A UHSEU

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION

UNESCO INSTITUTE FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION

BUILDING UP NATIONAL FOCAL POINTS’

ONLINE COMMUNITY

RECOMMENDATIONS OF TASK FORCE ON DEVELOPMENT OF IITE INFORMATION SYSTEM ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION

(ISITE)

MOSCOW

2003

UNESCO UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE)

Information System on Information Technologies in Education Task Force coordinator:

Azat Khannanov

Information System on Information Technologies in Education Task Force members:

Vainas Brazdeikis (Lithuania, Centre of Information Technologies of Education, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania)

Alexis Skuratov (Russian Federation, State Research Institute of Information Technologies and Telecommunications “Informika”, Moscow)

Katerina Zdravkova (The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Institute of Informatics (II), Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Skopje)

The authors are responsible for the choice and presentation of the facts contained in this document and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. The designations employed and the presentation of the material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, area or its authorities, or delimitation of its frontiers or borders.

For further information please contact: UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education 8 Kedrova St. (Bld. 3), Moscow 117292, Russian Federation Tel.: 7095 1292990 Fax: 7 095 129 1225 E-mail: info@iite.ru Web: www.iite-unesco.org

0 UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, 2003

Printed in the Russian Federation

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. NETWORK OF IITE NATIONAL FOCAL POINTS ...........................................

2. WORKING MEETING ON ACTIVITY OF EUROPEAN IITE FOCAL POINTS (PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC) ................................................................

2.1 Purpose of the network of national focal points ................................................ 2.2 Possible areas of activities ......................................................................... 2.3 Desirable responsibilities of national focal points .............................................. 2.4 Responsibilities of IITE ............................................................................ 2.5 Expected advantages for the participants of networking ....................................... 2.6 Technical aspects of networking .................................................................. 2.7 Toward the network establishment ...............................................................

3. III-E INFORMATION SYSTEM AS A BASIC TOOL TO DEVELOP THE NETWORK OF NATIONAL FOCAL POINTS ...............................................................

4. ACTIVITIES OF INFORMATION SYSTEM ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION TASK FORCE (TF ISITE) IN 2001 ........................................

5. TF ISITE SUMMARY OF FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS ................................. 5.1 Networking ........................................................................................... 5.2 Information ........................................................................................... 5.3 Models for cooperation ............................................................................. 5.4WWWPortal.. ....................................................................................... 5.5 WWW Portal development strategy ............................................................... 5.6 Available means and resources .................................................................... 5.7 Responsibilities ...................................................................................... 5.8 Copyrights ............................................................................................ 5.9 Access ................................................................................................. 5.10 Quality of information ............................................................................. 5.11 Language ............................................................................................

ATTACHMENT. LIST OF NATIONAL FOCAL POINTS FOR COOPERATION WITH IITE ...................................................................................................

4

6

6

7 7 7 8 9

12 13 13 13 13 14 14

15

- . _... ._

1. NETWORK OF IITE NATIONAL FOCAL POINTS

In order to facilitate the IITE functioning for the benefit of UNESCO Member States the IITE Governing Board consisting of 11 members from different countries of the world adopted at its 1st session (July 1998) and endorsed at its 2nd session (July 1999) a decision to address UNESCO with a request to submit a circular letter to Member States asking them to designate, in cooperation with the National Commission in a respective country, a national focal point (NFP) for cooperation with IITE.

Following the decisions of the IITE Governing Board, the letter ED/IITE/99/110 of 12 September 1999 with a request to nominate national focal points for cooperation with IITE was sent to UNESCO Member States. Presently, 35 national focal points are set up in different countries throughout the world (the full list of national focal points is attached).

2. WORKING MEETING ON ACTIVITY OF EUROPEAN IITE FOCAL POINTS (PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC)

The issues of cooperation within the network of national focal points were discussed at the working meeting on the activity of European IITE focal points (Prague, Czech Republic) in October 2000. The participants of the working meeting:

l were informed about the IITE programme activities; l exchanged the information on the activities of the organizations nominated as national focal points; l discussed the issues of coordination and cooperation between IITE and national focal points, as well as among national focal points; 0 considered possible ways of networking and creation of integrated Net resources on information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education; l examined probable forms of UNESCO Member States’ participation in the IITE projects (development, implementation and dissemination of the results) through the system of national focal points; l elaborated the framework of action and main lines of activities for national focal points and their network.

