare the training contents in English using ICBA templates and branding guidelines.
· ICBA will keep the right to use the material provided in other training contents and/or translate them to other languages while maintaining the credit to the author.
· The consultant is expected to finalize the course material within two months after signing the consultancy agreement.
· The consultant should provide ICBA with an updated CV, short bio and a passport copy.
· The consultant must provide links to all open-source images, videos, data, and similar resources used in the training.
