April '98
National Coordination on Standards and Common Procedures in Information Technology in Jordan
EuroMed - Net 98 Conference
Committee News
From the Daily Press
Customs Department Homepage on INTERNET
Local Communities: facts and figures
Replanning Workshop, Ma'in, 4-5 Feb, 1998
Human Development In The IT field
UNESCO's project for a virtual library
Conference on New Intellectual Property Rights(IRP)
Hints
Issues List
The National Coordination on Standards and Common Procedures in Information Technology in Jordan
On Tuesday, March 10, 1998, The National Information Centre held a National work-shop on the standards and common procedures of information technology in Jordan. Discussions centered around five different themes:
Papers included subjects on:
The paper included job description for jobs related to :
The paper discussed the following subjects:
This evaluation paper discussed the following:
This paper discussed the different phases of NIC and its achievements, as well as future outlook.
EuroMed - Net 98 Conference
Within the activities of the European Commission Program of Information Society and Development, the EC in cooperation with the Ministry of Communication and the Ministry of Housing and Works and the University of Cyprus, held a Conference during the period 4-7 March 1998, on the effects of world wide web in developing the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society.
The president of NIC delivered a keynote address in the conference entitled "The Challenges of the Cyber Economy ". A second presentation was conducted on the Information Society Activities in Jordan which included a description of the concepts and achieve- ments within the National Information System (NIS).
Committee News
The Information Coordination Committee of the Society and Social Conditions sector in the National Information System has recently distributed the last draft of its final report to the relevant organizations for analysis and comments. The Ministry of Social Development has been selected by the committee to be the focal point of this sector. Subjects to be available on-line include:
From the Daily Press
The Arabic NIS home page :
When you browse the Arabic site of the NIS homepage on the INTERNET, you are apt to notice a new data base entitled "min huna wa hunak" or, " from here and there".
This data base enables the browser to read the summaries of the latest and most interesting news clippings in the economy, society and services that are published in the daily newspapers. The summaries are also available in English.
The news are arranged by weeks and according to their appearance in the Jordanian press. It seems that the type of news included in this database is attracting a lot of readers. Inquiries received by email confirm this.
Customs Department Homepage on the INTERNET
To improve the services it provides to the public, the Customs Department has now a homepage on the Internet. It was prepared in cooperation with NIC and the German Technical Assistance (GTZ).
The content of the homepage has been constructed with the speculation to facilitate commercial exchange between Jordan and other countries and to enhance the role of the Customs Department in the development of the national economy and encourage foreign investment and knowledge transfer which will reflect positively on the Jordanian economy.
The homepage provides information about the Customs Department, location of customs branches on the map of Jordan and their telephone numbers, laws of customs and sales tax, regulations for customs exemptions, temporary permits, including customs duties. Excerpts from the customs newsletter are included also. The homepage can be accessed at:
Local Communities: facts and figures
The database "Local Communities: facts and figures" is the new database created by the National Information Centre. It consists of the latest information and statistics generated by different public organizations at the micro level. The database covers the administrative divisions and subdivisions of the local government .
Different organizations, ministries and govern-ment departments have been requested to contribute the information they produce to this database and as soon as they produce it for the benefit of decision makers and researchers who need the latest figures at the micro level.
"Local Communities" will display socio-economic aspects of a myriad of sectors and readers will be able to browse the database from the micro to the macro levels. The database allows browsers to retrieve statist-ical information of all sectors at different levels of the economy,
reaching the smallest village level. Statistics include indicators such as number of schools, number of students, number of health centres, the natural resources available and a lot more. At present, sectors available on the database include :
education and higher education, health, civil status, agriculture, natural resources, civil courts, social development and culture. Other sectors will be added as soon as the information is ready for input.
Replanning Workshop, Ma'in, 4-5 Feb, 1998
The National Information Centre participated in the "Replanning Workshop" that was held in Ma'in Spa from 4-5 Feb., 1998. The workshop was organized by the Budget Department and was funded by the GTZ in Amman. The aim of the workshop was to discuss the Project Planning Matrix (PPM) for the information system of the Budget Department.
Participants included experts in the subject, decision makers, technicians and system analysts who are involved in applying PPM.
Discussions concentrated on foreseen results and new PPM solutions and targets that would help realize the aims and objectives of PPM in the Budget Department.
Human Development In The IT field :
To develop human power skills in the information field in public institutions, NIC holds various training courses for different levels of users.
The number of participants since 1994 has reached (1050). The benefits of continuous training have been reflected positively on the use and development in information technology and their applications in the public sector.
This year, a tailored technical training program has been developed by NIC to include subjects in Internet technology, such as :
UNESCO's project for a virtual library
One of UNESCO's new projects is the creation of a virtual library of classical works of world literature. The aim of the project is the promotion of access to information in the public domain and exploitation of the collective property of world civilizations as a one global public domain. The main strategy is the digitization of classical works that are free from copyright. The digitized collection of literature will be made available through UNESCO's website and through CD-ROMs that will be produced by UNESCO and distributed to libraries free of charge or at a low price. The first stage will be directed towards classical Arabic literature, and not all the books will be digitized.
A committee will be selecting the most representative works of classical Arabic literature. It will also be responsible for
the non-commercial distribution of the CD-
ROM. The project will
encourage cooperation among Arab institutio-ns The project will be capitalized on experts and other available resources in the Arab region to establish and create virtual library.
Conference on New Intellectual Property Rights ( IPR )
The Committee on Science and Techn-ology in Developing Countries ( COSTDC) and the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in cooperation with the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) in Cairo organized a conference on "New Intellectual Property Regime".The bjectives of the conference were :
Recommendations issued included:
Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority participated in the conference.
Hints
Publishing on the WWW for interactivity
The Internet, as we all know, is a very effective place for creating a publishing platform. Web pages are written to reach a specific audience.
If they are interactive, the web page turns into a living information source. A dynamic content is generated by using Common Gateway Interface (CGI).
Languages such as Perl and C in combination with CGI provide an open system protocol, allowing interaction between web documents and other software within the server environment.
Feedback forms is an integral part of a web page. It allows web masters and sales people alike to receive queries and sales orders, thus enabling them to supply more specific product information to prospective readers and clients. This is even more
valuable when the offices are closed.
Features that make a web page readable
Useful Web Sites
The site is about building your own PC. The entire process is presented in a step- by-step detail with plain and easy to understand instructions.
Http://www.searchenginewatch.com
This is a site for people who want to understand how search engines work and how to use them.