TAD Consortium September 1999 Information Update 5

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CONTENTS
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NEWS
SA E-Commerce Growth Outstrips Predictions
Report on Selected Technologies

ANNOUNCEMENTS/REQUESTS
Domain Space Debates

ONLINE RESOURCES
Global Science & Technology Information: A New Spin on Access
Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education
Science Education Sites
Women, Democracy and Governance - Nigeria
Promotion of Youth Responsibility Project - Zimbabwe
Mass Media Expands Choices - Tanzania
Towards a Sociology of Educational Technology

PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES
"Gold Star Quality" - Egypt

ARTICLES
Converging Responsibility: Broadcasting and the Internet in Developing
Countries

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NEWS

SA E-COMMERCE GROWTH OUTSTRIPS PREDICTIONS

Source: BMI-T

Electronic networks are already firmly embedded and growing in importance as

commerce platforms, with the Internet, in particular, boosting the volume

and future importance of e-commerce, the industry's most authoritative

survey found.

The landmark 1999 South African Electronic Commerce Survey, conducted by IT

and telecommunications market researchers and consultants BMI-Techknowledge,

shows that, according to senior information service managers' expectations,

conducting business via electronic networks is set to grow in leaps and

bounds over the next three years. "It is also abundantly clear that the

Internet is already widely accepted as a mainstream commerce platform, and

is perceived by most respondents to be the most significant catalyst for the

rapid growth of electronic commerce," BMI-T director Brian Neilson writes in

the survey report published this week. For a full transcript of the press

release, with statistics, please visit www.itweb.co.za.

REPORT ON SELECTED TECHNOLOGIES

by Paul West

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LIVING WITH THE INTERNET

The number of Internet users should reach 130 million this year according to

some gurus but there appears to be another trend taking place at the same

time as this fast growth. An Arbitron NewMedia survey shows that while the

number of connected households in the USA has grown from 20% to 54%, the

number of people who say they regularly use their PCs has dropped from 90%

to 53%. The survey apparently excludes children under 16, a very active

group.

Along side increasing computer and Internet usage, new job titles keep

appearing. Articles from science magazines around the 50s and 60s described

[then] future job titles such as "rocket-car engineer" may be remembered by

some. New job titles emerging now include "Broadband Network Installer",

"Disaster Recovery Specialist", "Piracy Investigator", and "Professional

Surfer". If you find your career is running down on you, it may be time to

consider a complete turn-around - its never too late to learn new tricks -

and take on a new career!

While learning all the new tricks of your new trade, remember to keep

important documents saved in as many formats as you can (within reason!).

Even CD ROMs are proving to be less than 100% reliable. Your more important

data should be kept in more than one storage medium - and that includes on

old-fashioned paper.

Newer working conditions are leaving people with more time on their hands.

This may be time they used to use in commuting, replaced by Tele-commuting

or simply having their working hours scaled down. This extra time is likely

to lead to more time spent online and more time being involved in e-commerce

transactions. One of these e-commerce transactions where the product can be

delivered right into the consumer's home is lifelong learning. These

"products" may be combinations of older forms of lifelong learning involving

print media plus new ones like DVD Videos and multimedia.

While taking courses online and talking to virtual community friends around

the world in chat-rooms, you could be monitored by some "big brother" be

reading your every word. The likelihood of this being officially sanctioned

seems slim as even a Russian Internet Service has apparently refused to obey

a directive to provide access to personal e-mail to a government agency. It'

s always good to remember that your e-mails and other documents passing

through the Internet can be intercepted and read. Head warnings to only

e-mail documents you would accept other people reading or get encryption for

If you don't own a notebook computer or find your 3kg one is just too heavy

to carry around, look out for hotels that provide rooms with PCs. Choice

Hotels International expects to have more than 1000 PC and Internet powered

rooms by year-end.

Rutgers University has found in a survey that less than half the "working

poor" have access to PCs at home and 39% had Internet access. This being

conducted in America, one begins to see the extent of the challenge in

Africa and other developing regions of the world. Mass, personal PC

ownership in developing regions may be more believable when measured in

generations rather than simple years. For this reason, much of the

concentration needs to be placed on shared usage such as Internet cafes,

whether business or community-owned. Once this has been achieved, even poor

people will have access to the wealth of Lifelong Learning content available

via the Internet.

EDUCATION

A report by the Computing Research Association in the US has commented on

the apparent inability of universities to move quickly enough in adapting to

change in providing high-tech workers. Its recommendations call for

universities to create technically oriented graduate programmes combining

computer-science, computer-engineering and information-science courses.

Certificate programmes should include: human-computer interfaces,

bio-informatics and high-performance computing.

