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Can APAN be more User Friendly?:
A Longtime User’s Perspective
Paper presented at the "APAN Conference 2001", University Sains
Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, 20 - 22 August 2001. Conference sponsored
by Network Research Group, School of Computer Science, University Science
Malaysia, University Science Malaysia, Asia Pacific Advanced Networking.
http://www.my.apan.net/meeting/
Robert T. Raab and Buenafe R. Abdon
Introduction
APAN was formally established in 1997 in response to a recognition of
the importance of high-end Internet for researchers in Asia Pacific region.
The APAN Consortium was formed for two main reasons:
- to promote advanced research in networking technologies and
- the development of high-performance broadband applications.
There is no doubt that APAN has made great strides in achieving the first
of these goals. Most Asia-Pacific countries are participating in the effort
in some way and high-speed APAN connections are being used by researchers
throughout the region to study and evaluate advanced networking technologies.
Representatives from these countries are periodically brought together
to share their experiences and learn from other network scientists.
Unfortunately, it appears that progress towards the second goal has not
been nearly as impressive. Even though the basic infrastructure is in
place, and talented and trained network engineers are supporting consortium
efforts, the authors maintain that the existence of substantive applications
taking advance of the network is minimal. Beyond workshops and symposiums
there does not appear to be much activity in the applications area. This
is particularly evident in the user group with which the authors have
been most involved - the Agriculture Working Group (AG-WG).
Why is this? The authors of this paper are dedicated users and have a
considerable amount of experience with APAN, agriculture and with the
use of network technologies for human capital development - e-learning
- in the Asia-Pacific. Below we would like to put forward our thoughts
on how APAN can help meet user goals in general, and our own goals in
particular, to achieve the impact that is inherent in APAN's vision.
Prior Experience
The authors have been using APAN infrastructure since 1998. All projects
initiated were focused on technology-enhanced distance learning applications
targeting agricultural professionals in the Asia-Pacific region. Much
of this work was carried out through the International Rice Research Institute
in the Philippines. This work fell into 3 main categories
- Providing support to remote group training activities away from IRRI
headquarters through videoconferencing
- Video conferencing to allow the contribution of international experts
in IRRI headquarters-based group training activities
- Mirroring Web-based training courses on APAN servers.
A. Videoconferencing from IRRI to remote sites
Most of the work in this area involved using the APAN network and Internet-based
videoconferencing technologies to allow the interactive contribution of
IRRI scientists in group training activities organized and conducted by
Thailand's Department of Agriculture. From Los Baños, IRRI used
a leased line to PhNet in Manila from where a connection to the 768 Kbps
APAN line to Japan could be made. The Thai Department of Agriculture used
a similar arrangement to connect to NECTEC in Bangkok and from there access
the 2 Mbps Thailand to Japan APAN connection.
For three years these connections were used to allow videoconferencing
in which IRRI scientists gave live synchronous presentations followed
by interactive question and answer sessions. Students were rice scientists
from various countries in Asia attending the International Rice Production
Research Course. Several lectures dealing with various aspects of Integrated
Pest Management and Integrated Nutrient Management were successfully carried
out. Additional conferences were arranged to allow IRRI officials to interact
with students, local course instructors and Department of Agriculture
leaders.
B. Videoconference participation in IRRI Headquarters courses
With the positive experience of using this technology to allow IRRI to
reach out to various initiatives in the region, a further step was taken
in 1999 to allow international experts to contribute to educational events
at IRRI Headquarters. During the IRRI workshop on "Bioinformatics
and Applications of Candidate Genes" 20 biotechnologists from national
research organizations and advanced universities in 6 Asian countries
were able to see, listen to and interact with Dr Tan Tin Wee, at this
time the APAN User Community CoDirector, and Chairman of APAN's Bioinformatics
Working Group. From his office desk at the National University of Singapore,
Dr. Tan talked about "Bioinformatics Initiatives in APAN and APBioNet".
