The Information Society
| Date | 01 April 1995 |
| Pages | 410-413 |
| Published date | 01 April 1995 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb045402 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
The
Information Society
Continuing our look
at
developments in countries
around the
world
that
contribute
towards the Information Society. Readers are invited to send us reports from their
own
area:
please
e-mail
tel@learned.co.uk
Australia
EDNA
Wayne
Gibbons,
Deputy Secretary of
the
Australian Department
of
Employ-
ment,
Education and
Training,
ad-
dressed the AIIA Canberra Managers
Forum on
14 June
and
described the
initiative
taken
by his minister to
es-
tablish the
Education Network
Austra-
lia,
otherwise known
as EDNA, and
how it
is
to be
implemented.
'In order to undertake negotiations
with potential suppliers, the com-
monwealth will need to understand
the needs and priorities of
the
edu-
cational systems which will use a
national education network service.
It has been agreed that
over
the
next
three months the commonwealth
should consult with all education
systems, in all education sectors, to
determine as accurately as possible
what products and services they
need from an education
network,
in-
cluding what kinds of functions
they
would
want
to see
in
a
network
service. Issues which will come are
likely to include whether or not
services such as control of individ-
ual access to particular subject mat-
ter
groupings
or secure
communica-
tions between users
are
important
to
a
particular
system.
'A small working group is to be es-
tablished to
work
with the
common-
wealth in this process of consult-
ation and investigation. The
working group will consist of four
persons: an expert from the state
schools sector, an expert from the
vocational education and training
sector, an expert from the inde-
pendent schools sector and an ex-
pert from the higher education sec-
tor. The consultation process will
also need to address issues such as
the level of telecommunications ac-
cess (including bandwidth) re-
quired,
both for individuals and in-
stitutions, and the kinds of pricing
structures considered necessary to
make usage of
an
educational net-
work feasible and attractive. It is
very likely that
at
least one result of
this process will
be a
very
strong
in-
sistence that any national service
must offer access to at least ISDN
bandwidth to institutional users re-
gardless of geographic
location.
It
is
also very likely that many schools
and school systems will not be able
to participate if current ISDN usage
charging regimes
remain
in place.
'The objective of
the
network
con-
sultation process will
be
to develop
a full
definition of
the
overall "busi-
ness requirement" of a national
education
network.
This business
requirement
will form the basis
for
a
tender
which
will
invite the
commu-
nications and computer service in-
dustry to indicate how it could de-
liver the services required by the
users of a national education net-
work.
'In
order to ensure that this
business
requirement properly reflects the
needs of educational systems,
a
ref-
erence group is to be established
with representatives from the
schools and vocational education
and
training sectors in all states and
territories, and
from
the
higher
edu-
cation sector. This reference group
will be responsible for certifying
that the description of
the
network
business requirement developed by
the commonwealth properly re-
flects systems needs.
'On the issue of the products and
services to be carried on a national
education
network,
it has been
agreed that a governing body for
EDNA should be established with
the functions of:
• managing the development of
educational and technical stand-
ards for
the
delivery of services
on
EDNA by:
—
setting
guidelines
on the
kinds
of
material which could be
carried
on
the
network (for
example,
pro-
hibition of pornography and set-
ting
general
quality standards);
— establishing rules on carriage
of commercial material;
— establishing guidelines for ac-
cess by product providers;
• encouraging the development of
product and services, taking into
account
the
standards which have
been
set;
• defining, in consultation with the
education sector, their functional
requirements from any online
service to ensure that their re-
quirements
are being
met;
• communicating these user needs
to the
provider or providers of net-
work services.
'The governing body of EDNA will
be based on the Open Learning
Technology Corporation (OLTC).
OLTC
is a
company
owned by
com-
monwealth, state
and
territory
min-
isters for employment, education,
training
and youth
affairs.
It was
es-
tablished in 1991 to promote cost
ef-
fective, high quality and equitable
uses of education communications
and related open learning tech-
niques amongst all education and
training sectors. The board of the
OLTC will be commissioned to de-
velop detailed proposals for
changes to the
structure,
and
articles
of
association
of
the
company nec-
essary to enable to undertake the
role of the governing body of
EDNA.
'On the issue of purchase of what
may be termed "reception infra-
410 The Electronic Library, Vol. 13, No. 4, August 1995
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