Bernardo H. Banega
Grupo Buck de Argentina
<
- Este trabajo se presentó en el marco de la segunda edición
anual de la "Teaching in the Community Colleges Online Conference" (1
al 3 de abril de 1997), auspiciada por la Teaching in the Community
Colleges List y el Kapi'olani Community College de Hawaii, EE.UU.
El lema de la Conferencia fue "Trends and Issues in Online Instruction".
Ver: http://kolea.kcc.hawaii.edu/tcc/tcc_conf97/
Se han desactivado los hipervínculos del documento porque, luego de 12 años, algunos de ellos ya no tienen vigencia. No obstante, los autores pueden conectarse actualmente en:
"Ulises J. P. Cejas" <ucejas@rec.utn.edu.ar>
"Bernardo H. Banega" <banega@rec.utn.edu.ar>
The introduction of Internet services in Argentina is closely related to the reduction of the access cost, which includes hardware, software and communication costs. About ten years ago major economic decisions were taken in this country, and new regulations were put into effect which opened the national market to international trade. A law, passed by Congress, tied the national monetary unit (the "peso") to the U.S. dollar in a 1:1 ratio. Inflation rates dropped almost to zero, customs tariffs were drastically reduced, and public services (energy, communications, transport, etc.) were de-regulated and transferred to private consortiums. And foreign investment, private enterprise and market competition were encouraged.
Communications experienced an enormous growth, as a consequence of the
development of new technologies, equipment and services in the international
field, and the emergence of a new scenario in the domestic market. In particular,
the public telephone service formerly rendered by a state-owned company,
is now managed by two private firms (Telefonica de Argentina At the same time, a low inflation economy and eased customs regulations
opened the Argentine market for the massive introduction of computers,
peripherals and software. The drop of international prices and domestic
competition did the rest, and state of the art computing equipment is now
a common tool in companies, universities, schools and homes around the
country. As a consequence, an adequate "public computing culture" arose:
there is a fairly large number of people everywhere capable of handling
things such as starting a computer, launching application software, connecting
peripherals, and similar chores. And our children and youngsters are growing
as "computer kids," being exposed to computers at home, school, and everyday
life, which contributes to strengthen this process.
Of course, computers and sophisticated communication services are well
known and have been used for decades in Argentina, and we have excellent
specialists in every related field. What the above paragraphs intend to
stress is that beyond technology, government decisions regarding trade
and communications may have a heavy impact on how Internet services are
introduced in a country, by putting in the hands of common people the tools
(telephone lines and computers) needed to start things running. At least,
this was the case in Argentina.
2. INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (ISP'S) AND INTERNET IN ARGENTINA
In our Internet "stone age" (1990-1991), the first Argentine users were
the people who got access to off-line services such as e-mail and Usenet
through local BBS's, or the few ones who could afford an international
telephone call to be connected on-line through a foreign (U.S.A.) Internet
service provider (ISP). Then local communications links were established
(1994-1995) for some academic and research areas through government initiatives
and funding. In order to get that kind of Internet connection, you had
to be a scientific researcher, a faculty member, or be related to those
fields. A further improvement was done when the National Library
(Biblioteca Nacional Argentina is a large country, and geographical and historical reasons
have made Buenos Aires (the capital and largest city) and its surroundings
the place where "things happen first." Internet was not the exception to
the rule: when "commercial Internet" started here (April 1995), the first
ISP's appeared in Buenos Aires and its citizens could pay just a local
telephone call to be connected to the Net. In the rest of the country,
a costly long distance call was still needed to reach an ISP.
Then, in 1996 commercial Internet came to the provinces, ISP's flourished
everywhere, and currently the whole country can get Internet connections
at reasonable costs. As an example, now ISP's charge around US$50/month
for the service (full Internet, unlimited connection time), and telephone
rates for local calls are less than one dollar/hour (reduced rate hours,
10 p.m. to 8 a.m.).
Last year a national Internet communications backbone was finally formed
when the different major Internet providers interconnected their facilities.
This happened after a brief and paradoxical period in which--mainly due
to competition considerations-- Argentine Internet users could speak freely
to the rest of the world through Internet, but could not do it among themselves.
3. EDUCATION AND INTERNET IN ARGENTINA: BACKGROUND
At this point, we expect to have given the readers a brief glimpse of
how Internet services started in Argentina. As in other parts of the world,
it was mostly an unplanned, rich and semi-anarchic process, where pioneering
"trial and error" work, government regulations, market considerations,
and technology breakthroughs marked the pace. Now the situation is ripe
for a more ordered process, integrating all the efforts being done in different
fields.
The initiatives to introduce Internet in Argentine schools and universities
did not follow a different path, and were shaped by the "environmental
conditions" described in the preceding sections. Having initially no national
communications backbone nor sufficient ISP's in the provinces, education
institutions began to connect to Internet when and where circumstances
permitted.
