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In this issue: Developing IT capacity in higher education in South Africa IMARK: A partnership for training Intute: Virtual Training Suite - A national approach to delivering training online A model for effective and flexible blended learning INASP Licencing and Negotiation Skills (LNS) training Encouraging life-long learning through formulating ICT4D projects AGORA/HINARI Training of Trainer workshops: imparting hands-on skills on the use of e-resources in agriculture and health in Sub-Saharan Africa Email alerts If you would like to be sent an email alert when a new issue of the newsletter is published, please register your email address here © International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), 2006 No parts of this publication may be reproduced for commercial use. Reproduction of articles for educational purposes is permitted only with acknowledgement of the source.

Training Training activities can take different formats: workshops, study tours and visits, self paced learning, group learning, distance learning, etc. This issue collects articles from a range of organisations working in this area to describe what they are doing, how different approaches work and how we can learn from each other and strengthen our methodologies and associated activities. There are many different approaches to training and skills development and many INASP partners and contacts involved in these kinds of activities. How does the effectiveness of different approaches vary? Is in-depth training (carried out over an extended period of time, with a limited number of participants) more or less effective than a broader approach (carried out over a shorter period of time with a larger number of participants)? And how effective are face-to-face training activities compared to distance or blended types of training? Effectiveness includes, in our opinion, both the training outcomes (achievement of learning objectives, application of learning once back at work, impact of the application of learning) and the ratio between these and the overall training costs. We hope that the articles included here will help to stimulate your thoughts and approaches to this important area - and that you will participate in our online debate on this topic. Developing IT capacity in higher education in South Africa By Duncan Greaves and Geoff Hoy TENET (Tertiary Education Network) is the de facto South African National Research and Education network, with a mandate that includes professional skills development in the South African public higher education IT sector - that is, the staff who manage networks and other IT operations, rather than the teaching sector. This mandate is executed through a programme entitled 'Developing IT Capacity in Higher Education - DITCHE'. It is made possible by the generosity of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which also provided funding support for the establishment of TENET itself. There are 23 institutions of public higher education in South Africa, collectively employing about a thousand IT professionals in their central IT departments. There are probably another thousand in areas such as the library and in departmental IT operations. The South African higher education sector has developed in a highly uneven way, with some institutions having evolved organically over a hundred years or more, while others were constituted relatively recently to meet an emergent need. In addition, the apartheid system had a highly distorting effect on the sector, with effects that have still not been fully eliminated. In general, the 'historically disadvantaged institutions' face different problems from the 'historically advantaged' in that their capacity to mount and sustain IT operations has in some instances been impaired by circumstance, including geographical location. Given these kinds of disparities, many training programmes would choose to focus largely on the most disadvantaged sector. TENET has, however, chosen not to do this. Instead, we have adopted an approach that emphasises the commonality of all institutions, rather than the special circumstances of some. We have sought to view the target sector as a 'community of practice', to use Wenger's celebrated phrase. Our use of this term is somewhat rough and ready, and has little of the finer nuance that Wenger and his associates have applied to the term. Instead, we have simply postulated that: 'Practitioners are at their most effective when they are connected to, and sustained by, communities of practice. Such networks not only foster a sense of common identity but are crucially important in the development and dissemination of knowledge (much of which is often tacit knowledge) and in solving problems that are beyond the scope of isolated individuals. Communities of practice can form spontaneously within any knowledge domain but are especially important in deeply technical fields. One of the functions of organisational leadership and management is to identify and eliminate such constraints. DITCHE cannot eliminate internal constraints. It can, however, facilitate spaces within which communities of practice, latent or not, can expand.' (For the full text please see our website: www.tenet.ac.za/cdp) We have assumed therefore that everyone has something to learn and everyone has something to teach, and the organisational objective is to make this teaching and learning possible. Our preferred approach is to use two kinds of professional development processes. Both are face-to-face processes and both focus on workshop/conference style events. They serve two different but interlocking purposes. The first kind of event is large-scale and national and brings together representatives from the entire target community. Most of these events focus on the hard core of network practitioners. These large-scale events are organised on classical conference lines and do not aim at anything more than light knowledge transfer. Their principal objective is to draw the community together and to promote human networking within it. In addition, they are an important occasion for new staff to experience the nature of the wider IT community and to gain confidence in attending the second kind of event. This second kind event we call an 'advanced technical event', and it aims precisely at intensive knowledge transfer. Normally it consists in a group of no more than sixteen people, working intensively over two or three days with an acknowledged expert, focusing on a narrowly defined technical problem. The expert is normally drawn from the ranks of the community itself, but might on occasion be provided by a vendor partner such as Microsoft or Cisco. The principle is that delegates can walk away from an event of this kind being able to do stuff that they could not do before. These events also serve to define specialised sub-communities of practice, which then maintain themselves relatively independently of our intervention. We have recently embarked upon a third approach, that of professional development, using professional trainers to deliver training across the entire sector on the ITIL, an international standard in IT service management. Our approach has been highly successful in strengthening the various technical communities of practice in the sector. A direct benefit of this is knowledge sharing of the kind that does not easily take place in more formal training arrangements. A disadvantage, however, is that the face-to-face approach is relatively expensive. Unfortunately, the highly textured knowledge of this kind of domain is not easily transmitted in other forms. Duncan Greaves, TENET (Tertiary Education Network), South Africa Email: dbg@tenet.ac.za Geoff Hoy, TENET, South Africa Email: ghoy@tenet.ac.za