Dr. Tan used SingAREN's link to JP-XP. Dr Manjeet Singh, Business Manager
of SingAREN noted, "These are the sort of scientific activities we
want to encourage our researchers to be engaged in through using the advanced
networking resources that we have provided. Our aim is to have such resources
used increasingly and on a routine basis to support collaborative research"
[2]. Based on the experience, collaborators felt that, "scientific
conferences and workshops may increasingly find videoconferencing an added
feature in the program, to enable the content of such talks to be disseminated
to a far wider audience, particularly those unable to travel. Speakers
from overseas can be tapped without seriously interrupting their work
schedule by using the APAN network for routine videoconference scientific
discussions" [2].
C. Mirroring Web-based training courses
Other Internet-based training activities with which the authors were
involved while with IRRI included the development of on-line, Internet-based
asynchronous training courses. One of these, "Digital Literacy for
Rice Scientists", was successfully implemented for both Philippine-
and India-based participants. While not being able to utilize APAN's infrastructure
for the delivery of these courses, copies of the entire content of this
and another on-line course ("English for Agriculture") were
mirrored on APAN connected servers at MAFFIN in Japan and the University
of Pune in India. Both of these courses can still be accessed from the
AG-WG homepage - http://agri-wg.jp.apan.net.
Constraints
Everyone involved in these and subsequent online activities agreed that
great potential existed for doing more in this area and that these types
of applications had great potential to contribute to the advancement of
agriculture and the development of associated human resources. It was
also clear that much could be done to make APAN more responsive in meeting
the needs of application developers. Some of the areas that we would like
to highlight include:
- Connectivity of target users.
- Access to commodity sites over the APAN network.
- Hosting services for applications.
- Wider and more flexible definition of members.
A. Connectivity
Mr. Akira Mizushima, former chair of APAN's AG-WG put the problem very
well based on his survey of potential users in 1999 [3]. He noted that
very few of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries institutions with
which APAN wanted to connect were actually able to do so. He stated that,
"In many cases they are connected to the Internet via commercial
ISPs and the dial-up connections are often common". He went on to
ask, "How can we establish the APAN connection under such a condition?"
The authors have also experienced difficulties in trying to use APAN
resources to deliver on-line courses. For example, in trying to deliver
the "Digital Literacy" course to Indian scientists, there did
not seem to be a way to allow traffic over APAN lines even though IRRI
had a leased connection and the ISP being used in India (NICNET - http://www.nic.in/)
had international connections to both Japan and Singapore - two countries
with major APAN exchange points.
B. Access to commodity sites over the APAN network
One of the strengths of online learning courses is the ability to easily
direct learners to multiple sources of information and to encourage independent
exploration of these resources. In fact, most good online courses explicitly
require this kind of learning exercise.
Unfortunately, even with a connection to APAN and good access to course
material hosted on APAN servers, the access to sites outside of APAN did
not seem to be any better than could be achieved without going through
APAN.
C. Hosting services for applications
As Mr. Mizushima and the authors have noted, not only is connectivity
by most of APAN's target institutions extremely poor, their basic IT infrastructure
is severely limited and overburdened. This is particularly true in the
less developed Asian countries and their institutions. Hosting applications
on most University servers is not possible as this equipment cannot handle
even existing demands and links to these machines are already above acceptable
traffic levels.
The authors have tried to get around this problem by taking advantage
of commercial hosting services in the United States and making this resource
available to our clients and target audiences. While this is certainly
an improvement over trying to host courses and materials with commercial
sites in developing countries in Asia, the cost and logistical problems
are significant.
D. Wider and more flexible definition of members
The list of APAN's members is impressive but is dominated by national
advanced computing institutions or networking research groups within more
broad-based institutions. Given the kinds of organizations that are most
involved, it is no surprise that progress has been greatest in advanced
networking research and relatively limited in application research in
many areas including agriculture and education.
Again, based on personal experience, departments in national or regional
universities or sections in government organizations with potential applications
are, in general, not aware of and do not know how to take advantage of
APAN resources. Even if the computer section in these organizations has
contact with APAN, the sections with application needs commonly do not.
They also often do not even have good links with their own computer personnel.