Accordingly, we have now schools & universities connected to private
ISP's or government funded communication networks, links based on dedicated
telephone lines or microwave & satellite communications, and each conceivable
variant in between. Everyone has tried to implement their own Internet
connection and services using the best technical, human and funding resources
available, with different levels of success.
Government support came mainly through the National Ministry of Culture
& Education and related agencies, and was initially focused on
higher education and research fields. Pioneering work made through the
Red Cientifica y Tecnica (Scientific & Technical Network -ReCyT,
sponsored by the Secretariat of Science and Technical Affairs of that Ministry)
and the Red Teleinformatica Academica (Academic Teleinformatic Network-RETINA,
supported by a private Foundation) enabled the first Internet connections
for many academic and national agencies through international links. Project
RedUBA brought Internet to the different faculties of the Universidad
de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires University - UBA, one of the oldest and
largest in Argentina). And many other public and private higher education
institutions all over the country began connecting to Internet. Right now,
the Red de Interconexion Universitaria (University Interconnection
Network - RIU) is building a country-wide academic backbone for Internet
communications.
Public and private high-schools had their way to Internet too, mainly
through dial-up connections and equipment purchased by parents associations,
and the enthusiastic support of students and school staff. There is some
kind of specific support from authorities, such as the Proyecto Internet
en las Escuelas (Internet on Schools Project) for Buenos Aires city.
Last, but not least, schools for primary education are connecting to
the Internet The Ministry of Culture & Education is also using the Internet for
administrative purposes, and to educate the educators. A major continuous
learning program, the Red Federal de Formacion Docente Continua
(Federal Network for Educators' Continuous Learning- RFFDC, made up of
educational institutions from all around the country), intends to reach
excellence levels in human resources for education, through new careers,
courses, training programs, etc. Within the RFFDC there is a multi-purpose
electronic network connected to Internet, which acts as an information
exchange and communication system for the participating institutions and
agencies.
4. EDUCATION AND INTERNET IN ARGENTINA: EXAMPLES
Within the intended extension and scope of this paper (that is, to present
an Internet focused overview on what is being done in Argentina on the
educational field), this section includes a short description of some initiatives
that, we hope, are self-explanatory enough to provide the readers with
a general idea of how and where is our country heading in this subject.
A word of caution, however. These are by no means the only current efforts
being made to introduce Internet services on the different educational
levels in Argentina. There is a lot of activity everywhere, fostered by
government authorities, public and private educational organizations, research
and academic people, students and parents. In fact, it is being progressively
harder to keep track of all of what is happening on this field.
4.1. THE RIU PROJECT
Perhaps the University Interconnection Network (Red de Interconexion
Universitaria - RIU) Though some higher education public institutions are already connected
and using actively the different Internet services through independent
ISP's or public networks, one of the goals of the RIU Project is to provide
reduced access cost to all those universities. This includes the establishment
of the communications network, purchasing of equipment & software,
contracting of national and international communications links, training
of human resources, etc. Key decisions, such as purchase of equipment and
links contracts, are taken with the consensus of all the participants.
There is also a Technical Advisory Board with specialists from the universities
all over the country, and a technical consulting group.
Once the basic infrastructure is fully established, with communications
links and working groups in each university, a final managerial procedure
will be agreed for the RIU, in order to guarantee equal usage opportunities.
It is a wide scope project, aimed at providing access facilities to all
the academic actors: educators, researchers, students, and administrative
staff. It also foresees to provide Internet access to various Argentine
scientific & technical public organizations, and to complement other
(Internet) connection efforts being developed in this country.
The RIU's communications backbone is based on a configuration of Points
Of Presence (POPs) and Operating Centers (OCs). Each university
in the network has (or will have) a RIU's POP, with one or more routers
to attend all of its data links. In addition to these POPs, four universities
(Buenos Aires Besides attending its communication duties, the OC's also maintain information
banks, with documents, standards, recommendations, and software, for those
who manage the RIU sites. The RIU's technical team provides training support
for the OC's and POP's managerial staffs through a variety of practical
courses on computer networking, information systems, network security and
network managing tools.
The RIU Project does not hamper the individual efforts that each of
the participating universities may develop, as a separate entity, around
its presence in the Internet. Its only concern is to establish a communications
"common ground" for the whole. Within this common ground, each university
has the responsibility and independence to design and put into practice
its own Internet policy regarding the interconnection of its faculties
and departments, services offered, end users training and support, etc.
Nevertheless, the RIU Project includes the production of support courses
and training materials, aimed at helping and informing the end users (educators,
researchers, students, administrative staff) about the benefits and possibilities
of the network.