The participants proposed the following basic provisions to develop the network of IITE national focal points for the Working document of the meeting.

2.1 Purpose of the network of national focal points

With a view to assist Member States in the development of education through application of ICTs, the purpose of the network of national focal points in a respective country or region would be:

l to collect and disseminate information on the implementation of ICTs in education; l to monitor the situation and general tendencies in the development of ICTs in education; l to serve a “bridge” between IITE and national institutions acting in the field of education, especially those acting in favour of implanting ICTs in education.

2.2 Possible areas of activities

Using the facilities of networking with IITE, the national focal points in close cooperation with the Ministries responsible for education in Member States and National Commissions for UNESCO should operate in the following fields:

4

l International exchange of ideas, experience and studies on the implementation of ICTs in education. l Assistance in national research and development concerning ICTs in education in Member States. l Information on training of personnel in the field of ICTs in education. l Information on the access to databases and documentation on ICT application in education.

2.3 Desirable responsibilities of national focal points

l Contribution to monitoring of the ICT development in education in respective countries. l Carrying out information exchange between IITE and national focal points. l Contribution to IITE publications and databases. l Providing the networking with the leading national institutions in the field of ICTs in education.

2.4 Responsibilities of IITE

l Informing Member States through national focal points on IITE activities, training programmes, applied research and project arrangements. l Providing access to IITE databases for Member States. l Providing assistance to Member States in the search for partners in the field of ICT application in education. l Analysing assembled information, carrying out comparative research and dissemination of results. l Managing the international network of national focal points.

2.5 Expected advantages for the participants of networking

It is expected that national focal points will be given: l an access to integrated information resources on the application of ICTs in education; a an access to databases of research findings and researchers in the field of ICTs in education; l an opportunity to participate in compilation and use of world experience in the field of ICT implementation in education.

2.6 Technical aspects of networking

IITE is open for cooperation with all national focal points. The Institute is ready to make the following facilities for networking available for its partners:

l high bandwidth communication lines from IITE to Internet backbone; l 24-hour brand name UNIX-based Internet server with necessary functionalities, including hosting for focal points’ web sites, teleconferencing, etc.; l qualified personnel for web design and maintenance.

2.7 Toward the network establishment

The participants of the meeting proposed the main lines of joint activities aimed at the development of the international network of national focal points, among which:

l setting up a working group/task force; l design of functional and organizational model of the network of national focal points;

5

l description of the content (subject matter) of information exchange; l design and setting up of a special web site; l coordination of technical parameters needed for stable networking, etc.

3. IITE INFORMATION SYSTEM AS A BASIC TOOL TO DEVELOP THE NETWORK OF NATIONAL FOCAL POINTS

Following the decision of the 30th session of the General Conference of UNESCO (Paris, November 1999), the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education launched the international project ZCTs in Education: State-of-the-Art, Needs and Perspectives. The main goal of the project is to provide Member States with a mechanism to share the experience of ICTs in education and a high technology tool for UNESCO research and training activities in this field.

Since year 2000, to achieve the goal IITE has been developing the IITE information system consisting of WWW portal (web site, database and interactive tools) and Extranet network. The web site contains information on IITE structure, partners, programme activities and publications. The database provides a lot of hyperlinks to WWW resources in five languages with structured descriptions, associated indexation and query tools. The interactive tools enriched with instruments for group working and training activities facilitate professional networking by creating worldwide virtual environments for policy-makers and planners, research and development personnel and educators.

The distributed part of the IITE information system - Extranet network - is currently developed on the basis of the network of national focal points for cooperation with IITE. The distributed structure of the network will cover different types of activities - information exchange, interaction in collaborative research projects and training programmes - using different levels of technologies: from mail and fax to the World Wide Web. _

4. ACTIVITIES OF INFORMATION SYSTEM ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION TASK FORCE (TF ISITE) IN 2001

According to the recommendations of the working meeting on the activity of European IITE focal points (Prague, Czech Republic) the Task Force on ISITE was set up during the expert meeting ZCTs in Education: State-of-the-Art, Needs and Perspectives - Indicators and Information System, which was held at IITE from 28 to 30 of March.