Complicating this matter further is that the international situation
in e-learning is developing in a direction away from autonomous physical
institutions having complete control over the place, the content, the
delivery, and the quality of education. "The geographic hegemony
of higher education has ended" [4]. Traditional providers of higher
and continuing education - nonprofit colleges and universities - are being
challenged by a proliferation of alternative institutions and providers
with the skills and attitudes required to succeed in the new educational
marketplace. The future will see a growing importance and number of partnerships
between traditional educational providers and a range of intermediary
organizations with each partner contributing based on their respective
comparative advantage [5]. What this essentially means is that there are
now a host of new institutions and institutional partnerships that did
not exist when APAN was established. It is pertinent to ask if APAN is
encouraging the participation of these new organizations and partnerships
that are now evolving? An example of such a partnership organization might
help to illustrate current organizational trends in e-learning.
Multisectoral Partnership in e-Learning - An Example
The Asia Pacific Regional Technology Centre (APRTC) was born as a result
of a realization that something more was needed to promote sustainable
agricultural practices in Asia. Farmers in the region are increasingly
being challenged to raise levels of production, optimise use of expensive
external inputs, compete in a tough global economy and keep their operations
profitable without endangering their fragile resource base [6]. It was
realized that innovative agricultural technology options could help address
this dilemma, but also that the farm technology gap in Asia is vast. Agricultural
professionals in multiple sectors - government, non-government, development
and Industry itself - were the logical leverage point in attempting to
bridge this gap but were not considered to have adequate levels of knowledge
and skills to play an effective role. It was realised that an educational
program utilizing new information and communication technologies could
be a powerful tool to better educate this key target group and make them
effective agents of change. As a result of these initial deliberations,
private sector funds were raised as seed money to establish the Asia-Pacific
Regional Technology Centre (APRTC) and its distance learning programme
with the expectation that it would soon become an independent, impartial
and self-supporting not-for-profit educational institution reaching agricultural
professionals throughout the region.
Since its establishment early in 2001, the U.S. registered non-profit
APRTC has expended a considerable amount of energy developing and delivering
online courses related to sustainable agriculture. Courses either ready
for delivery or under development include:
- Digital Literacy for Agricultural Professionals
- English for Agriculture
- Safe and Effective Use of Crop Protection Products
- Introduction to Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
- IPM for Cotton
- IPM for Irrigated Rice
- IPM for Vegetables
In addition to online course development, a major part of APRTC's effort
has been to establish multisectoral partnerships. Current official partners
now include the NGO WorldView International Foundation, and the industry
trade organization the Asia Pacific Crop Protection Association and negotiations
have been initiated with a range of leading higher educational institutions
both in the Asia-Pacific region and in the West. Pilot collaborative activities
involving all these institutions are underway. The Centre is looking to
expand its network and is particularly interested in starting dialogues
and mutually beneficial collaborative activities with other agricultural
education institutions in Asia.
The keen interest shown by partners in this pioneering effort is a result
of their realization of the clear benefits it offers. For example, universities
find the materials and specialized knowledge gained through the partnerships
useful to their current teaching and appreciate access to the cost-effective
design, hosting and delivery system provided by the APRTC. The private
sector benefits through a better-trained workforce and the availability
of quality continuing education for its staff. The NGO partner sees that
the partnership offers a unique opportunity to reach a wider constituency
with its message and better fulfill its mandate. The APRTC benefits through
enhanced credibility for courses and potential accreditation for online
students from respected universities. Society benefits through a better
educated farming community in the Asia Pacific region and more competitive
economic enterprises.
Can APAN Help?
The authors do not claim to have the solutions to increasing the number
and variety of applications making use of the APAN infrastructure and
resources. We would, however, like to propose some ideas and try to stimulate
thinking among APAN's members as to how it can better serve the user community
and organizations like APRTC.
A. Improving Connectivity
In terms of connectivity we would like to see more flexibility in allowing
users to access APAN lines through their existing connections (most commonly
dialup) and commodity ISPs. This will be especially beneficial in countries
with relatively good internal connectivity but with serious bottlenecks
over international connections (e.g. India). APAN connections usually
terminate in national communication centers and these are generally the
same institutions that handle and coordinate commodity traffic.
Is there a way to allow authorized users to access APAN lines from
national exchange points with APAN connections?
If this was allowed, applications like our recently conducted asynchronous,
interactive online course for participants in Thailand, Malaysia, Japan,
Australia, Vietnam and the Philippines would have been considerably more
efficient. In this course, the facilitators were based in Thailand but
all course materials were hosted by a commercial hosting service in the
United States and accessed from there. With the possible exception of
Vietnam, all of these countries have APAN connections and being able to
take advantage of these lines would have made a huge difference in participant's
ability to access materials and interact with the facilitators and each
other.