Private sector education companies producing new educational materials are

becoming increasingly stronger competition to public sector institutions

that continue to get criticised for moving too slowly. The Learning Company

students. The esteem value of producing one's own material may eventually be

overpowered by the sheer economics of buying in the most appropriate

material and adding examples and customisations where appropriate.

Educators looking for professional development programmes may be interested

in consulting UCLA's online programmes (developed in collaboration with

educators is "Microsoft Office for educators". Pearson Education plans to

increase their inventory of pre-build online resources to 75, all packaged

in WebCT by year-end. Courses correspond with textbooks from a number of

with the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the Carnegie Melon

University and the London School of Economics and Political Science. This

will result in courses being developed, to be delivered over the Internet

integrate campus administrative systems with web-based learning systems has

been answered by a collaborative effort between PeopleSoft, ULT and

leverage the power of the Internet for education. Another new start-up in

the virtual classroom providers is Tripod, part of the Lycos Network. They

have developed a free online classroom environment for teachers to use at

for a single teacher or lecturer to run a virtual class with nothing more

than an Internet enabled PC!

Distance education has tended to take a back seat compared to

classroom-based education in coming out of the closet around the world. The

US department of Education has announced that DE programmes are being

offered at 90 of US institutions with enrolments of 10 000 students and more

and at 85% of institutions with between 3 000 and 10 000 students. The

Department expects to begin making financial aid available to DE students,

something that has not been available until now. See

Universities already online, have to keep watching their backs for new

its online programmes with three initiatives, Harcourt University, a high

school and an e-commerce site. Entering the private education fray seems

one possible way for publishers to maintain a constructive role in the

uncertain future. This however puts them in competition with a number of new

players including campus-based booksellers. The University of Missouri at St

Louis has created a Web "Wizard" to help professors put their courses online

all web coding and let's the professor concentrate on their subject matter.

In an effort to popularise Infotech to teenagers, the US department of

Commerce will launch an advertising campaign next year to convince them that

computers are "cool" and not "nerdish". The industry continues to struggle

to find and train enough highly skilled InfoTech workers. Finding

information on search engines can be difficult and according to a recent

list around 10% to 20% of the world webpages. If you want people to find you

on the Internet - it's really important to visit the search engines people

are likely to use and request them to list your site.

A new portal Internet site, AfricaEducation.org

South Africa. This portal aims to provide a comprehensive set of links to

existing curriculum content and learning support. A public library for

lifelong learners in Africa, hosted on the Internet will shortly be

available via the portal. Institutions in Africa are able to make a

difference if they have dedicated and energetic staff who are given the

"space" to operate. The University of Jos in Nigeria

link and has its 24 departments connected on a fibre-optic LAN. The more

than 100 computers enable the staff and learners to interact with their

partners at the University of Iowa and around the world. Students are now

developing the University's first web pages and making their research

available to the world. A project in the USA may provide valuable

experiences for rural people in Africa. A PC and Internet-enabled truck will

travel to provide local educators, community leaders and families with

hands-on education technology experience. The project may be followed on the

planned in Africa.

A network of universities in 7 countries has applied to form a business in

Britain. Called Universitas 21, the group believes it is the first time a

group of traditional universities has tried to form a commercial company.

The group believes the deal will help it gain strength to form a stronger

international alliance to serve multinational clients

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Reports are starting to emerge of how e-commerce is beginning to fuel

traditional businesses' growth. While being an aspect that cannot be ignored

(can a company without a website really be taken seriously?), companies are

still not showing significant profits from online business. We seem to still

be in the earlier stages of the new economy and a balance must be maintained

between traditional revenue streams and e-commerce. Governments around the

world are looking at e-commerce transactions with expectations of finding

ways to levy taxes on the new economy. Questions are arising such as "where

did the transaction take place" and "who should pay the tax".

With the new economy one also finds "new customers" - people with far higher

service expectations than previously experienced. This has begun to affect

education institutions and even Microsoft has admitted that it is embarking

on a 3-year initiative to reinvent the way Microsoft communicates with its

customers. For a start, it intends re-aligning its service and support by

type of customer rather than by product. Microsoft will be taking a look at

non-PC technologies while it re-evaluates its business too. This will be

guided by the "Empower people through great software anytime, anyplace, and

on any device" philosophy. New kinds of deals are emerging such as the one

between Dell Computers, Boeing, Ford Motor and Microsoft which will lead to

employees in each company possibly being able to shop for products from

other partner companies at a discount. Apple Computers is about to launch a

new notebook PC computer and is closely watching the success of "free" PC

offers. Many people must have been disappointed when Apple suddenly removed

a clip-board-style notebook from the market that could even be powered by a

wind-up mechanism (demonstrated at a Commonwealth conference in Botswana).

If they want to enter new markets, this level of ingenuity may take them a

long way.

