It is common knowledge that at the age of highly developed technologies one can hardly name any sphere of life where computers are not used. Like preceding information technologies - radio, telephone, television - the new method of communication through the global computer network, the Internet, has gradually become part of everyone's daily life. This process develops in different ways depending on the country and on the field of activity. In the world of science and education things evolve faster. In this paper I wiil try to describe the steps taken by the State University of Moldova in getting access to the Internet.
In Moldova the use of computers for worldwide communication began in 1993 through 3 UUCP sites of the Russian network RELCOM. The State University of Moldova was connected to one of the sites through one PC AT 386 computer. First a limited number of the university collaborators was provided with the possibility to send and receive e-mail messages. Then by the decision of the Ministry of Telecommunication of the Republic of Moldova in Chisinau was created the site MDEARN, connected with European TERENA network via ROEARN site in Bucharest, Romania. Its traffic speed is 9,6 kbps. The connection of the State University of Moldova to the MDEARN site is carried out through e-mail server to which initially a local network of PC AT 486 was connected.
In 1994 the State University of Moldova initiated a project on creation of an academic national network. To fulfil the project the University needed advice of experts. Mr. Goran Karlsson, professor of mechanics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stocholm, was requested to give assistance. During spring 1995 a study of presumptions for such a network and ways to find connection to European backbone network were considered.
After extensive discussions with his colleagues at SUNET (the Swedish University Network) and Nordunet (the Nordic University network) and "anouncing" via different Bitnet Mailing lists Mr.G. Karlsson found expertise from Lithuania for the pre-study. A team of experts visited Chisinau in April 1995. Mr. Vidar Bjekerland of UPNET Baltic Taide Network in Kaunas and Dr. Algimantas Kutka at Vilnius University in Lithuania were engaged as experts. They were involved in a similar network process in Lithuania and the solution suggested for Moldova was modeled from their Lithuanian experience.
It took about a year to overcome different obstacles while five organizations from Chisinau - the State University of Moldova, the Technical University, the Academy of Science, the Academy of Economic Studies, Soros foundation branch in Moldova - got access to the Internet through VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal. A 64 kbps channel with Dynamic Multiplexing Acces to Intelsat was provided by Taide network through Telenor in Norway. Connectivity between the Central Node and other connected organisations was establised through 128 kbps radio LAN modems.
"This has really been a proof that the combination of personal contacts, international co-operation and missions of different international funding organizations can function and can solve problems" - these words are from Mr. Karlsson's message to Mr. Jonahtan Peizer, representative of the Soros foundation in the United States of America, after the VSAT equipment had been put into operation in Chisinau. The costs for antennas, routers, repeaters, modems and cables forming the metropolitan infrastructure were covered by the Soros foundation. The costs for internal campus based LANs, PCs to connect to LANs, personnel training have been covered by each organisation involved.
This first step as it is seen took much effort. Then things went on a little faster. The Computer Centre of the State University of Moldova took the responsibility for the fulfilment of the following tasks:
In view of these purposes a team of University collaborators had a course of training for the system administration. This course was held by experts from Roumania at the State University of Moldova. Some of the team members participated in International conferences and seminars such as "Providing and Managing a National network service" organized by TERENA in May 1996 in Budapest. By the decision of the University and the Computer Centre administration IBM AT 586 computers have been bought to equipt different department offices and three computer classrooms with Internet access for teachers, post-graduate students, researches etc.
But the possibility of Internet connection doesn't mean that the net has actually become part of everyone's daily work. Only a relatively small number of people began to use electronic mail on a regular basis. These collaborators were the so called innovators of a new computer service. A big part of the teaching staff however heard of the Internet as a tool for searching and finding information, but they didn't know how to use it. Taking into consideration the ability to use the Internet services we can divide the University collaborators into three groups.
1. Advanced users who can navigate succesfully through net resources using only help information of each software programme used.
2. Users who are aware of Internet facilities, but never used them, or use only e-mail.
3. Those who don't use computers in their work.
Being faced with this situation, we decided to provide the users interested in Internet services with courses and learning materials. By learning materials we mean materials designed to develop the necessary competence to make better use of information technology. It is well known that one can easily understand everything about the Internet once someone explains it to you. Fortunately, the Kyiv regional office of Eurasia foundation announced in the autumn 1995 a contest of projects aimed at the development of means of communication in Ucraine, Belorussia and Moldova. The Computer Centre of the State University of Moldova proposed the following one year project for consideration: "The development of the Internet site at the University of Moldova and training the users in navigation on the Internet" and was among the competition winners. The project included working out and conducting courses on the use of Internet tools for University staff.