The mission of the TF ISITE was stated as to promote the ISITE development at organizational, content and technological levels through:

l Analysis of the situation with available means and resources at the IITE focal points. l Identification of possible ways to exchange information among ISITE members. l Distribution of responsibilities among focal points and IITE. l Determination of functional and technical specifications for ISITE. l Elaboration of common methodological basis (metadata set and schemas) for ISITE development and maintenance. l Discussion of information quality, copyright and translation issues in the context of ISITE implementation. l Setting the time frame of ISITE development. l Formulation of the requirements for further ISITE development.

The TF ISITE comprises three representatives of IITE national focal points - Alexis Skuratov, State Research Institute of Information Technologies and Telecommunications “Informika”, Moscow, Russian Federation; Vainas Brazdeikis, Centre of Information Technologies of Education, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania; Katerina Zdravkova, Institute of Informatics (II), Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Skopje, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Programme specialist Azat Khannanov,

6

IITE, (Azat.Khannanov@iite.ru) coordinates the TF activities. TF ISITE has started working since April and had the Final Recommendations prepared by December, communicating through the mailing list.

First of all, through interviews and questionnaires the TF ISITE members gathered the information from European national focal points in 12 Member States: Andorra, Belarus, Czech Republic, Finland, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Ukraine.

With information gathered the gap analysis was separately performed for the following regions: the Commonwealth of Independent States, Central and East Europe, South Europe. Special attention was devoted to the analysis of demands: identification of information, needs in management and other resources of a focal point and expectation of information offer from the focal point within the ISITE framework. The elaborated supply analysis, which presented the current state based on the information created and collected by the focal points and IITE using technologies and organizational schemas for cooperation with partners at national and international levels, proved that the creation of effective network community, at least in the limited areas of interests, is really possible.

The formulated solutions to bridge the gap, including information, organization, resource and technology interaction model, analysis and strategy for ISITE development, were stated in the TF 1SIT.E Final Recommendations. Table of contents and summary of the document is given below.

5. TF ISITE SUMMARY OF FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Networking

The network of focal points is growing into a large system on information technology in education (ISITE). IITE should be the “head” of the system and organize the collection and dissemination of international research results to monitor the development of ICTs in education. The national focal points should provide a flow of national data into ISITE and at the same time provide national agencies with accesses to the entire information system. The researchers should help Member States develop ICTs in education (exchange of ideas, teacher training, teaching aids, national research, etc.). The activities can be successful if a strict and formal structure is established, the reliable schedule and management are provided. This is particularly important to ensure the flow of data, resources, etc., because the data must be relevant, qualitative, timely, coherent with each separate country, etc. On the other hand, if we focus more on a non-formal system and some documentation database, more flexibility can be achieved.

Furthermore, since a national focal point is neither a representative person, nor an institution, the team involved in IITE activities should also be introduced. Each member of IITE national focal point group should be represented by its professional identity card, including the e- mail address, ICT experience in education and responsibilities in ISITE project. This group will be accessible through a link that opens an additional page, which can be linked to personal home pages of project members. It will help TF members contact with the focal points that are idle or not responding at all.

Diversity of organizations nominated as focal points implies the necessity to provide a small introduction of each national focal point and its activities concerning ICTs in education. This information depends on the type of an organization, particularly, because most of them are not strictly concerned with one activity.

5.2 Information

The information should be displayed so that a better impression of the involvement of a national focal point as a catalyst to implement ICTs in education can be achieved.

Inevitably, the information about teaching/training activities, applied research, current projects, and dissemination of the results of national focal point exists in ISITE, but equally

7

- -_ . __.--^- . . - - .

I ,

important is the information about the country itself. This is particularly necessary for the countries with long experience of ICT application in education, starting from computer assisted learning, through educational software, and finally getting to distance learning.

Apart from a national page, NFP page should contain the information from a questionnaire and, eventually, a list of national and international organizations NFP is collaborating with on the same subject, such as European School Network, European Commission (PHARE, Tempus, Erasmus, Copernicus), World Bank, ACM, IEEE, etc. This list should not be explicitly published in the web page of a national focal point, but it should be available to IITE in order to enable the exchange of information as well as to present a better source for prospective documents in ISITE, without multiple selections and access.

