CDS

1. CDS/ISISaFree Software X CDS/ISIS Regional Meeting for Latin America and Caribbean 3-5 February 2003, La Havana - Cuba Davide Storti – Communication and Information Sector UNESCO

2. UNESCO Guidelines Information management and resource sharing enhanced through the cooperative development and dissemination of CDS/ISIS and IDAMS as public domain software packages. Training of information and informatics specialists and users.

3. 3 About this presentation UNESCO’s activity report Coming up UNESCO 2004-2005 Distribution and Development policies and partnerships

4. 4 UNESCO Activities Development and dissemination of CDS/ISIS, IDAMS, Greenstone and related utilities Maintenance of the distribution network IDAMS (more centralized distribution) CDS/ISIS (7 new distributors appointed) Maintenance of UNESCO Web and FTP sites UNESCO Free Software Portal but also Software for E-learning, expert systems, …

5. 5 UNESCO Activities Focus on CDS/ISIS

6. 6 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today CDS/ISIS basic tools

7. 7 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today Winisis/MicroIsis

8. 8 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today We work towards a comprehensive set of tools And to increase information exchange capabilities Most UNESCO’s software is based on Bireme’s DLL Web interfaces work through WWWISIS

9. 9 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today The new CDS/ISIS web page is finally online Will soon integrate the database of distributors and CDS/ISIS related websites Distribution policy was unchanged (Argentina, 2000) New distributors appointed on demandAlgeria, Antigua, Botswana, Burkina Faso, RP China, Mongolia, Poland Distribution from HQ continued, also dispatching requests to national distributors

10. 10 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today Newer language versions of Winisis were developedAmong which, Ukranian, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch. In co-operation with the The League of the Arab States Winisis 1.4 Arabic Enabled was released More software documentation English, French, Spanish, but also Russian, Arabic and Chinese

11. 11 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today 12 training seminars were organized by UNESCO HQ in Côte d’Ivoire. A training seminar was organized in Nepal. Other training seminars were organized in the Arab States by the Arab League Documentation Centre. Many training workshops/seminars are held each month but we don’t have information about that. Negotiations for other training seminars are ongoing.

12. 12 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today Training may vary from the CDS/ISIS application A recent training workshop in Sri Lanka, focused only on web interface construction with GENISIS, integrating web notions (webserver, javascript, etc) Training of trainers is a very important activity The workshops in Sri Lanka and Nepal were conducted by resource persons trained by UNESCO But also HQ answers to + 3,000 questions per year

13. 13 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, today Looking forward a different partnership model Embracing the Open Source development model Will of gathering a group of institutions/people to take care of CDS/ISIS under the umbrella of UNESCO Attempts were made in 2000 and 2001 Eschborn, Germany Rome, Italy How to find a really common ground

14. 14 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, coming up Release of 2003 edition of UNESCO Information Processing Tools Cd rom Latest CDS/ISIS products and documentation, most of them with the source code IDAMS (English, French and Spanish) Training courses On CDS/ISIS, on wwwIsis, on GENISIS, etc Support to organizing institutions Identify and train local resource persons Courses tied to upcoming projects

15. 15 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, coming up Ready-to use content platform (MLCM - INFOTERM) Online distribution of all UNESCO CDS/ISIS products Online list of agreed distributors More dynamic web page FAQ (in future, Help Desk i.e. Oraculo?) More comprehensive Worldwide news New CDS/ISIS sites directory?

16. 16 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, coming up Studying a Thesaurus management system In co-operation with FAO, Infoterm, WTO. Other partners interested Development of Complex script support With the Initiative Babel UNESCO’s project SIL International (USA) OS project, Graphite rendering technology Graphite enabled “editing control” Integration to Mozilla browser: direct involvement into Mozdev

17. 17 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, coming up Presentation of a CDS/ISIS OS project 4/03: Technical advisory group 4/03: project Timeframe 4/03: UNICODE support (strategy) 6/03: Formatting language implemented 6/03: Search language implemented Development of ideas (I.e. federated DB) Server/Client basic interactions defined (choice of protocol…) 11/03: First minimal application 12/03: Testing complex script technology