About INASP The mission of INASP is to enable worldwide access to information and knowledge with particular emphasis on the needs of developing and transitional countries. We work with partners around the world to encourage the creation and production of information, to promote sustainable and equitable access to information, to foster collaboration and networking and to strengthen local capacities to manage and use information and knowledge. Our objectives are to Improve access to scientific and scholarly information Catalyse and support local publication and information exchange Strengthen local capacities to manage and use information and knowledge Foster in-country, regional and international cooperation and networking Advise local organisations and agencies on ways to utilise information and publishing to achieve development goals. Chair, Advisory Panel: N. Mukunda Chair, Board of Trustees: R. Campbell Address: 58 St Aldates, Oxford OX1 1ST UK Tel: + 44 (0)1865 249909 Fax: + 44 (0)1865 251060 Email: inasp@inasp.info Website: www.inasp.info Guest Editors: Manuela Bianco and Martin Belcher Newsletter Editor: Pippa Smart Layout & artwork: Spires Design, UK The views expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of INASP.

IMARK: A partnership for training

By Rosana Frattini

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations initiated a partnership-based distance learning programme in agricultural information management called the 'Information Management Resource Kit' (IMARK) to bring together resources from its own programme, as well as from international, regional and specialised agencies that are facing the same challenges in capacity building in information management. IMARK consists of a suite of distance learning resources and tools as well as online communities on information management. IMARK is coordinated through a Steering Group consisting of seven members of a partnership of over 40 contributing organisations.

IMARK is being developed as a series of modules via the Internet and on CD, delivered free of charge, with each module containing one or more inter-related topics in the area of information management. Four IMARK modules have been published in English, with language versions in varying stages of development:

• Management of Electronic Documents
• Digitisation and Digital Libraries
• Investing in Information for Development
• Building Electronic Communities and Networks

The modules are designed for asynchronous e-learning, whereby the user completes the coursework at his or her own pace, without the intervention of a tutor. Each module consists of a series of lessons, which have been developed as 'reusable learning objects'. This strategy allows learners to create their own personalised learning path that meets their training needs. The modules are delivered through a purpose-built Macromedia Flash application that runs on CD and the Web, with lessons in XML format. Lessons include interactive tests and exercises, case studies, reference materials, tutorials, and non-proprietary software and manuals. The IMARK website also offers a series of dedicated online groups allowing learners to participate in the IMARK online community.

An extensive workflow has been set up for the production of IMARK modules, involving interaction between subject experts and instructional designers, and extensive peer review. IMARK partners have been leading the expert adaptations of the learning content into various languages, and providing expert reviews and quality control of the localised content.

More than 30,000 copies of the IMARK modules on CD have been distributed through various channels such as distributor partners, direct requests from learners, conferences and workshops: 5,000 web-based learners worldwide registered within one year on the IMARK website. Materials from all of the modules have been used to support face-to-face training in dozens of workshops, in a blended format combined with some self-paced learning, and the materials have been well received by participants. Taking the first module, a typical curriculum is based on 8 days of tuition for around 20 trainees with 2-3 resource persons. The training format comprises presentations based on the lessons, discussions in working groups, and hands-on practical sessions. The module materials have also been used to support synchronous online training courses, organised using web-based learning platforms such as Moodle (www.moodle.org) and Dgroups (www.dgroups.org).