5.3 Models for cooperation

5.3.1 The structure of data To describe the monitoring data the same indicators can be used, which are used by

OECD, WB, Eurodyce or Eurostat and so on. It is important not to invent new indicators but to employ the already existing in an education system, while certain data should be measured with additional indicators.

l Statistical data, such as: - Number of students and teachers per a computer; - Capacity of Internet lines in educational institutions; - How the qualification of teachers matches the standards (e.g. ECDL); - information technologies (IT) resources per student funded with a local government

budget; - Time for IT teaching (academic hours); - IT teaching resources.

l Database of teaching software with the assessment of an independent audit at conventional level (e.g. asterisks of IITE) and a link to the provider. l Date of research with the assessment of an independent audit at conventional level (e.g. IITE copyright asterisks) and description of copyrights and ways to get an access to the information. l Teacher training course database with the assessment of an independent audit at conventional level (e.g. IITE copyright asterisks) and a link to the provider. The data can be categorized to the institutional level or age group of learners. Standard

library records, such as UNIMARC, etc., can be used for documentation.

5.3.2 To establish the ways and rules for information exchange The exchange of information would be easy if we decide to build a portal. Still it may be

necessary to identify human resources of a national focal point and IITE. It may be a good idea for a national focal point to delegate at least one full-time person for contacts with IITE or establish for this purpose a subdivision within the attached organization. His/her responsibilities will include the following:

l to provide information for IIT’E or organize its collection in the countries; l to review the information from IITE before delivering it to the organizations of

interest (e.g. presentation of information to a policy analysis sector of a country, if IITE looks for evaluators, to inform experts at the universities, etc.);

l to provide support for people who wish to cooperate with IITE. The exchange is possible through organized transfer of information. Placing and

publication of materials is controlled with the authorization rights of users. At the first stage the process should be centralized, the level of decentralizing can become higher at the later stages. In any case, the portal technology offers very helpful and easy-to-use solutions.

“Mirror” effect for different servers is to be discussed, as sometimes their allocation in one place may overload the Internet networks, e.g. “mirror” in some regions.

8

5.3.3 Organization of teaching For this purpose the portal technology enables us to organize a Learning Centre (it will be

described later). Evaluation of obtained knowledge and skills Particular attention should be paid to evaluation of the knowledge and skills obtained

with ICTs compared to the knowledge and the skills obtained with classical methods. Thus, IITE together with national focal points and their Ministries for Education should invent interactive online tests for several levels of primary and high school, which will be translated in the languages spoken in the countries with national focal points. Tests will cover some fundamental disciplines such as mathematics, physics, biology, geography, first and second languages, etc.

All students who will be tested should receive an identification code (e.g. country, place, date of birth, school, class, number in the class). A student, who has tried one test, can’t do the same one. Each test will contain introductory questions about the teaching/training methods used. If this approach is adopted, then a database of all schools will be necessary to give a global idea of the quality of schools. Finally, an exhaustive statistical analysis of the received results must be conducted. It will be the greatest indicator of the current needs and results of the ICT implementation in education.

We have to pay special attention to the fact that there must be two levels of expertise: national and international (by UNESCO experts).

The task is very ambitious, so it may become a subject of a new IITE project.

5.3.4 National web pages First of all, the national web pages must have one design. Although national web pages are not supposed in ISITE, they can be included there.

Namely, smaller countries, like Andorra or the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, NFP usually possess or create national plans and training materials. Most research and analysis on the implementation of ICTs in education involves the members of the organization. Thus, the process of obtaining necessary information on the status of ICTs in education is realized. Bigger countries, such as the Russian Federation, can’t count on that.

Therefore, it might be useful to be aware of all institutions involved in the national educational strategy connected with the application of ICTs in education. The list of organizations, which are implementing, developing, researching, and disseminating educational use of ICTs, must be presented with a contact person, address, homepage, if it exists, and more than that, with its responsibilities in national education. The list must be available to IITE only, and not exposed on the Internet.

Facts meant for dissemination should be the final results concerning ICTs in education. For better review they can be divided according to the level of education, starting from pre- school to life-long learning. Furthermore, for each age, sub-categories depending on the level of competence, or ‘intelligence of a learner must be arranged. The list of documents that are proposed for a national web site is given with the categories and sub-categories.

5.4 WWW Portal

On the base of National Webs the IITE portal should be built. IITE Portal will focus on capacity building and empowering communities to use Internet

tools in their professional activities more effectively.

