Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/inet/isoc/isoc_news/issue1-2/n-1-2-020.06a

Text File | 1993-03-01 | 8KB | 163 lines

020.06  EDUCATION
by Steve Ruth <[e-mail]> and
Florencio Utreras <[e-mail]>

                         Introduction

      The challenge of connecting the scientific communities
throughout the world continues to be a high priority for
government, educators and researchers.  While about two dozen
developed nations have the required infrastructure to permit
laboratories and universities to be strongly linked to major
data bases and to each other, most of the rest of the nations
are not so equipped.  During the last decade there has been a
steady improvement in the potential of the developing nations
of the world to hook up to the robust academic networks, like
BITNET, EARN, JNET and SWIFT and even to the broadly based
network of networks called Internet.  The connection of
scientists in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and many
parts of Asia to these networks has been tentative but
gradually many are beginning to have some success.

      Unfortunately very little data exists to help predict
the results of a country's entry into these networks. Up to
now, for example, there have been no definitive studies of
the scientists in a developing nation to examine the
variables that are of interest : message volumes within the
country and outside, proportion of messages sent to those
received, expected flows of message traffic by scientific
discipline, urban versus rural university message volumes,
number of persons actually using the networks to further
their scientific research, demographics (age, gender,
education, current research activity, etc) and many more.
Without that type of clear data based on detailed results of
the population involved it is impossible to predict the
variables that will be crucial in each scientific community's
use of the technology.  These variables have a major effect
on the scarce public funds in developing nations.  For
example, the current plans to allocate tens, even hundreds of
billions of dollars over the coming decades to the
improvement of telecommunications infrastructure in
developing nations, could be greatly improved if more data
were available ex ante concerning the scientific user's
network behavior.

                      The Current Study

       The current study accomplishes exactly that purpose.
It is a detailed analysis of the first three years of BITNET
and local traffic for the scientific network that was
established in Chile in 1988, with particular emphasis on
1990 data.  It includes message volumes across over thirty
scientific institutions in Chile, a dozen scientific
disciplines, and connected to over thirty countries. It
examines, month by month, the network use characteristics of
the vast majority of the scientific users in the country.
Without doubt, this study is unique.

      To gain an even closer appreciation of the actual
population of the users of academic networks in Chile, an
additional step was taken.  The demographics of the
scientific community of the country were determined and, with
the help of CONICYT, it was possible to sample the entire
community, some 2500 persons, in the spring of 1991.  The
results, just released,  make it possible to have a first-
ever picture of the network use behavior of a country's
scientific community. Since thirty six percent of the
scientists responded to the questionnaire, the data base is
reliable for making generalizations about Chile, and is also
a stepping stone to the evaluation of similar populations
throughout the world.

                        The Population

     The sample consisted of 908 scientists representing
twelve scientific disciplines: biology, biotechnology,
astronomy, mathematics, physics, engineering, chemistry,
biology, earth sciences, social science, agricultural
science, medicine, economics/law and administration and a
small category classified as "other".  The thirty-one
institutions in the sample  included all the universities in
Chile and all major research institutes.  The average age was
43.4 years, with women, who represented 24 % of the sample,
slightly younger than men (42 years).  About two thirds of
the sample possessed advanced degrees, with the proportion of
doctorates in the exact sciences, Physics, Math and
Chemistry, larger than for the total population.
Postgraduate work was reported in a dozen countries but the
major nations were USA, Germany, Spain, France, England,
China, Canada and Brazil.  A detailed analysis of reported
publications and memberships in various scientific societies
was used as a proxy for research productivity.

                     A Sample of Findings

       Scores of ideas and hypotheses can be examined with
the data now available.  Only some of the most obvious
results will be discussed.   A key finding was that about one
fourth of those sampled are already users of academic
networks, with a higher proportion of women than men.
Mathematicians, physicists and astronomers were the largest
proportion of users, with sociologists, biologists and earth
scientists the least.  Another key finding was that the users
in regions outside the capital of Santiago were, on average,
slightly more likely to employ academic networks than those
closer to the city, where much better facilities exist.
Almost half of the users stated that they utilized the
networks to get data bases.  Only about 20 percent used the
networks to gain access to lists and bulletin boards.

      Some of the study's specific results are summarized
below. Because of the size of the sample, all these results
were shown to be statistically significant.

o  The typical network user has more advanced higher
   education background, greater scientific and scholarly
   activity and is more likely to have international
   contacts than the non-user

o  Age is not a significant variable in network use but is
   slightly negatively correlated with intensity of use.

o  Adjusted for their relative representation in the
   scientific community, women are slightly more likely to
   use academic networks than men . There is no significant
   difference between the intensity of network use between
   women and men.

o  In spite of the differences in the availability of
   hardware and software between the capital city and the
   outlying regions there is no significant difference
   between the intensity of use of scientists in Santiago and
   the provinces.  (The proportions of users are actually
   slightly higher in the provinces, as mentioned above.)

o  The view of network users is significantly different than
   for non users on a variety of issues concerning the
   automation milieu. They are far more positive in their
   perceptions of the importance, use and potential of
   informatics.


o  In terms of message traffic, over half of the network
   users actually sent messages outside Chile. A majority of
   this traffic went to the USA, Brazil, Canada, France,
   England, Spain, Mexico, Italy and Sweden, the countries
   where the scientists pursued their advanced studies.



                    Value of the Findings

     The availability of this type of data makes possible
several immediately useful results.  First it can serve as a
basis for predicting the characteristics of other nations and
regions in their use of academic networks.   Second, the
methodology, can be the basis of many other studies that can
become predictive models for public policy planning with
respect to data communications investments.  But most
important, the study represents the first careful analysis
exclusively aimed at determining the true patterns of use of
electronic academic networks for the scientific community of
a developing nation.