While the initial development of IMARK was undertaken by FAO, more than 10 partner organisations have provided financial contributions to the development and adaptation of the modules. The development costs for each IMARK module range between US$100-200,000 for the English version, with adaptation costing US$10-60,000 per language. While delivered free-of-charge, the costs of each CD borne by IMARK are from $10-20 per learner, depending on the module. Prior to the availability of the IMARK modules, FAO typically trained less than 300 people per year using traditional face-to-face training, with per capita costs often exceeding 100 times the amount per person when compared to the cost of an IMARK module on CD. IMARK has also greatly reduced the costs of materials preparation for face-to-face training offered by FAO and its partners with the availability of the IMARK suite of modules which trainers use to design and build from when delivering worshops.

Reactions to IMARK have been very positive, including external reviews such as those by the Asian Development Bank Institute (www.adbi.org/cdrom.reviews/). Two independent evaluations of IMARK have been undertaken to date. The first one examined design, usability, and performance of the first module, and showed the instructional design to be of high quality and interface to be very user-friendly. A second evaluation of the first module was carried out among learners and distributors to assess uptake and use. The results of the evaluation indicated that 72% of respondents found the style of learning to be very good or exceptional, and 93% indicated that the module provided them with new knowledge and skills which were used on the job to improve workflows and enhance job performance. More than 50% of learners made use of the personal learning path feature to create their own customised course.

IMARK continues to be developed by the partners, and several new curricula are under consideration. A revision and update of the first two modules are currently being evaluated and designed to ensure that the latest trends and technologies are included.

For more information, visit the website at: www.imarkgroup.org, or please write to: IMARK-Enquiries@fao.org.

Rosana Frattini, Information Management Specialist, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Email: IMARKenquiries@fao.org

Intute: Virtual Training Suite - A national approach to delivering training online

By Emma Place

Internet training for UK university students

The Intute: Virtual Training Suite (www.vts.intute.ac.uk) is a national online training service designed to help students in UK universities and colleges to develop their Internet information literacy and research skills. It is a free, public service funded by the UK government via JISC - a national agency that provides strategic guidance, support and services in ICT for higher and further education.

The Virtual Training Suite consists of over 65 free Web-based tutorials, each one offering about one hour of online training. They are free for anyone to access via the Web and offer simple step-by-step instruction for students to work through in their own time at their own pace.

Each tutorial covers Internet search and research skills for a different subject - there's one for most of the academic and vocational subjects taught in UK universities. All the tutorials have the same learning objectives and enable students to:

• TOUR the key websites for their subject of study
• DISCOVER how to search the Internet effectively for scholarly materials
• JUDGE the quality of websites, and avoid poor quality information
• Read SUCCESS STORIES with inspirational ideas for using the Internet for education and research.

We also offer a generic tutorial called Internet Detective (www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective) which teaches the critical thinking required when using the Internet for research. It helps students to:

• Learn to discern the good, the bad and the ugly for online research.
• Find out how to avoid wasting time on Internet searching, scams and hoaxes.
• Get practical advice on evaluating websites and Internet information.

Although the tutorials are aimed at UK students they are freely available on the Web for use globally.

A coordinated method for sharing national expertise

The Virtual Training Suite is provided by Intute (www.intute.ac.uk), an Internet service run by a network of UK universities which offers a guide to the best of the Web for universities nationwide.

Intute commissions subject experts - lecturers and librarians - to author and edit the training tutorials. Each specialist tailors a standard Word template for the tutorial for their subject and then central staff at Intute put the tutorials online and promote them to the national community.

This approach enables us to share expertise nationally, and offers an economy of scale as individual institutions do not have to re-invent the wheel by developing their own tutorials locally. It is a model that might easily be adopted by other countries or sectors.

Pros and Cons

This methodology offers a relatively low cost way of offering training to a large number of users. Our Web statistics reveal that the service gets high levels of use, and our online feedback forms indicate that they are popular with many users (www.vts.intute.ac.uk/userfeedback/).

Some librarians and lecturers say they are grateful not to have to create their own materials and are happy to use ready-made materials. They appreciate the quality of the tutorial content, authored by subject specialists. Many students say they enjoy learning in this way and appreciate the flexibility of online training.

However, some staff say they prefer to create their own materials locally, so that they can tailor them to specific courses and students. Others suggest that students are not motivated to do online tutorials unless they are assessed, and of course some will always prefer face-to-face training.

We believe the value of the tutorials can be greatly increased if they are used in blended learning - where a lecturer uses them as a resource as part of a face-to-face taught course, with assessment created locally based on the skills developed by doing the tutorials.