5.4.1 Portal structure and features Portal Structure. The Portal will operate as a network of regional (national, sub-national

and municipal) gateways. Country servers will play a critical role in the portal as a primary driving force and lifeblood for the IITE NFP network. Regional servers of the portal will share a

9

-- ” _II --.^_ __“I_ -.

common structure of the global portal and other regional servers, and will be implemented on the IT standard platform.

5.4.2 Technology principles The portal technology bases on the following principles: l Centralized software/hardware platform and hosting, decentralized content management: the portal has a common powerful software/hardware platform with common content management tools used by all country servers. l Commitment to open content: organizations and people around the world will be able to complement the content to a portal central server (therefore, to ISITE). l Commitment to open source software: the portal may be built on the top of open source software platform (ACS, ArsDigita Community System), except for the areas where commercial applications have bigger advantages over their open source counterparts. l Scalable and modular architecture: a flexible system that will handle high traffic. l Virtual community building: the portal will provide state-of-the-art computer and human technologies to enable building of effective virtual communities. l Personalization: users will be able to customize their access by defining fields of interests, what kind of information they want to see, in which order to employ various sources. The portal offers customization with regard to content, appearance and language. l High standards of privacy protection: the portal will comply with EU requirements for user’s privacy protection. Thus, the network may be visualized as a comprehensive, multifunctional web portal that

will bring together various ITE-related communities into a common electronic space at the global, national and local levels through shared technological platforms which will provide a comprehensive set of services to the portal users. NFP servers will share a common structure with the central server and regional servers, and will be implemented on a standardized information technology platform. Each NFP site is to be developed in native and English languages and provide links to the central site and sites of other countries.

Regional servers may include: l Country Gateway; l Sub-regional Gateways; l Provincial Gateways; l Municipal Gateways. The dimension of thematic communities will include vertical portals serving clients

initially organized in four groups of main stakeholders: l Government; l International Community and Donors; l Civil Society; l Private Sector. The technology implies that more specialized communities of interest can be added (e.g.

Education Administrators Gateway, Teachers Gateway or Infrastructure Gateway) in the course of portal evolution.

Functional dimension will unite regional and thematic communities on the same technological platform by providing them with many tools and services that can be organized in several blocks:

l Information services; l Collaboration services; l Knowledge services; l Transaction services; l E-learning services; l Hosting and customization services.

10

5.4.3 Portal features Obviously, due to the complexity, scale and rich scope of features, the technology

platforms will not be fully functional and operational when being launched. We should plan to build up a set of services and features gradually with the project progress depending on the demand and technical capacities. Below are the descriptions of the platforms and features that are to be developed at various phases.

The portal may have the following functional technology platforms:

l Public Information Centre The Gateway to a Country - an entry page, standard portal features plus basic content

organized by stakeholder groups in themes serving basic needs to develop information.

l Communication Centre Forum will be designed to meet communication needs of various development

communities of interest, including donors, government, business, academia and non- governmental organizations. The main purpose of the Forum is to facilitate discussions, knowledge and best practice exchange among local communities to foster local development process, thus to contribute to building of online communities.

l Knowledge Centre Knowledge Bank. A platform that will serve a virtual library, providing premium

information on the goals and strategies of national, regional and local development, data and knowledge resources tailored to local needs, as well as an electronic database of local projects, activities and initiatives.

Knowledge Centre will have a virtual database of national legislation governing all aspects of development and business environment (detailed research reports grouped in segments), as well as a Snapshot section presenting major trends and statistics for a particular segment. Visitor will be able to receive answers to his/her questions regarding different aspects of IT.E in the region. It will feature a search engine that will allow the retrieval of required documents according to the date of issue or key words.

l Learning Centre Virtual Universities. A platform to facilitate e-learning. The Russian Virtual University

will have a database of best practice and case studies. During the first stages of project development Learning Centre will accumulate

information on institutions of higher education that offer e-learning as well as details on existing programmes (curriculum, degree/certificate, accreditation, tuition, etc.). It will also provide the analysis and comparative quality assessment of the distance learning programmes. It is planned that Learning Centre will have a matchmaking feature in the form of online questionnaire that will help future students choose a university or a programme that will suit their needs best.

With the project development, Learning Centre will partner with existing distance learning centres to offer Internet-based education programmes. According to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation as of 1999, 12 Associations and Institutes offer distance education. In addition, 14 specialized Distance Learning Centres are located in the Russian Federation, 15 universities and institutions of higher education offer distance learning as one of the forms of education’.

l Hosting Centre Personal Gateway (customization, hosting, and workspace platform) - virtual offices of

portal partners/users plus customized access to various portal platforms to satisfy hosting and workspace needs.

