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January 25, 2013 - In This Issue:
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TOGETHER,
SHAPING THE FUTURE.
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January 2013
My dear Friends and Colleagues,
2012 was a watershed year for the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network, CKLN. C@ribNET is now a reality. There are seven Caribbean National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in formation, with over thirty tertiary institutions connected to the network and we have been admitted as a new member to the global Research and Education (REN) community.
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CKLN's CEO, Ken Sylvester (r) explains aspects of C@ribNET to the Hon. Jerome Fitzgerald, Minister of Education, Science and Technology, the Bahamas (l) during a CKLN visit last year
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We look forward to the official launch of C@ribNET in February and hosting the 2nd C@ribNET Assembly. We expect participation from the NRENs of the Region, together with other Regional and International RENs such as RedCLARA of Latin America, Gèant of Europe, UbuntuNet of Africa and Internet2 of the United States.
We are encouraged with the continued support from the political leadership of the Region together with the increased participation of our major Universities in developing the Regions e-Infrastructure in support of education delivery and research and the establishment of Communities of Interests.
We take this opportunity to thank our international partners such as the European Union, the World Bank and the IADB for the funding support in establishing the network and the development of the Region's NREN. Without such support, we would have been unable to make this major leap forward in bridging the digital divide that existed between the Caribbean and the rest of world's Research and Education community.
Our mission in 2013 will be to strengthen the capacity of the NRENs. This will enable them to accelerate the connectivity of learning institutions to the network, and provide shared services to this constituency. We will also support building communities of interest, working on themes that support knowledge development that will contribute to our achieving the Millennium Development Goals. We will also extend the capacity of C@ribNET to provide ubiquitous broadband access to the researchers and learning institutions across the Caribbean region.
Ken Sylvester
CEO, CKLN
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Portal Being Developed for C@ribNET
 As part of developing our e-infrastructure for use by our research and education community in the region, CKLN is collaborating with RedCLARA in adapting its portal as a means of accelerating and leveraging the use of C@ribNET. Over the next few months, the technical and language aspects will be addressed so as to allow access to the portal by users in the approved Caribbean institutions. The portal will enable communication through web conferencing, sharing of documents, photos and videos, among other applications, in a secure and safe environment.
We are working towards launching the portal during our C@ribNET launch in February. More information will be provided as the portal becomes available. CKLN is indeed grateful RedCLARA's continued support.
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Using RENs to Expand Teaching and Learning Across the Globe
Imagine students and teachers from the north coast of Jamaica sharing their experiences and challenges in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy with students and teachers in lower Manhattan, New York City. The CKLN is working to enable such opportunities by engaging in an initiative on global education using research and education networks (RENs).
Larry Gallery of NYSERNet (New York) and their UK counterparts, Joint Academic Network, JANET, developed a classroom exchange called TEACHING AND LEARNING ACROSS THE POND (TALAP). This project is now moving towards giving students and teachers of all grade levels a more global experience. Teachers and students in TALAP use the network to explore a range of topics, from mathematics, literacy, foreign languages to climate change, business or simple cultural exchanges on lifestyle.
A Steering Committee has been established with representatives from RedCLARA, Internet2, UbuntuNet, Gèant and CKLN. In the virtual discussions, one of the first activities was to fianlise an assessment instrument to determine the themes that institutions would like in such exchanges.
CKLN has been instrumental in connecting a school in the New York area that is interested in having a regular class with French speakers with a school in Guadeloupe. CKLN looks forward to C@ribNET becoming a vehicle for Caribbean students and teachers sharing with and learning from students and teachers across the globe. |
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Dr. Canute Thompson, Chairman, Jamaica Research and Education Network (JREN)
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Lessons for Caribbean NRENs
Dr. Canute Thompson, Chair of the Jamaica Research and Education Network, JREN, joined Ken Sylvester of CKLN in representing the Caribbean at the recent 5th UbuntuNet Connect Conference in Tanzania in mid-November.
Dr. Thompson identified some important lessons that can be instructive for Caribbean development as a whole, and more specifically, to the emerging national research and education networks (NRENs). Dr. Thompson noted that despite the many competing priorities for their scarce resources, and varying levels of cooperation among and between countries, Africa recognizes the vast value of a research network.
He remarked on the unequivocal awareness and commitment of the Government of Tanzania to its vision of development and of becoming a middle-income economy by 2025.
Another important lesson Dr. Thompson gleaned from Professor Colin Wright, Acting Manager of the South African Research and Education Network (SANReN), who emphasized that data, when properly stored, advance discovery, facilitate problem-solving and make planning more effective - the economic value of which is sometimes incalculable. Prof. Wright further pointed out that that data now occupies such a central place in the global economy that the G8s have determined to place the matter on the agenda of its next Summit.
Dr. Thompson said that Caribbean countries must make the building of a research community a priority and the respective governments must be prepared to invest in the development of their research capabilities. This investment is mission critical if the Caribbean is to become a preferred place for business, for students to study and, indeed, a place to live and work.
Dr. Thompson works with the Tertiary Unit of the Ministry of Education, Jamaica. He expressed his thanks to the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) who, through the Institutional Strengthening of the National Authorising Office (ISNAO), provided the funding for his attendance at the UbuntuNet Conference.
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The University of Oregon's Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC), has helped to build Internet infrastructure and provide technical training in more than 100 countries around the world for nearly 20 years
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CKLN Facilitates Additional Technical Training
The CKLN is facilitating additional training for the technical representatives of the Caribbean's national research and education networks (NRENs) as part of its technical support and capacity building activities in the region. This follows the training provided in mid 2012.
The training, scheduled for February 19-23, 2013, just prior to the 2nd C@ribNET Assembly, will be conducted by the Network Startup Resource Centre, NSRC, and will be held at the University of Trinidad and Tobago UTT)
The intended audience for this training is network systems administrators and engineers from NRENs, Tertiary Learning Institutions or governments, who are responsible for network maintenance and planning in a research & education networking environment. A maximum of 30 participants from around the region will take part in the training. They will look at topics such as Campus Network Design Principles and NREN Models, Network Monitoring and Management, Layer 2 (L2) Switching architectures and Layer 3 (L3) core campus routing. It is expected that the participants will be better able to manage the requirements of their respective network environments associated with C@ribNET.
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Intellectual Property in Tech Transfer
Intellectual Property in Tech Transfer Intellectual property (IP) can be an issue for technologies coming out of e-science because it is largely embedded in academia.
It is not always obvious who owns the intellectual property developed by an academic working in a university, although some institutions are now addressing this with agreements written into job contracts. Exactly who should own IP is still being debated, although a growing number of those working in science policy believe that it should be owned by the university rather than an individual professor. As engines of knowledge generation, its is argued, universities are well placed to properly licence technologies to industry and use the profits for future societal benefit.
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