A team of qualified specialists (4 people) was formed to organise the courses. Initially, we studied different sources of information about Internet services and its possibilities, including books, documentation of software programmes, some information available through Internet. Then we structured the material considered to be useful for the university staff, especially for those who belong to the second category, into 5 parts:
General information about Internet
Electronic mail
Tools for remote access
Tools for searching
Internet resources
In the first part we briefly described the methods (protocols) used for communication between computers, the network ethics, the basic Internet services, legal implications concerning Internet, the news groups and news system organization. The second part presents information about how to send electronic mail to other people who use the Internet. We explained common notions concerning e-mail: how electronic mail works, e- mail addresses, passwords, encoding methods, returned messages, the security of electronic mail. We also made a detailed description of two most popular e-mail programmes: Pine (under Unix) and Eudora (under Windows). The third book covers such topics as: how to log on to other computers on the Internet (telnet), how to move files from one computer to another (ftp), what is WWW and how to use WWW browsers. The fourth book refers to the methods of location of various network resources ( archie, veronica, gopher, WAIS). The fifth book contains some information sources available via Internet. There we included Internet addresses related to the specialities studied at the University. The addresses were taken from different reference books.
The course materials were written in 2 languages : Roumanian and Russian, with the use of terms in English. After we had elaborated the learning materials "The course of navigation in the Internet" we carried out an information campaign at faculties and departments of the University. Information bulletin was issued with an announcement about Internet facilities and courses organizing. We compiled a questionnaire for potential trainees, the questions allowed us to select the trainees. The obligatory criteria were: elementary skills in computing and sufficient knowledge of English.
Groups of 15 trainees were organized for one week intensive classes during 3 months: November, December and January, according to project schedule. The classes were conducted by two instructors simultaneously, one was leeding and another one assisted the first. Besides compulsory classes, there were supplementary classes in another computer classroom for backing the received knowledge and skills of work in the Internet. The total number of lecturers, scientists, postgraduates and students taking the course amounted to over 150.
On completion of the course the trainees filled in the opinion-form in where they were offered to express their opinion about the usefulness of course, to share opinions about the instructors' work and the learning materials used etc.
The analysis of discussions at the faculties during the information campaign, the trainees opinions showed that the course on navigation in the Internet turned to be quite timely. Here are some extracts from the lecturers' opinions: "The course is extremely necessary first of all, because without Internet we are in an informational vacuum for the lack of periodicals in our libraries" (doctor of science, head of department); "The course is very useful. It's like a tasting: you tasted it, liked it, now it's time for a daily independent work" (associate professor from the faculty of Journalism). From the students' opinions: "Lectures are interesting and there is a direct instructor-trainee contact. All the instructors were very professional, even those who had no computer skills got the experience of navigation in the Internet".
It is necessary to note that most of the trainees expressed the opinion that the course was very intensive, within a short period of time they acquired a great amount of information, and time is needed to think it over to use the acquired knowledge in practice. Many trainees expressed a wish to prolong the period for navigation instruction, as well as to carry on with such courses. In our opinion it was rather difficult to organise homogenous in the level of competence and interests groups because of trained lecturers and students being busy. Some trainees experienced difficulties in understanding the information because of the novelty of the received information for them (see an opinion: "Old brains are quickly overfiled").
Students showed a big interest in the course of navigation in the Internet. A group of students from the Law Faculty who had the course of navigation in the Internet, started to study the international law with the use of the Internet resourses under the supervision of a lecturer from the USA.
Lecturers will be able to use the acquired knowledge in new developing courses and will introduce students to vast resourses of information provided by the Internet use. Even now many trainees of the course of navigation in the Internet have established contacts with their colleagues from many institutes of the world, subscribed for various conferences, found a lot of necessary information for scientific and pedagogical work. They disseminate the received knowledge, informing their colleagues about the Internet resourses.
At this stage we received additional confirmation about the importance and the necessity of the courses of navigation in the Interent for the University collaborators. Most trainees understood what great resourses the global network Internet possesses. As the result of the training they have received necessary minimum of information about the Internet, about the tools of search in the Internet, about resourses of the Internet. Some lecturers have already included courses of navigation or courses with the use of the Internet resourses into their curriculum.
Taking into account a very fast development of the Internet services, vast possibilities provided by the Internet to lecturers, researchers and students, we hope that the connection of the University to the global network Internet was just an initial stage of many others steps to follow. May be in the nearest future we shall be able to participate in video-conferences, to implement various interactive multimedia programmes and on- line distance learning cources at the University and, why not, to offer some multimedia courses worked out by us. I say it relying on our experience and on the opinion of an expert in computer aided learning, Alfred Bork, professor in Physics and Informatics, Educational Technology Center, Information and Computer Science, University of California: "No single learning philosophy shall govern the production of these courses. A nationwide, perhaps worldwide solicitation for such courses should take place. Different groups would be able to propose quite different strategies. We do not know enough about learning to restrict these courses to a single aproach".
Roza Dumbraveanu Computer Science Department The State University of Moldova, e-mail: roza@cinf.usm.md