Finally, we must emphasize that through the RIU Project a real "know-how"
and hands-on experience is being built in Argentina, on every aspect of
the processes involved. Perhaps this must be taken into account by other
countries that, now or in the future, may choose to adopt a similar approach
to provide a basic Internet infrastructure for their educational institutions.
4.2. THE INTERNET IN SCHOOLS PROJECT FOR BUENOS AIRES CITY
The Internet in Schools Project (Internet en las Escuelas - IE), which
started in 1996 for Buenos Aires city, is a joint effort of private firms,
municipal authorities and community organizations, intended to provide
free full Internet access to every public & private high school on
the district. This will benefit more than 500 schools, 200,000 students
and thousands of teachers.
The initiative was taken by a publishing firm and a magazine Each school is given -at no cost- a full Internet dial-up access, an
e-mail account, and free space in a hosting site The IE Project also includes a human resources training program for
teachers, students and school administrators, which adds to the current
training programs launched by the national Ministry of Culture & Education.
There are also contests to promote the learning and development of skills
on Web site and contents design, both for students and teachers.
Every school must procure by itself the telephone line needed for the
connection, and must pay the telephone bills. This poses some difficulty,
because educational budgets are tight and -in some cases- there is only
one telephone line available. This is being circumvented with the help
of parents associations, and the very students, who voluntarily contribute
with a few cents each time they make use of the Internet connection. Final
solution, however, is being sought through some kind of agreement to be
reached with the telephone service providers. According to the plan, in
June 1997 every high-school of Buenos Aires city will have its full
Internet access. Good news is that some cities on the provinces are also
planning to adhere to this excellent initiative.
4.3. THE FEDERAL NETWORK FOR EDUCATORS' CONTINUOUS LEARNING
As it was stated in a previous section, the Federal Network for Educators'
Continuous Learning (Red Federal de Formacion Docente Continua-RFFDC),
a project launched in 1994, is a major effort fueled by the Ministry of
Culture & Education (MCE) to reach excellence levels in human resources
for education.
The RFFDC is a system made up of education institutions from all over
the country, to guarantee the adequate information exchange needed to implement
the national policies on education careers. Those institutions may be public
or private, governmental or non governmental, provincial, national or even
international, on condition that their activities or production constitute
a major contribution to continuing learning for educators. The organizational
scheme includes 23 provincial headquarters and one national headquarter.
Within this scheme, the Federal Electronic Network for Educators' Continuous
Learning (REFFDC) was started, with a technical unit to develop and build
an information exchange and communication system, through a multipurpose
electronic network connected to Internet. It will also provide continuous
technical support for all the 24 headquarters, and maintain the service
in about 1000 educational institutions. Equipment, software and training
will be provided and installed by the REFFDC, at least in ten provincial
headquarters.
The REFFDC will integrate to another networking subsystems already running,
and will develop, maintain and optimize related systems and services which
are being provided through the Internet (gopher, WWW, discussion lists,
gophermail, ftp, ftpmail, etc.). To that effect, servers have been installed
for e-mail exchange, public and/or restricted discussion lists, gopher
and ftp file transfers, and WWW. Since October 1996, the Ministry of Culture
& Education is providing an e-mail account and disk space for Web pages
to every educational institution on demand.
Fausto, the Ministry's gopher service started on February 1995,
offers broad information (in Spanish) about the administrative structure,
specific legislation and regulations, and current programs for education
in the Argentine Republic. An interesting fact is that 60% of the queries
and searches are received from foreign countries. The World Wide Web server
of the Ministry gives, since November 1995, a more friendly access to all
those information and services, through the usual navigation software.
4.4. THE UNIVERSITY OF BUENOS AIRES NETWORK - REDUBA
The RedUBA was established to interconnect all the academic units -
13 faculties, two high-schools, the Library and the Rectorate (President's
office)- of the University of Buenos Aires and other related agencies,
as a support to the activities of about one hundred thousand people (educators
and scientific researchers). It is a major network, coordinated by the
Centro de Comunicacion Cientifica (Scientific Communications Center
- CCC,started in 1992), which plays an important role in the RIU Project
described in this paper.
RedUBA provides e-mail/ftpmail dial-up accounts and services for all
the University, and unrestricted anonymous ftp, gopher and WWW services
are also available for the general public. Additionally, it administrates
through majordomo software more than 30 specific discussion lists opened
to people from all around the world. RedUBA is an authorized mirror for
Netscape Corp., and as such it constitutes an advantageous downloading
site for Argentine netters. Usage statistics of RedUBA (October 1996) indicate
the WWW as the favorite service (51%), followed by e-mail (21%) and ftp
(15%). Gopher and telnet are the less required (1%).