’ www.informika.ru 11

l Government Portal The Government Sites aim to meet the knowledge and communication needs of

government officials at the national, regional, and local levels. Its principal objective will be to contribute to the quality and efficiency of government by providing information on best practice, networks of solutions and experience, data for analysis, benchmarking, and e-government applications.

l Civil Society Portal The Civil Society sites will promote and build on many existing networks and portals,

thus helping create new interactive knowledge communities and networks. These communities will include a diverse range of civil society organizations (CSOs), development practitioners, community leaders, and individuals from the development arena. Users will be able to express their views on the development and engage in discussion or dialogue. The interactive features will allow users to identify and contact with others working on similar projects, and brainstorm on challenging issues.

The priority of the Civil Society Portal is to engage and support civil society to build an enabling environment for local CSOs, grassroots organizations, and indigenous communities to interact with donors, governments, development practitioners and colleagues to find and implement sustainable solutions to reduce poverty. It will build on and leverage the existing networks and gateways to create a platform that brings together civil society organizations, governments, donors, and the private sector to share common concerns and ideas and to cooperate in responding to development challenges. Our portal will serve as:

- an open public space to promote transparency and accountability, - a communication hub where diverse groups can exchange ideas, share practical

know-how and experience, encourage innovations and ongoing learning, - a site to mobilize resources and expertise for cooperative action. to address

problems at the grassroots level.

l Aid Effectiveness Exchange The Aid Eflectiveness Exchange will promote further transparency and coordination in

donor organizations’ activities. While a lot of information is already on the Web from many different sources, it is fragmented and very difficult to work with. The portal will address the challenge of harmonizing major data sources on development activity and providing resources to distil1 and share best practice. Participants will be able to contribute to, consult the databases on projects and programmes, and hold virtual roundtable discussions among agencies, donors, countries, and other stakeholders.

5.5 WWW Portal development strategy

There is a reliable ground to state that such information system can be developed especially on the basis of portal technology. Meanwhile certain moments should be kept in mind:

5.5.1 NFP should be indicated pretty clearly, and its functions should be described in a precise way. It must be represented by responsible organizations coordinating the work on the strategies of ICT implementation and planning.

5.5.2 Development of the information system should start with the corrected analyses of needs, placement of indicators, and proceeded with the production of software and organization of teaching.

5.5.3 ISITE is meant to be an international distributed repository for documents on ICTs in education. As far as IITE covers a very limited part of the world, one of the first problems to be solved is how to collect relevant and representative records from countries that are neither in IITE nor in UNESCO. Interesting that namely these countries use ICTs in education intensively, sometimes to the extreme, from the first grade of primary school (TIMMS-R 99, ORBIT 2000). Their experience is impressive and, subsequently, their publications are.

12

5.5.4 First attempt to obtain a representative sample of accessible documents is, presumably, the extended network of focal points, particularly in Europe. It may be easy to maintain such network if we use portal technology, though, administered at the regional basis. One national focal point will represent and lead each region. At the beginning, a leading national focal point will be chosen among the nominated IITE focal points; afterwards it will be elected among the most active countries in the region. If this approach is adopted, the organization of ISITE will be placed at IIT.E as a centre point, and regional focal points as descendants. Each regional focal point will be a centre for the region with the centralized communication architecture. Centralized organization should not disable direct communication with IITE as well as mutual communication of regional focal points and national focal points from one region.

5.6 Available means and resources

The situation with available means and resources at the IITE focal points for South Europe is not clear yet. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and, probably, Andorra have got compatible resources with IITE. Data for these two countries have remained unchanged since Prague meeting. No information from Spain has been received from PNTIC, but according to their web site, they seem to have compatible resources, too.

5.7 Responsibilities

Responsibilities of national focal points and IITE are clearly stated at each stage. To conclude, IITE should be a coordinator, similarly, the representatives of regional centres. Most of the job will be accomplished by national focal points. List of personal responsibilities must be exposed on national homepage. Deadlines for activities should be made available for the representatives from regional focal point and national focal points.

5.8 Copyrights

All documents and programmes presented on the Web should receive a written agreement from their authors. In this case they are intended to be widely exposed, with no limits. Distribution of documents or, in general, information without an agreement is also forbidden.