B. Improving access to key commodity sites
Again, using the course mentioned above as an example, participants were
required to access a wide range of informational sites - some hosted by
educational institutions, some by private companies, some by individuals.
They then used the information found to do various assignments that they
shared with facilitators and classmates. If the previously mentioned connectivity
problem was solved, and authorized users were allowed to access commodity
sites from within the APAN network, it would dramatically improve and
speed up users' ability to access required information resources.
Can authorized individual users take advantage of the APAN network
for high-speed access to a wider range of commodity Internet sites?
C. Hosting assistance
Many of the key agricultural institutions in Asia do not have the resources
to maintain complex Internet servers. Purchasing these is prohibitively
expensive and maintenance is a complicated responsibility that is beyond
the capabilities of all but the most advanced Asian agricultural and educational
institutions.
As mentioned earlier, APRTC is hosting its materials and various communication
fora on a server in the United States. For numerous reasons, we would
very much prefer this to be done closer to 'home'.
Can APAN allow authorized groups to inexpensively host on APAN network
servers, assist with the maintenance of these and work to develop national
capacity in server management?
D. Encouraging the participation of non-traditional members
One of the most exciting recent developments in e-learning involves the
formation of innovative partnerships and the growing importance of non-traditional
educational organizations - NGO's, non-profits, private sector companies
[5]. In a common emerging model, traditional universities provide the
intellectual capital, content and content support, evaluate student performance,
and award appropriate degree credit or certification. Intermediaries contribute
in such areas as hosting, hardware and software provision, instructional
design for the Web, Website and communication fora maintenance, record-keeping,
teacher training and technical support for courseware development and
marketing [6]. Private sector corporations are increasingly involved and
this trend is promoted by development agencies and international donors
[7]. Non-traditional multisectoral partnerships are evolving and becoming
more common.
Can APAN's AUPs be streamlined and modified to accommodate and encourage
the participation of these non-traditional organizations (many of which
may be regional or international in their mandates) and the various
partnerships they establish?
Summary and Conclusions
There is no doubt that APAN has made major contributions to the growth
and sophistication of advanced networking capacity in the Asia-Pacific
region. However, we feel it must be admitted that progress in developing
and deploying applications taking advantage of this tremendous resource
have lagged far behind. Major reasons include problems with connectivity,
flexibility (access through APAN to key commodity sites), lack of distributed
hosting infrastructure and management capacity and limited membership.
Given the potential benefits that could be realized if these constraints
are addressed, the authors are encouraging existing members to come up
with workable solutions. Initial suggestions include allowing authorized
traffic to be routed from national exchange points even when access is
through commodity ISPs, allowing authorized users to access commodity
sites over APAN, the provision of affordable hosting services and the
inclusion of a broader range of APAN members. It is felt that these changes
will have a major effect on the variety and number of applications and
will ultimately lead to substantial benefits in many of the areas with
which APAN is involved. Changes will result in more users, more available
information and applications, increased impact on intended targets and
benefits to the financial and socioeconomic status of the region. Without
such changes, APAN runs the risks of underutilizing its valuable resources
and marginalization as application developers turn to other sources of
networking capacity.
For APAN to facilitate and promote a large number of applications is
vitally important. As Kim Dae-jung [8], President of the Republic of Korea,
recently stated,
"The whole world must cooperate to close the gap and seek co-prosperity.
To that end, we must take Globalization of information one step further
to Globalization of the benefits of information. Developing nations
should be able to participate in the process of furthering information
capabilities and to receive their fair share of the benefits. We must
make a joint effort, both regionally and globally, so that all of humanity
can share the benefits of advanced information and communications technologies."
References
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[Online]: http://www.apan.net/intro.html
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bioinformatics delivered over APAN via SingAREN", SingAREN News, Vol 6,
March. 1999 Available [Online]: http://www.singaren.net.sg/newsroom/newsletter-mar99.html#videoconf
[3] Mizushima, A. "Out line of AG-WG local meeting report in July, 1999".
APAN Agriculture Working Group Website, 1999. Available [Online]: http://agri-wg.jp.apan.net/LM-99/outline-1999.htm
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