A cooperative model is certainly one way of providing for those staff or institutions that do not have the resources or expertise to create their own online training materials.

Emma Place, Institute for Learning and Research Technology, University of Bristol, UK
Email: emma.place@bristol.ac.uk

INASP IN-debate

INASP IN-debate - a chance to participate in discussions and debates on information development topics

IN-debate-training: How can the impact of training be maximised?

Is training a good way of building information access capacity in developing countries?

What methodologies are most appropriate?

How can one ensure that the "right" people are nominated or selected to participate in training activities and not those selected on seniority or similar grounds?

Are new technologies a good way of strengthening current training approaches? Under what conditions?

Is most training just an expensive waste of time, with some nice free lunches thrown in?

What do you think?

Please voice your own opinion to the discussion list.

Sign up for IN-debate discussions by sending an email including your name, organisation, country and brief description of professional interests to join-IN-debate@dgroups.org or complete your profile at www.dgroups.org/groups/IN-debate/

A model for effective and flexible blended learning

By Anoush Margaryan

Traditional training methodologies and course design often focus on information transfer with little concern for application of knowledge in practice. As a consequence, educators and training professionals are increasingly interested in methodologies that:

• support learning by solving a real and concrete workplace problem;
• support collaboration with colleagues in the workplace;
• support drawing on workplace resources and knowledge; and
• encourage sharing of knowledge emerging from application ad collaboration through the communities of practice and re-usable learning objects.

While network technology, in particular the use of virtual learning environments (VLEs), can support these new methodologies, it is not enough by itself. In addition to technical solutions, educators and training professionals need models that identify pedagogical principles of effective training as well as how technology can support flexibility.

One such model was developed from practice through research during a 4-year PhD project at the University of Twente (the Netherlands). The model was originally developed for the business sector, but can also serve as a framework for effective and flexible blended learning in the academic and non-profit sectors. The model builds on an extensive review of learning design theories and includes the following principles:

• Learners are engaged in solving real-world problems.
• Existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge.
• New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner.
• New knowledge is applied by the learner.
• New knowledge in integrated into the learner's world.
• Learners collaborate with peers in the course and colleagues in the workplace.
• Course activities enable knowledge sharing and learning from 'significant others' - peers in the course, experts and colleagues in the workplace, workplace mentors, and others elsewhere in the organisation.
• Workplace supervisors support learners and enable their participation in the course.
• Workplace resources as well as materials generated by other course participants are captured and reused.
• Learners' diverse needs are accommodated via personalised feedback as well as providing learners flexibility in what, how and when they learn.
• Usable and functional technology is used as a platform that facilitates all the above: such as a learning management system or a web-based course support system.

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), such as a learning management system, or a web-based course support system, have the capability to extend learning into the workplace. They provide access to resources and expert guidance while learners work and learn in their own environment, either alone or in distributed teams.

A VLE can be used to strengthen traditional face-to-face courses in several ways:

• At the simplest level, it can provide general information (objectives, content, structure, study time, etc.) to students before a face-to-face course starts;
• In addition, a facilitator can post presentations and readings, or encourage the use of self-paced e-learning modules, in preparation for or during the face-to-face session, and students can submit their assignments and receive feedback. The face-to-face session can then be dedicated to 'compare, contrast, analyse', and to a certain extent 'Apply' activities, rather than to presenting information and collecting assignments;
• Finally, after the face-to-face session, participants can continue with '
• Apply
' and '
• Present, reflect, leave for others to use
' online activities to support application and sharing of learning at work. They have access to a facilitator who can help them address challenges emerging from the workplace and continue their progression from knowledge transfer to skills building.

For more information about this model and its possible applications: Margaryan, A. (2006). Work-based learning: A blend of pedagogy and technology. Enschede, The Netherlands: Ipskamp. ISBN: 90-365-2291-9.

Anoush Margaryan, Lecturer in Learning Technology, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
Email: anoush.margaryan@gcal.ac.uk

Examples of training activities derived from the principles outlined in the text.

From Collis, B., Margaryan, A., and Kennedy, M. (2004) Blending formal and informal learning offers new competence development opportunities. Paper presented at 11th ADIPEC, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

INASP Licencing and Negotiation Skills (LNS) training

By Manuela Bianco and Sarah Durrant

The INASP Licencing and Negotiation Skills (LNS) training aims to build local capacity within library consortia to manage and control the process of e-resource acquisition - a process currently undertaken by INASP. Experience from the pilot workshop showed that although our traditional 3 to 5 day face-to-face workshop methodology could successfully raise awareness on key licencing and negotiations issues, it was less suitable for building actual skills that could permanently impact local working practices. To achieve our goals, we considered the blended learning approach outlined by Anoush Margaryan in the previous article and used it to strengthen our original workshop approach.

