European Regional Science Association
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European Regional Science Association
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The abstract for paper number 196:
Carmen De Pablos, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Madrid, Spain, Máxima Juliana López-Meguilaz, UNED, Madrid, Spain
IT and regional policies, making the use of Internet close to citizens: the Spanish case
More than 500 million of people are world-wide connected to Internet. The possibilities of new uses are huge. For making the network closer, some State Policies are being developed in different countries according to the availability and the degree of computer use in their citizens.
The Spanish Science and Technology Ministry wants to open the possibilities of Internet citizen’s use and for that reason it has developed a special program under the name “Internet for everyone”. The program attempts to make Internet closer to the citizens. By offering different 15 hour courses, Spaniards are being trained in the use of various Internet possibilities: email, web page access, search engines and so on.
This initiative is based in three main actions,
· The establishment of a network of associated centres constituted by educational centres containing computer equipment and professors that highly support the centres.
· The use of alternative training methods. All the persons that have the option of self-training can use a distance tutorial centre via Internet or toll free phone numbers.
· A communication campaign, to make people know about the program and maintain the interest all over the time.
· A web site in which all the participants can follow on-line the program. The site offers three information levels; one of free access for all the citizens, another one for participants and the third one containing restricted information for program managers.
For involving the Spanish society in this initiative, some special actions have been developed as “Go inside your child world”, in the one children teach adults in the use of Internet supervised by a monitor in the Schools and High Schools, and the “Cyber-voluntary movement” in which some youngsters share in a voluntary way their own knowledge about Internet with people that needs it as immigrants, people living in less developed areas.
The General Direction for the Information Society Development is in charge of co-ordinating and developing this project that puts together four lines of action: the formative actions, the student’s collection, the preparation of contents and teacher’s training. The idea is to assure the homogenisation in the formative actions.
This initiative has been developed all around year 2002 and in this paper we try to analyse main results of the first year, to identify main factors of the program success, main problems and main advantages. We also stress some other similar initiatives in other countries and try to make a comparison of best practices in the European context.
Unfortunately full paper has not been submitted.