Websites entirely dependent on advertising revenues on the Internet are

finding it increasingly difficult to raise sufficient revenues. The model of

fee-for-service is becoming more visible again with limited free services to

encourage the new user to try out the products. New revenue streams and

business models are constantly being re-thought and are likely to continue

to fluctuate. The one concept that seems to be constant is that one needs to

provide customised services to individual customers and to serve niche

markets. With the global number of Internet users reaching 130M in 1999, no

company can afford to ignore this sector. Some organisations like the Giga

Information group believe companies will save US$1,25 trillion by doing

business over the Internet. These savings will come from online banking

transactions, online supplier auctions and online distribution of software

and updates.

An interesting proposal has emerged in high smog cities such as Los Angeles

and Washington DC where people may be encouraged to stay at home rather than

go to the office. Companies may earn "pollution credits" if they encourage

employees to telecommute, thereby reducing vehicle traffic and their

resultant pollution. Employees falling into the "information worker"

category could save a great deal in wasted time and fuel while travelling

too.

Companies whose staff is constantly on the move may want to look at the new

generation of virtual offices emerging on the Internet such as WebEx

Internet diaries, group discussions and sharing of documents. New products

such as electronic paper are emerging, such as one by 3M and Xerox who will

use a technology invented years ago involving small beads that rotate with

one side visible to the viewer. In this way a series of tiny dots (beads)

can display words and graphics in the same way as a TV or computer screen

does today. Once set by the electrical current, the display remains constant

until "written" the next time. There's always going to be something new, so

all you have to do is keep up - unless of course if you happen to be the

inventor/innovator!

FEEDBACK

If you have a comment, request or suggestion on this report, please e-mail

it to Paul West at: pgwest@pgw.org.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS/REQUESTS

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DOMAIN SPACE DEBATES

The future of South African domain names is up for discussion. The South

African domain name space policy drafting committee, which was convened by

the South African chapter of the Internet Society, has released the first

draft of its discussion document to the public for comment. The document,

future management of the "ZA" namespace and the sub-domains within "ZA".

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ONLINE RESOURCES

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A new report from the Science & Technology Policy Institute at RAND:

Global Science & Technology Information: A New Spin on Access

Authors: Caroline Wagner and Allison Yezril

RAND MR-1079-OSTP

August 1999

Summary:

In the more than 30 years the U.S. federal government has tracked and

monitored international science and technology information (ISTI), the

global marketplace and the economy have changed dramatically. Capabilities

in other nations have matured, resulting in highly competitive economies.

The RAND survey described here suggests that there is a need for timely,

unbiased, global, and easily accessible ISTI, that users view government

collection and analysis of that information to be an important government

role, and that the need for this information is likely to grow. Government

already collects ISTI, and this information should be made more accessible.

In addition, possible improvements to this service include providing a

global reach to collection efforts, adding economic and trade information,

encouraging networking of information and resources, and increasing the

number of quick responses and person-to-person interactions. Many of these

improvements can, in fact, take advantage of the globalization of industry,

the information revolution, and dispersed scientific excellence. The

effective features of existing services, combined with new information tools

and opportunities, can be incorporated to build the next generation of ISTI

services.

To order this publication, send a request to <order@rand.org>.

The report is also available on the Worldwide Web at

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Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education

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Examine a possible new era in human evolution, where our anatomy and

physiology reflect the union of man and machine.

Learn how robots have already replaced humans in many areas, then see where

they'll be taking over in the future.

Study the science behind cloning, including cell structure and manipulation,

and examine the ethics of this controversial process.

Learn what NASA has already discovered about other worlds, and compare pop

culture's depictions of aliens with what scientists think.

Explore the possibility of a manned mission to Mars and see how life might

be sustained on the inhospitable Red planet.

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Taken from the Drum Beat No. 28 (edited by Warren Feek)

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Women, Democracy and Governance - Nigeria - seeks to increase the

participation of women in political and civil life. The 1st phase was from

March '97 to February '98 during the time of political and social

instability. 16 NGOs implemented the project through capacity building

seminars; workshops; advocacy visits to community leaders; political

rallies; cultural activities; and, increasing the visibility of women in the

media.

Evaluation: NGO membership up 32%; 20 women were elected to the House of

Representatives and 7 to the Senate; a high level of exposure meant 9.5

times more likely to vote; % of women who said they would vote for a

Contact Susan Krenn: skrenn@jhuccp.org

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Taken from the Drum Beat No. 28 (edited by Warren Feek)

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Promotion of Youth Responsibility Project - Zimbabwe - launched in 1995 to

promote risk reduction behaviors, increase awareness of reproductive health

services and foster positive attitudes towards responsible sexual behavior.

Young people were involved in the development of an extensive 6 month

communication campaign. Posters, leaflets, newsletters, radio, drama,

telephone hotline as well as peer educators were utilized to reach young

people. Youth and health centers were identified with a "youth-friendly"

emblem.