Extending the workshop with pre- and post-activities conducted online

The first LNS workshop was piloted in Pakistan in June 2005. Workshop participants found the course content relevant and engaging, but suggested a more hands-on approach. We also realised that learning complex skills, such as licencing and negotiation demanded, requires specialist knowledge in a number of different areas, - for example copyright, legislation and licencing language. In view of this, we felt that future participants would best be served by a longer period of training and dedicated expert guidance, and decided to extend the face-to-face workshop with pre- and post- activities carried out online through a virtual learning environment. We selected Moodle (www.moodle.org) to deliver our training.

Pre-activities focused on key knowledge areas for licencing and negotiation and provided reading materials and exercises which encouraged participants to assess their institutional and consortium situation in the light of the key concepts presented. Each unit included readings, individual and group assignments, an asynchronous discussion area and a feedback form. There were 4 units in total. Each unit required about 3 hours study time a week. A key outcome of the pre-activities was a detailed profile of each consortium's stakeholders, institutional members, user community, essential permitted uses and network environment. This 'Toolkit', as it was called, was then used during the face-to-face workshop and beyond.

The face-to-face workshop was changed considerably from the pilot to include more participatory activities. The workshop took place at the University of Makarere (Uganda) over 4 days. There were 17 participants in total, coming from consortia within 5 countries (Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, Zimbabwe). Workshop activities focused on analysing sample publishers' licences, responding in teams to pricing scenarios and practising negotiation through role-play exercises. A key outcome of the workshop was the building of a 'roadmap' for each consortium. This document mapped current INASP and consortium activities, and showed how each consortium would progressively assume more responsibilities over a 2-year period to eventually achieve total local management of publisher licencing and negotiation. Participants drafted their roadmaps in their consortia groups, shared them with consortia colleagues after the workshop and submitted their amended final versions through Moodle.

The post-workshop activities focussed on building a Community of Practice (CoP) designed to support participants as they moved forward with implementation of the roadmaps. The CoP remained live for an initial period of 6 months beyond the face-to-face workshop. The success of the CoP is presently being assessed after which there needs to be a discussion on whether further support is needed and how this can best be provided.

Lessons learned

Participants found it useful to be able to work on background materials before the workshop in order to focus on more hands-on activities afterwards. They also made several suggestions for improving the presentation of information, achieving a more logical sequencing of the topics and to a more realistic online study time.

Using a VLE helped to create a sense of a community with shared concerns and goals before the face-to-face workshop. Participants experienced almost no technical problems during the pre-activities online. However, Internet connectivity was often slow and several participants had to cope with frequent power-cuts. Despite all these challenges virtually all participants completed the online activities.

Future directions

We believe Moodle is a flexible, robust and scalable tool since it offers a virtual space to work at a distance, but does not prescribe how to do so. Therefore, it can be used to strengthen approaches and methodologies that already exist within an organisation. In addition, although we adjusted existing paper-based materials, many other types of materials (including more sophisticated e-learning modules) could also be (re-)used.

Careful planning and instructional design are crucial for real capacity building, and the use of technology in itself does not address issues such as selection of participants, sound understanding of the context where the training takes place, and the structure of the training in relation to a programme goals. Without first tackling these issues, even the best designed training will not achieve its goals in full.

Manuela Bianco, Instructional Design Officer, INASP
Email: mbianco@inasp.info
Sarah Durrant, Adviser, INASP
Email: sdurrant@inasp.info

Encouraging life-long learning through formulating ICT4D projects

By Saskia Harmsen and Ousseni Zongo

'Je sais maintenant rechercher des données, les traiter et les présenter sur Powerpoint Je suis armé pour contribuer à la recherche de données sur Internet et ailleurs et finaliser le projet de CRA.'
participant to the Life-Long Learning workshop, Mali, 2005

Once participants to an ICT4D Roundtable Process have identified potential project ideas on how ICTs could strengthen information and communication flows, the challenge to grow these ideas into a viable project plan has only just begun. What kind of information needs exist? For whom? Which communication bottlenecks need to be addressed? Which technologies could assist and how do we develop sustainable technology plans? Has this been tried before, and how do we find information on what they have learned? What capacities are needed to implement such a system and how do we build those?

