How to Collect Information through Internet

Management and Application of
Information and Communication
over Internet and SIDSnet

Prepared
by
Hiroshi Tamada
SIDSnet
For
Pacific Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Mauritius 2004 International Meeting

This document is available online at http://www.sidsnet.org/samoa2003/workshop/ .

Practical usage of Internet and SIDSnet

Search Engines

Search engine is an interactive tool to help us locate information available in the Internet via World Wide Web.

Web-site examples

                    Google: http://www.google.com/
                    Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com/
                    MSN: http://www.msn.com/
                    Altavista: http://www.altavista.com/
                    AOL: http://www.aol.com/

Practice

We use Google.

Suppose we want to know:

                    1) GIS (Geographic Information Systems) on sea level rise in pacific region
                                Example. Search result.
                    2) Information about cooking of Taro in the South Pacific
                               Example.   Search result.
                    3) Banana trade / export / import in the Caribbean
                               Example.   Search result.
                               Another example in Google's advanced search interface. Search result.

SIDSnet Search

We have a customized search interface, which has optimized islands-related issues. Through our search facility, you can search not only the SIDSnet site, but also all Internet. http://www.sidsnet.org/

Our document datatbase is also searchable through separate interfaces, as well. These interfaces are:

Climate: http://www.sidsnet.org/cgi-cldoc/docsearchmat.cgi
Coastal and Marine: http://www.sidsnet.org/cgi-codoc/docsearchmat.cgi
Trade: http://www.sidsnet.org/cgi-s3doc/docsearchmat.cgi
Tourism: http://www.sidsnet.org/cgi-stdoc/docsearchmat.cgi
Biodiversity: http://www.sidsnet.org/cgi-bidoc/docsearchmat.cgi
Energy: http://www.sidsnet.org/cgi-endoc/docsearchmat.cgi
Others: http://www.sidsnet.org/cgi-otdoc/docsearchmat.cgi

Meta-searchers

Meta-searchers enable us to search in multiple search engines at cost of flexibility each search engine has.

            Web-site examples

                    MetaCrawler: http://www.metacrawler.com/
                    Web Crawler: http://www.webcrawler.com/
                    ProFusion: http://www.profusion.com/

            Practice
                    Let's use MetaCrawler's advanced search interface.
                  Suppose we want to know:

1) Information about global warming and sea level rise.

News over Internet

Web-site example

REUTERS: http://www.reuters.co.uk/ or http://www.reuters.com/

( Reuters has excellent news video called 'RawVideo'. )

                  BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
                  AFP: http://www.afp.fr/francais/home/ (in French)     http://www.afp.com/english/home/ (in English)
                  ITR-TASS: http://www.itar-tass.ru/ (in Russia) http://www.itar-tass.ru/english/ (in English)
                  CNN: http://www.cnn.com/
            Others:
                         The Organization of Aisa-Pacific News Agencies http://www.oananews.com/about.members.html
                       For more list, go to http://www.irna.ir/NewsAG/list.htm .

Personalized news selection

You can personalize / customize your news selection by registering for free news service and setting up your own preference in selection.

                    1) My Yahoo!
                         http://my.yahoo.com/p/d.html
                    2) BBC Email Service:
                         http://www.bbc.co.uk/dailyemail/
                    3) Yahoo! Alert
                         http://alerts.yahoo.com/

SIDSnet Newswire

We have news distribution service in island-related themes:
    Climate: http://www.sidsnet.org/latestarc/climate-newswire/
    Coastal and Marine: http://www.sidsnet.org/latestarc/coastal-newswire/
    Trade: http://www.sidsnet.org/latestarc/trade-newswire/
    Tourism: http://www.sidsnet.org/latestarc/tourism-newswire/
    Biodiversity: http://www.sidsnet.org/latestarc/biodiversity-newswire/
    Energy: http://www.sidsnet.org/latestarc/energy-newswire/
    Others: http://www.sidsnet.org/latestarc/other-newswire/

Example / Practice

Let's build My Yahoo! personalized news page .

Encyclopedia

Web site examples for free encyclopedia online:

Encyclopedia.com: http://encyclopedia.com/
Microsoft Encarta Concise: http://encarta.msn.com/

Web site examples for commercial encyclopedia online:

Britannica Online: http://www.eb.com/
Microsoft Encarta Deluxe: http://encarta.msn.com/EncartaHome.asp

Online Library Search

Major universities and others have online library catalogs. They are very helpful in doing academic researches.