18. 18 UNESCO CDS/ISIS, coming up Forming a technical advisory group for CDS/ISIS management Participation: institutional/personal Limited number of members Funding research activity to sustain the OS project This assembly can support this through a recommendation New attempt at the Eschborn meeting (Germany, April 2003) The group may be supported by a consortium of agencies. UNESCO, BIREME, FAO, IFAD, INFOTERM, GTZ are already interested Group may include alternate basic system developers (Bireme, Unesco, OpenIsis, ICIE)

19. 19 UNESCO CDS/ISIS 2004-2005

20. 20 UNESCO CDS/ISIS 2004-2005 Main line of action: Strengthening capacities of communication and information professionals and institutions Strategy Institutions and experts to identify integrated approaches to addressing training needs and strengthening institutions …

21. 21 UNESCO CDS/ISIS 2004-2005 … Strategy Close co-operation with donors, stakeholders and professional organizations in co-financing, assessing best practices and evaluating training activities Training of trainers to ensure long term impact of UNESCO’s action Priority: women, young professionals In developing countries and countries in transition…

22. 22 UNESCO CDS/ISIS 2004-2005 … Strategy Important element of strategy: The provision of support for the production of information processing tools based on the model of the open source software As a key means to dissemination of information and knowledge

23. 23 UNESCO CDS/ISIS 2004-2005 Continued support to CDS/ISIS and IDAMS activities However, budget could be reduced And be more oriented to regional activities Consolidation/establishment of field partnerships Take advantage from other UNESCO CCT projects Initiative Babel Free software portal as collaborative tool (if approved)

24. 24 UNESCO CDS/ISIS 2004-2005 Concept of IsisServer services definition and documentation Priority to multilingualism Integration of Graphite fonts support Consider existing CDS/ISIS applications: Most of them will continue to work like that. Data conversion tools provided where needed. Improved and new data exchange tools Bi-Trilingual web pages (Help desk?)

25. 25 UNESCO CDS/ISIS 2004-2005 Switch from CDS/ISIS all-in-one integrated application to:

26. 26 CDS/ISIS Development Policy Find a starting point Open a technical advisory group Sharing the workload/costs UNESCO is not a financing agency Stand-alone projects could be supported by external partners Use of collaborative environment

27. 27 CDS/ISIS Development Policy Develop the idea of quality assurance. Respect of ISO norms for basic software development And for end-users applications Certification system for CDS/Isis compliant applications CDS/ISIS driving license for local trainers Today CDS/ISIS is part of the curricula in Egypt universities

28. 28 CDS/ISIS Development Policy Dev group should ask itself fundamental questions What does it make Isis… Isis? Versatile Small and powerful Runs on small systems Multilingual Very good indexing system Powerful formatting language But that still refers to a centralized application approach

29. 29 CDS/ISIS Distribution Policy Current implementation Reduced HQ capacity to respond to CDS/ISIS demand Passive distribution network Non-existing (or underground) interregional exchange Insufficient exchanges with HQ = reduced visibility

30. 30 CDS/ISIS Distribution Policy Some Keypoints Internet as effective distribution tool Reduced cost for CD reproduction Aptitude vs CDS/ISIS applications in the market Active play-role: As active partners Recognition of their support to CDS/ISIS activities Distribution to remote areas Local needs monitoring and implementation (local language) Direct link with CDS/ISIS OS project management

31. 31 CDS/ISIS Distribution Policy Main question is: Distributors of what? Beyond the idea of CDS/ISIS as a single, integrated software

32. 32 CDS/ISIS Distribution Policy Switch to services Example or Control: creating a healthy environment for CDS/ISIS products development and distribution Think WORLDWIDE!

33. 33 The challenge of FS/OS How to convince institutions to use FS Examples: UNESCO, ISSN-CI Analyze big OS/FS projects: Red Hat, Mozilla, Suse, etc Keyword is: Infrastructure

34. 34 The challenge of FS/OS Open source or Free Software? UNESCO programme and budget says Open Source Free software is also mentioned

35. 35 The challenge of FS/OS The license dilemma Many projects use multiple licenses (Mozilla): LGPL MPL (Mozilla) CPL

36. 36 Conclusions Create a Technical Advisory group Created and coordinated by UNESCO Create international co-operation through projects Switch distributors concept to “service provider” (not necessarily linked to UNESCO but linked to an international group of providers) Continue “normal” UNESCO activities Training, etc, etc.

37. 37 Conclusions? No Inicio!