CPACC: Report 4

Workshop on the Use of the Internet and Information Systems
Component 2: Establishment of Data Bases and Information Systems
November 3-5, 1997, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus

A three-day workshop was organized in Trinidad from November 3rd to 5th within the context of Component 2 – Establishment of Data Bases and Information Systems. Dr. Vincent Abreu, Director of International Activities and Mr. Philip Boyer, Information Technology Specialist, both from the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), conducted the workshop.

There were sixteen participants, most of whom from governmental agencies representing the CPACC NICUs (see Appendix).

The workshop was conducted at the GIS laboratories of the Lands and Surveys Department of the Engineering Faculty, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. This activity ran concurrently with other workshops associated with the Caribbean Conference of Geographic Information Systems (CCGIS), also hosted at the UWI Faculty of Engineering.

Workshop Objectives
Component 2 of CPACC, which addresses databases and information networks, provides funds for the supply of computer equipment and training to CPACC participating institutions to facilitate communication within the project. Much of the communication will use the Internet as a medium.

In September, we conducted a survey of Internet use, connectivity and data management among CPACC national agencies and regional organizations. The results from the survey demonstrated that although the Internet is fairly widespread amongst the responding organizations, it is not being utilized effectively for research, communication and information dissemination.

Based on the foregoing, there were two main objectives of the workshop:
To familiarize the participants with issues related to information management and the use of the Internet; and To provide practical training in the effective use of the Internet, including principles in the development of web pages.

Information Management and the Internet as a Tool for Communication
Dr. Vincent Abreu led the training for the first and a half day addressing the issues of information management and the Internet. In particular, the topics discussed during this session were:

Utilizing the Internet as a tool for communications;
Utilizing the Internet to search for and access data and information;
Distributed architectures;
Protocols and standards; and Metadata.

The context for addressing information management and the Internet was Environmental Information system (EIS). EIS refers to information access on environmental factors and phenomena; identification and quantification of environmental resources; and determination of optimal utilization of resources. EIS is therefore seen to be knowledge intensive with two conceptual layers of information, the actual data and the metadata or metainformation.

Recent developments in EIS appear to indicate a sharing of common data infrastructure while maintaining organizational autonomy. Such developments require improvement in data accessibility, consistency and interoperability. The decentralized, interoperable datasets are being seen as the essence of the EIS model.

The review of Internet issues dealt with the functional level in which the basic concepts, operations and components of the network were explained. The workshop then addressed how the Internet could support an EIS, using examples from the CIESIN experience, including for the Great Lakes region in North America.

Training in the Effective Use of the Internet
Mr. Philip Boyer conducted the Internet training program. This consisted of the following:

What is the Internet;
Using the World Wide Web;
Internet communication – Email, Lists and Usenet;
Understanding the CIESIN Gateway;
Internet services – telnet, FTP and Gopher;
Web page design and creation.

The objectives of this component were identified as the following:

Understand the Internet and the range of resources and methods for accessing information;
Navigate and search the World Wide Web to access sources of on-line environment related information;
Use electronic mail, discussion lists and USENET newsgroups to communicate globally with other environment professionals;
Access collections of textual documents, data and images using FTP; and access additional sources of on-line information using Telnet and Gopher;
Design and create pages using HTML.

Mr. Boyer also reviewed the underlying elements and the history of the Internet.

Review of Workshop
The participants were requested to complete questionnaires regarding their views of the workshop. Table 1 is a summary of the responses. Generally, the responses gained were positive and the overwhelming majority of people felt that they gained from the exercise.

Conclusions
The workshop appeared both relevant and timely. Relevant because it addressed some of the immediate and basic needs of the CPACC shareholders to facilitate their effective participation in the process. This was illustrated by both the survey during the August to October period and the questionnaire on the workshop. It was also timely given the delivery of the computer equipment by the third week of November to all NICUs.

Clearly some areas need further attention. One such area is that of information management for environmental information systems and in particular metadata. Generally however, the activity could be considered to have achieved its objectives.

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