Six to eight weeks after a Round Table workshop, IICD's training partners in Africa or Latin America take participants through the 'Life-Long Learning' intensive short course. The training helps make sense of some of these questions and assists participants to further formulate their ideas into viable plans.

The training intervention takes the form of a 4-day workshop, with participants from different public, private and civil society organisations active in particular development themes - Education, Health, Agriculture, Market Access, etc. Typically an organisation is asked to send one employee who has a strategic mandate and can assist with critically looking at an organisation's current and future activities, plus an employee who can contribute from a technical and/or operational angle. Since all participants are active in a particular sector, the complementarities of organisations, mandates and functional competencies present in the workshop generates constructive and critical dialogues.

Participants are taken through a variety of participatory or instructor-led activities to: enhance their understanding of the potential of ICTs; develop practical skills in relevant software and hardware; assist with information flows analysis; appreciate strategic technology planning requirements; become acquainted with relevant resources, and more.

This mix requires various training methodologies leading to a true 'blended learning' approach. The customary first exercise, for example, is a facilitated session in which participants individually write down their perceived barriers to effectively using ICTs in their organisation. Through discussing the ways in which the barriers can be overcome, participants are encouraged to temporarily set aside these constraints and think creatively about what they wish to achieve. Instructor-led exercises on basic ICT skills are followed by participant-led searching for relevant resources online, which could be followed by self-paced computer-based training courses on CD-ROMs. These exercises are always interspersed with a good dose of feedback, discussion and commenting on their project concepts and formulation documents.

'J'ai eu une bonne orientation de mon projet: contraintes, solutions et solutions techniques.'
Participant, Mali, 2005

The workshop consists of standard components which are always included, interspersed with adapted exercises. The aim is to expose the participants to tools and resources that will allow them be 'Life-Long Learners' and to discourage reliance on IICD, ICT specialists or externally initiated training in order to realise their ideas.

The workshop has been refined over time, as certain components did not always work as intended. Adopting a 'prototyping' approach from the software development industry for example, caused a disproportionately strong focus on technology aspects as opposed to encouraging a good analysis of current problems and opportunities.

In earlier years, participants built a prototype of one of the ICT components of the project. Not surprisingly, by focusing exercises on popular technologies like databases and websites, many of the subsequent project plans were centred on the same database and website technologies developed during the original workshop. This approach thus reduced creativity in thinking about appropriate technologies available to help address participants' needs.

Originally, this methodology expected participants to continue working on their ICT prototypes and skills using the training CD-ROMS, and required the participants to come back together for a follow-up day to present their work. This was very costly and the expectation that participants would continue to invest time and effort into further developing the prototype components proved unrealistic.

This workshop also has inherent strengths, such as the collaborative learning and exploration among actors within one particular sector, leading to complementary project plans that together address a sector's priorities and avoid duplication. Informal alliances are built that eventually turn into powerful experience-based lobby groups around ICTs. Other strengths include the workshop's ability to break technology phobias, and the incidental and applied introduction to ICTs while focusing on concrete development problems.

'It assisted me to understand the key role the ICT would help the health sector in Zambia'
Participant, Zambia, July 2006

Saskia Harmsen, International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD)
Email: sharmsen@iicd.org
Ousseni Zongo, International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD)
Email: OZongo@iicd.org

Changes within INASP

Following Carol Priestley's decision to step down as Director, the Board and Management of INASP have given a lot of thought to the right way forward for the organisation.

Thanks to the great commitment and outstanding achievement of Carol and her team, INASP has developed a unique character and approach to enabling world wide access to information and knowledge. Building on this legacy is central to our mission, and we have chosen to call on the people inside INASP to 'pick up the baton' from Carol and continue the work they have shared with her for many years. Sara Gwynn, who has successfully led PERI, will take on the role as Director of Programmes. Together with the Senior Programme Managers, she will ensure that our activities continue to be carried out effectively in order to meet the needs and expectations of our communities. In addition, Sara will concentrate on expanding the scope of INASP's initiatives, strengthening the existing partnerships and forming new relationships.

We recognise that INASP has grown significantly in size and complexity over the last few years. In order to take the organisation into the next era, we will review our infrastructure and processes to ensure we are able to deliver on all our promises and provide the best possible service to our partners. This process will be led by our new General Manager, Dr. Anne Luetcke, drawing on her expertise in scientific research, STM publishing and development of organisations. This work will continue to be supported by Nicki Sutherland as Director of Finance and Administration.