4.5. THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (UTN)
The Universidad Tecnologica Nacional (National University of
Technology - UTN Following the growth path of the national backbone, the different Regional
Faculties (R.F.)and Academic Units (U.A.)began connecting to Internet when
(and where) communications facilities permitted. Consequently, a number
of variants emerged. For instance, R.F. of Buenos Aires is actually connected
to the RIU (see 4.1.) and offers a suit of services. The Rectorate and
some other R.F.'s and U.A.'s are accessing Internet through independent
ISPs for e-mail and websitting purposes. One R.F. established its own Intranet
to be connected to the RIU, and even another one set up a microwave permanent
link to an Internet point of presence, and besides attending its own activities,
it is providing Internet service for a whole city.
Now is time to collect all those experiences to build a kind of supra-Intranet
on the National University of Technology (UTN). To that effect, a task
force has been established in the Rectorate, to consolidate this "distributed
know-how" and to assist to all faculty members in the process, not only
from the communications point of view, but also in aspects such as page
and content design, hardware and software support, and human resources
training.
5. SOME FINAL WORDS
As in the rest of the world, things are happening around Internet on
Argentina. We are also actors of this world-wide Big Experiment, which
constitutes one of the best examples of a century marked by technological
advances and breakthroughs. Internet has realized the Global Village paradigm,
and we are now interacting and exchanging knowledge with people from the
most remote places of the Earth, or from next door, with equal easiness.
As it happens in this Conference.
New social behavior standards are being established. Capital letters
and punctuation marks, for instance, have gained a new meaning. We can
SHOUT or :-) (smile), and be understood by people whom we will never meet
face to face in our lifetime. During an on-line chat, we can ask "how r
u?" (how are you?) to someone, without being considered as illiterates.
Some of us got notice of this Conference through a U.S. based discussion
list. General instructions were e-mailed from Japan, and drafts were accepted
from Hawaii. Accordingly, we, the authors, began to assemble facts and
ideas for our paper in Argentina. It was a colossal act of faith, a kind
of renewal of the "I think. Then, I am" statement. Because of this, with
all due respect, it could have been a fabulous practical joke of one of
our colleagues to put us to work. Or perhaps, we could have been the jokers.
Who knows in this virtual hyperspace?
Of course the latter paragraph is stretching things a bit, stating in
a dramatic way that in general terms, everyone believes in the Internet.
If it's on the Internet, it's true, the saying goes. And this is the real
challenge for us, educators or education related people.
Because, in spite of the fact that this paper refers mostly to some
technological aspects of Internet, technology is not the challenge.
Our scientists and engineers are doing an outstanding job in giving us
powerful hardware and software tools to communicate knowledge.
For us, the real challenge is to find the best ways to convey that
knowledge in such a virtual world-wide environment. We now face the
exciting pioneering task of defining what the contents must be.
We must learn how to get the attention of an ever growing audience, made
up of people from different cultures and backgrounds, with dissimilar educational
levels and who speak different languages. And we must find ways to bring
to them our ideas, so that the exact concepts can be grasped.
Clearly, this calls for an intensive multidisciplinary work.
The titles of presentations and on-line forums for this Conference constitute
a good example of it. We are starting almost from scratch, and in this
field, we are learning with the learners. But we can ask ourselves,
as always: If not now, when? If not us, who? And finally one could say
: If not on the Internet, where?
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the search of information for this virtual paper which is being published
on a virtual space, the authors wish to express their gratitude for the
very non-virtual help and support received from
7. REFERENCES
Internet is news, and so specialized Argentine magazines constituted
a valuable source when we tried to trace the "when, how and whom" of Internet
development in Argentina. Compumagazine and Internet Magazine (MP Ediciones
S.A.), Internet Plus (Juan C. Botana); Hypermedia (Senal Hypermedia S.R.L.),
.com (puntocom s.a Internet Marketing), were those publications.
Of course, Internet was by itself a relevant source of information.
Readers will find below a listing of some of the sites reviewed.
8. NOTES
Here we include, as a further information, some other Argentine sites
related to education.
Alberto Barengols (alb@pccp.com.ar),
The neat work of the Conference staff must also receive our gratitude.
Postings from Allen Quesada, Jim Shimabukuro, Patrick Bjork and Steve McCarty,
with recommendations and useful information, helped us and guided our work.
Pedro I. Corral (pitrus@exito.pccp.com.ar),
Gustavo Bonomi (gubonomi@pccp.com.ar),
Cristian Daher (rdaher@surred.com.ar),
Exequiel Frontera (efrontera@impsat1.com.ar),
Ernesto Golomb (egolomb@punto.com),
Monica Horestein (mhorestein@pccp.com.ar),
Alejandra Vilchez (mavch@amauta.rcp.net.pe), and
Juan C. Zabalgoitia (jczab@nexusbbs.com.ar).
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