Evaluation: [self-reported] 53% said "no" to sex as a result of campaign

exposure; 20% stuck to one partner; 11% began condom use or asked partners

to do so; 28% of young people reported visiting a health center for

Contact Susan Krenn: skrenn@jhuccp.org

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Mass Media Expands Choices - Tanzania - The Ministry of Health family

planning communication project [1991 to 1994], technical assistance from

JHU-CCP, was designed to educate women and men of reproductive age about the

health benefits of modern contraceptive use. Radio spots were broadcast in

Kiswahili on Radio Tanzania; a 52 episode radio serial drama on family

planning themes Zinduka! (Wake up!) was also broadcast twice a week; and, a

new national family planning logo, the Green Star, was launched.

Evaluation: 8% exposed to at least one media source were using modern

methods moving up to 45% for those who had been exposed to 6 media sources;

Contact Susan Krenn skrenn@jhuccp.org

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is a paper by Prof. Steven Kerr at Univ. Washington. It's an excellent

article entitled "Towards a Sociology of Educational Technology." He makes

some important points about technological utopianism and educational

technology as a social movement. The references are useful as well.

Good luck!

Jim Tobias

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PRINTED AND OTHER RESOURCES

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Taken from the Drum Beat No. 28 (edited by Warren Feek)

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"Gold Star Quality" - Egypt - seeks to improve the quality of care offered

by public sector health facilities through: improving the image of service

providers; promoting clinics that meet high quality standards; associating

those clinics with a Gold Star symbol. Clinics earn and retain the Gold Star

by demonstrating standards based on 101 quality indicators.

Evaluation: % of users of family planning public sector services up from 30%

in 1992 to 40% in 1997; 70% of women and 90% of men reported a high level of

understanding that the Gold Star represented superior quality; and, CPR went

Contact Alfred Yassa: ayassa@jhuccp.org

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ARTICLES

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Converging Responsibility

Broadcasting and the Internet in Developing Countries

"Converging Responsibility: Broadcasting and the Internet in Developing

Countries" was a conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from September

4-6, 1999. It was attended by people from 35 institutions in 19 countries.

The meeting was hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and supported by

UNESCO and IDRC.

The report of the meeting was taken to the full annual meeting of the

International Institute of Communications, also in Kuala Lumpur, on

September 8.

In their report, conference participants expressed concern about the

disparities between levels of access in various parts of the world and

stressed the importance of addressing the issue with innovative responses.

"As we enter the era of the knowledge society and the knowledge economy,

access to the infrastructure to share knowledge is essential for social and

economic progress..."

"The seriousness of the challenge requires creative responses from

government agencies responsible for communication policy and regulation,

from the telecommunication industry and from international governance

bodies."

The report also emphasised the importance of transparency and public

involvement in communications policy and regulatory processes. Noting the

efforts by various bodies to educate and support new telecommunication and

broadcast regulators, the report underlines the "need to expand these

efforts to include the education of citizens and NGOs to ensure they are

aware of their rights and responsibilities in the new regulatory

environments."

Transparency and participation are also important on the international

level. Global governance bodies are playing an increasingly important role

in setting communication standards, allocating radio spectrum, and defining

broad policies that are shaping how people communicate. Thus, the report

says, "global governance bodies such as the ITU, WTO, WIPO and the World

Bank must also be transparent, accountable and allow broader participation

from civil society."

The report also offers a creative solutions for extending the reach of the

knowledge infrastructure by making use of existing radio broadcast networks.

"While in some parts of the world a radio is most often seen as an accessory

for an automobile, in large parts of the South, it is the only communication

device that most people have access to." In Sri Lanka, for example, only one

person in 500 has access to the Internet, but virtually everyone listens to

the radio.

Conference participants examined a number of pilot projects combining the

radio and the Internet to mutually enhance their development impact. Some of

these, such as Latin America's Agencia Informativa Pulsar and Indonesia's

Kantor Berita Radio 68H, use the Internet to link radio stations. Others,

such as Kotmale Community Radio in Sri Lanka, are experimenting with using

radio as a "gateway" to the Internet. These projects seek to make the

Internet's information resources available to rural and under-served

communities.

Information about the conference, including the text of the report and of

For further information, contact either of the conference's co-chairs:

Bruce Girard bgirard@comunica.org

Sucharita Eashwar suchrita_eashwar@hotmail.com

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Telematics for African Development Consortium

P.O. Box 31822

Braamfontein

2017

Johannesburg

South Africa

Tel: +27 +11 403-2813

Fax: +27 +11 403-2814

neilshel@icon.co.za

www.saide.org.za

* To view an archive of previous updates visit:

www.saide.org.za/tad/archive.htm

* For resources on distance education and

technology use in Southern Africa visit:

www.saide.org.za/worldbank/Default.htm

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