                    MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Library http://library.mit.edu/
                  Harvard University Library http://lib.harvard.edu/
             Oxford University Library http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/olis/
                  Cambridge University Library http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/

Other Resources

      Governmental / International Organization Resources
                   CIA World Fact Book Online: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
            UN Database: http://www.un.org/databases/

Atlas and Map Service

National Geographic Map Machine: http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/

Online book search and book purchase

Online book stores are good information resources even if you don't intend to order books.

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Online flight search and reservation

These are good resources to find your flights before you call your travel agents.

Travelocity: http://www.travelocity.com/
Expedia: http://www.expedia.com/

            Financial Informatin
                    PACIFIC Exchange Rate Service: http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/xr/
                  ( Providing very detailed and various foreign maney excahnge information.)
              Financial Times business section: http://news.ft.com/business

Glossary for Internet Terminology
http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html

Using SIDSnet

Main Page:

http://www.sidsnet.org/

Theme Pages:

We have 7 theme pages, namely:

Biodiversity
Climate Change
Coastal & Marine
Energy
Tourism
Trade
Others

Each theme page has the following services:

Newswire
Discussion mailinglist
Link database
Document database

Let's discuss these services through the Climate theme page.

Search:

(Discussed above.)

Newswire:

(Discussed above.)

Other Services:

Calendar
Core statistics for each SIDS

List of vital documents

Application of Internet / Tele-communication

Examples of Weather Radio service to rural areas

RANET ( Radio and Internet for the Communication of Hydro-Meteorological and Climate Related Information )

RANET Africa.

                      http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/worldsummit/ranet.html
                      http://www.cip.ogp.noaa.gov/
                      http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_ranet.html
                      http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/worldsummit/pdfs/ranetenglish.pdf   (Brochure)

RANET Pacific:

SIDSnet is working with other parties for possible introduction of Ranet to the Pacific. Once there is progress in this initiative, it will be announced in the SIDSnet website.

Telemedicine Examples

Fiji School of Medicine has a telemedicine projects called Pacific Telepathology ( http://www.fsm.ac.fj/PWS/telepath.htm ). It has been established since June 2003 with technical support from University of Basel, Switzerland. The service is designed for remote consultation, continuing medical education (CME), and health care research. The service enables health care professionals in the Pacific to access and exchange medical information using any standard computer and internet connection. Areas with low speed connection can also participate through simple email as medium of sending and receiving information.

InfoMed is a cuban medical information gateway. http://www.sld.cu/

Distance education

Examples:

University of the South Pacific Emalus Campus

http://www.vanuatu.usp.ac.fj/

http://www.centre.vanuatu.usp.ac.fj/

The Global Distance Education Network (GDENet), http://www.col.org/disted/ , is a knowledge guide to distance education designed to help distance education practitioners who are interested in using distance education for human development. The Network consists of six Internet sites located around the world.

The University of Phoenix in USA is one of the leading universities in the distance education. The university proveds formal degrees through its distance education courses.

http://www.phoenix.edu/online2.asp

More Information:

The following website provide comprehensive information about distance education:

http://www.uwex.edu/disted/home.html

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) provides lists of links related to distance education:

http://www.spc.int/Health/DistanceEducation/

eCommerce:

Good Pacific Examples:

http://www.internetfiji.com/core/portfolio/ecommerce.html

Detailed eCommerce information from International Organizations:

UNCTAD: http://r0.unctad.org/ecommerce/
WTO: http://www.wto.org/wto/english/tratop_e/ecom_e/ecom_e.htm
EU: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ebusiness/ecommerce/index_en.htm
WIPO: http://ecommerce.wipo.int/

WiFi (Wireless Fidelity):

WiFi stands for Wireless Fidelity. WiFi is a wireless technology like a cell phone. WiFi enabls computers to send and receive data to/from other computers indoors and outdoors, anywhere within the range of an access point. The access point acts as a hub for computers to communicate with each other. WiFi networks use radio technologies called IEEE 802.11b or 802.11a to provide secure, reliable, fast wireless connectivity. While the radius of each access point is normally no more than a fifty metres, it can be extended by using repeaters. The radius could be more than one kilometer if you use more powerful or directional external antennas.

Examples:

Typical Office WiFi network
Multiple networks over WiFi
Extended WiFi Networks through repeater
Wider range example

Example of Niue