As an outward sign of our inward renewal, we will be launching our new website November, which will give you all the information you want in a user-friendly and transparent way.

If you would like to have more information, please contact us at directorate@inasp.info or by telephone (+44 (0)1865 721511).

AGORA/HINARI Training of Trainer workshops: imparting hands-on skills on the use of e-resources in agriculture and health in Sub-Saharan Africa

By Gracian Chimwaza and Vimbai M. Hungwe

Since April 2004, ITOCA has carried out 20 AGORA/HINARI National Training of Trainer workshops in 14 Sub-Sahara Africa countries, and over 500 professionals in health and agriculture sectors have been trained. The aim of the training is to equip participants with adequate practical knowledge on the use and access of scholarly literature and relevant electronic resources to enable researchers and information managers improve on research and teaching in the region. The train-the-trainer model has seen over 6000 users trained downstream at participating institutions.

Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA), a not-for-profit capacity building organisation, aims to enhance information and communications technology (ICT) skills for African librarians, information specialists, scientists, researchers and students in Africa. ITOCA spearheads outreach and training programmes for TEEAL (The Essential Electronic Agricultural library), FAO's Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) and WHO's Health InterNetwork Access to research Initiative (HINARI) programmes in the region.

These workshops are conducted over 3-4 days for 25-30 participants. During the workshops, researchers, policy-makers, educators, librarians and extension specialists have access to high quality, relevant and timely information on agriculture and health via the Internet and CD-ROM, which ultimately would contribute towards improving food security and health in the region and encourage cross disciplinary collaboration between agriculture and health. Participants learn to browse the collection of journals available through the programmes; to navigate publishers' websites; to download full-text; to search for articles by keyword, subject, author, or language; and to link to and from abstracting and indexing databases to full text. Participants also learn how to conduct similar training sessions and how to publicise and promote the use of electronic resources at their institutions.

During 2005/2006 an external evaluation of the AGORA/HINARI programmes carried out on behalf of the major programme stakeholders urged the partners to sponsor more training for the users, noting the positive impact of training on the use of AGORA, HINARI, TEEAL and other relevant e-resources. As Dr Mick Mwale, Head of Department of Plant Breeding (School of Agriculture University of Zambia) who attended one of the courses put it

'the training linked us to a very good resource in our teaching and research ... just wish we had this earlier in our programme.'

Learning by doing

Each workshop includes presentations conducted with the aid of PowerPoint slides, modeling, discussion groups and exercises. Facilitators encourage questions to ensure interactive learning. Through web-page screen-shots and live links participants learn to use new functionalities step-by-step. Practical exercises on demonstrated concepts and functions carried out under the supervision of the facilitators have proved to be popular and are a good measure of whether concepts have been grasped by participants.

Support materials including hard copies of presentations, soft copies, video presentations and websites are given to participants for further consultation before holding similar workshop/ awareness programmes. Group discussions are held where participants develop their own strategies on how best to hold workshops/orientation programmes at their institutions. Based on these strategies, ITOCA makes individual follow-ups to assess the anticipated cascading effect after a few months after the training.

Getting the right candidate to attend the course is vital and hence the selection heavily depends on the recommendation of the local hosting institutions that have the 'local knowledge'. An elaborate follow-up programme ensures the participants take the skills downstream and the ITOCA quarterly e-Newsletter features success stories from course alumni.

Course evaluation carried out at the end of each workshop have been a good source for fine-tuning delivered content and methodology in line with the expectations of participants. The short in-depth face-to-face approach taken by ITOCA has proved effective to reach end-users. Although costly to run, results to date are encouraging.

Gracian Chimwaza, Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa
Email: Gracian@itoca.org

Vimbai M. Hungwe, Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa
Email: Vimbai@itoca.org

ICTP/INASP Book Sprint: How To Accelerate Your Internet

INASP and ICTP (The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics) have recently finished the collaborative development and publication of an important reference and practical guide to Internet bandwidth management and optimisation. The book (How To Accelerate Your Internet. A practical guide to bandwidth management and optimisation using open source software) was developed and written in an effort to help network architects understand and troubleshoot problems with managing Internet bandwidth which often result in unnecessarily high operational costs in the developing world. The book is available in print as well as online, and is released for free under a Creative Commons license.

