Training in Web Publishing and use of the Internet

The mutual linking of computers through the World Wide Web is playing an important role in knowledge and information gathering and dissemination. This aspect of internetworking technologies is one the most exciting feature that has a potential to provide backbone for e-commerce, social and economic development initiatives. Furthermore, with the spread and diffusion of these technologies, in societies across the globe, the role of World Wide Web is bound to increase, particularly, for developing countries it will open up new arenas of development co-operation and economic growth.

SDNP believes that to actualize a meaningful and beneficial participation of end-users, through internetworking technologies, there should be an in-house capacity in the governmental, non-governmental and other civil society initiatives to publish their websites and frequently update the information and knowledge content.

For this purpose SDNP has come up with a training and capacity development programme. This programme incorporates, along with regular courses of web authoring, the advocacy component to create a paradigm shift in the aims of web publishing i.e., from "brochureware" to "informationware".

Main Objectives of the Training Programme are

• To enhance in-house capacity of key development organizations for web publishing.
  
• To introduce new technologies and techniques related to web development.
  
• To provide space for the participants to meet and exchange their knowledge related to web publishing tools.
  
• To build close liaison with development organizations and familiarize them with the developmental potential of the Internet.
  
• To advocate for bringing the public domain local content of development information and knowledge on the World Wide Web.

Types of Training

SDNP has conducted two types of training:

1). Training in the use of the Internet.
2). Training in Web-Authoring.

1). Training in the use of the Internet

SDNP has been holding regular training workshops in the use of email and Internet. This kind of training started in March 1994 - on a regular weekly basis, open to the general public. By the time this regular activity was wound up in September 1997, more than 2000 people had attended these sessions. The main accent of this training programme was in the use of email, though other Internet tools were also introduced.

In addition to these weekly sessions, special training programmes were designed and conducted for a number of research and development organizations in the country (see SDNP documents for details).

Since October 1998, SDNP has developed training modules in the use of Internet focussing on optimal search techniques on the web. This training is generally on demand and a number of educational institutions and development organizations have benefited from it.

SDNP can deliver this training to your organization at fairly short notice.

2). Training in Web-Authoring

This training programme in web authoring/publishing was initiated in the first quarter of 1999 with its first round of workshops held between April-June 1999. Twenty-five such workshops were conducted till the end of June 2001. Beginning from basic web-authoring techniques needed to
set up a simple website, more advanced topics like online databases and graphics/animation have been covered in subsequent workshops. In addition, special workshops in Urdu and Sindhi web-authoring have also been conducted to help bring development content in Pakistani languages
on the web. The special sector has also received ICTs training through workshops especially customized by SDNP for them. Some of the organizations have been imparted special training by SDNP staff at its office premises. More than 260 organizations have thus been trained, and more than 160 websites have either been created or improved as a result of this capacity building initiative.

The following tables represent the current status of this training programme in each city where it is being conducted.

Training Manuals