5.9 Access

ISITE should have three kinds of information:

l free external access, with information of mutual interest and information that will significantly influence education;

l free access for the participants from IITE network, each personal part of ISITE should be protected by a password. Serial numbers of computers with a permit for this part of the database should be checked prior to access. Information should not be confidential, but without a right for free distribution. For each access to such document a fee should be paid to the author. Fees will be covered by IITE and a national focal point and will depend on the copyright expenses. Unintentional access to this ISITE part should not be fatal;

l free for the members of TF ISITE and selected employees of IITE. The database will include information with high copyright expenses covered by IITE, either confidential or directly connected with the on-going projects. With the methods of protection, like the usage of a computer without a network connection, identification of the computer and a password, it seems that complete protection is impossible. Therefore, this part should be as small as possible.

13

5.10 Quality of information

This problem will be partly sorted out by the criteria recommended by the proposed team from IITE and national focal points. Three independent referees from different countries, including IITE experts, should recommend each document and programme. Reports and documents created for IITE should be grammatically correct without spelling mistakes (NB. There were such problems in the previous version of the site). Still, the best indicator of their quality will be public opinion. Therefore, a counter of logs in to a particular item as well as a counter of grades given by those who read or try it, should be established.

5.11 Language

Each document created for ISITE should be presented in English and official language(s) of the country it comes from. Correct translation of the documents is not a great problem, but diversity of alphabets used for different languages needs a link from a page with non-English alphabet to the sites that enable downloading of the corresponding font.

Restricted items - documents and programmes that are not free of charge - should be separated from free items. Approach to them will be in line with the previously suggested protection measures and will be assigned to IITE or national focal point members.

14

ATTACHMENT

LIST OF NATIONAL FOCAL POINTS FOR COOPERATION WITH IITE 1. ALGERIA: National Institute for Research in Education 2. ANDORRA: Centre National d’lnformatique d’Andorre (CNIA) 3. ARMENIA: “Informatics” Complex of the Ministry of Education and Science 4. AZERBAIJAN: Education Technologies Centre of the Ministry of Education 5. BANGLADESH: National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM), Ministry of

Education 6. BELARUS: Computer Analytical Centre of the Ministry of Education of Belams

7. CAPE VERDE: Teachers Training Institute 8. CZECH REPUBLIC: UNESCO International Centre for Scientific Computing (ICSC) 9. DENMARK: National Centre for Technology-Supported Learning (CTU) 10. FINLAND: National Board Education 11. GEORGIA: Educational Scientific Centre “Informatica”, Ministry of Education 12. GHANA: Science Resource Centre, Ghana Education Service 13. ICELAND: Iceland University of Education 14. INDONESIA: Centre for Communication Technology for Education and Culture 15. IRAN: Iran Science Promotion-Year 2020 16. KAZAKHSTAN: Scientific-Methodical Centre of Informatization in Education 17. KLWAIT: The Information Centre of the Ministry of Education of Kuwait 18. KYRGYZSTAN: Kyrgyz International University 19. LEBANON: National Centre of Science and Pedagogical Development (CRDP) 20. LITHUANIA: Lithuanian Centre for Information Technologies in Education 2 1. THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA: Institute of Informatics

22. MALAYSIA: Technology Education Division (BTP), Ministry of Education 23. MEXICO: Centre of Educational Television (UTE), Ministry of Education 24. REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA: Centre of Informatics of the State University of Moldova 25. NAMIBIA: National Institute for Educational Development (NIED) 26. NEW ZEALAND: IT Strategies for Schools, Ministry of Education 27. POLAND: Educational Centre for Informatics and Application of Computers 28. RUSSIAN FEDERATION: State Research Institute of Information Technologies and

Telecommunications “Informika” 29. SENEGAL: Laboratoire Informatique Education de 1’Ecole Normale Superieure 30. SEYCHELLES: Ministry of Education of Seychelles 3 1. SPAIN : Programa de Nuevas Tecnologias de la Information y Comunicacion (PNTIC) 32. SWITZERLAND: National Commission of Switzerland for UNESCO 33. TAJIKISTAN: National Technical Institute of Tajikistan 34. TANZANIA: Institute of Education Technology of the Open University of Tanzania 35. UKRAINE: Institute of Applied System Analysis

15