Book sprint project background

The Book Sprint began with online correspondence via Email, which led to the initial face-to-face meeting in May. Experience has shown that attempting to start a book project without an initial personal meeting tends to drag the initial planning process out over several months, adding significant time to the book's development. The Book Sprint typically begins with an initial meeting, which is then followed by intense collaborative work online. The ICTP was chosen as a venue due to its central location and excellent facilities. By meeting in person, we were able to more easily establish an outline for the book, define the scope of the project, and set deadlines and responsibilities for content production.

Development process

Work began immediately using a collaborative development environment known as a Wiki. This allowed all participants to take notes and upload existing content, while maintaining revision control and managing locking issues. We also set up a mailing list for ease of communication between the project participants. We began the meeting by establishing the scope of the book and developing a solid outline. This involved several days of intensive discussion and revising. We assigned roles based on expertise and availability, and identified additional potential contributors. After the meeting, work continued on the Wiki until mid-September, when changes were finally frozen and the entire manuscript was reviewed by professional copyeditors. We also worked with a technical illustrator to develop informative diagrams to help visualise some of the difficult technical aspects of bandwidth management. Finally, the completed work was compiled as a PDF and reviewed by other experts in the field of bandwidth management and optimisation.

By October, we had produced a book of roughly 300 pages that explores topic of bandwidth management in considerable detail. The major areas covered are Policy, Monitoring & Analysis, Implementation, Troubleshooting, and Performance Tuning. Case studies from actual network problems from all over the world are also be included. We are now in the process of developing the web site, public Wiki, and public discussion lists to support the book. The overall goal is to build a living project to support the development of network infrastructure, much in the same vein as Wireless Networking for the Developing World, http://wndw.net/.

Release

We hope that How To Accelerate Your Internet will prove to be as successful as our last Book Sprint project, Wireless Networking in the Developing World. Since its release in January, WNDW has been downloaded over 50,000 times by people from all over the world, and has already been translated into Spanish (with French, Hindi, and other translations planned for the near future.) By releasing these titles under a Creative Commons license, we hope that this information will find the largest possible audience, and that this will promote the growth of the Internet in all parts of the world.

The book is available now for free download or it can be ordered in print version from: http://bwmo.net

IN-debate - summary of discussions about the need for national journals

Our thanks to everyone who participated in our first IN-debate which generated some lively discussions. 61 members registered to the group and 49 messages from Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, Australasia and America contributed to the discussion. The participants included editors, publishers, researchers, librarians, and a number of other individuals working in the research information environment.

The need for journals to publish research undertaken in the developing and transitional countries was widely endorsed by everyone, and the debate generated a great number of other important and interesting points.

In a world moving rapidly towards the knowledge-based economies, capacity building in science and technology is necessary and urgent for the developing countries. Local research publications are undoubtedly an efficient way to promote science and to support the dissemination of local research, where national bodies should become involved to strengthen these journals.

A lot of researchers look for local journals particularly for local research. What lets down the local journals is lack of visibility. No many researchers come to know of the existence of the local journals relevant to their research. When they do reliability lets them down. If a lecturer recommends a journal to his or her students this year, by next year he or she has to look for an alternative. Already a lot of journals on AJOL are way behind schedule. Those researchers that had relied on them are already looking for alternatives in those subject areas

what is a "local journal" and what is "international journal"... Local research contributes to searching for solutions to local problems ... at my University to be promoted you should publish specific number of papers in international journals - does it mean that local journals so not have a chance of being recognised?

There is more than enough expertise in the "local" scenes to review research results, but the few who have attempted to avail dissemination vehicles are hampered by resources, indeed lukewarm "local" appreciation for these efforts.

While we certainly need local and international journals to be published from developing countries, we cannot lose sight of quality of what gets published. But quality comes after awhile. Rarely on the first day.

Writing in English is still a major problem for many of the regional Researchers

Irrespective of where it is published it should be abstracted/indexed in international accessible databases

I apologise for missing some issues that were included in the discussions - to see the full discussion, visit the website: www.dgroups.org/groups/IN-debate/

Head of Information Delivery, INASP

INASP is pleased to announce the appointment of Lucy Barton as Head of Information Delivery.

Lucy has most recently been working with CABI as Regional Sales Manager, UK, Ireland and Scandinavia. Before that she worked in Sales for Pan MacMillan and Macmillan Educational. As well as this strong sales background she has an in-depth understanding of the needs of end users. We would like to welcome her to the INASP team.

She can be contacted at lbarton@inasp.info.

The next INASP Newsletter will be published in March 2007.
If you would like to contribute to its contents, please write to the editor at the Oxford address.
Contributions must be received by 1 January 2007.