Sunday, October 21, 2012

Training of District leaders in Website and E-library utilization successful

Enhance civic competence and strengthen social accountability through information sharing.  

RIC-NET mandated by RWECO  to design online platforms (websites and E-libraries) for Districts and also train District leaders in the utilization of these platforms conducted a two days training for District Civil servants.

The training which attracted District Information officers, District planners and Chief Administrative officers from all the Seven Districts in Rwenzori region was conducted at St. Josephs’ Virika conference hall from 17th -18th October 2012.
In his welcoming remarks, the Executive Director  RIC-NET thanked the leaders for having honored the invitation and realized the importance of participating in Person. 
He also told them to embrace these ICT Web 2.0 tools and show more commitment to using ICT. He informed them of possible support from UCC and NITA-Uganda as far as ICT is concerned. He challenged District leaders to show concern and contact UCC for this support.

In his first session the ICTO RIC-NET introduced and explained the project objectives to the participants and told them what RIC-NET is mandated to do and provide to the Districts which among others included trainings, ICT equipment and the online platforms.

He further led the participants in an introduction to web browsing and explained a number of terms that users have always miss interpreted and used interchangeably. This attracted attention from members and they also participated in asking a number of questions that led more understanding of the terms and ICT. 
Social and communication media such as  skype was introduced. Skpye was seen as one of the easiest and quick means of communication and information sharing. Most of the participants signed up and saw how it worked and got excited about this new tool to them. They appreciated and pledged to use this tool even when in their offices.
In the second session the ED RIC-NET introduced staff to using blogs for sharing information. He took the participants through blogging where most of the members signed up and created personal blogs. 
his was necessary because the current technology of websites the District will use is based on the Content Management Systems which is  almost the same method for updating blogs.
The session was so interesting and day one was concluded by a skype conference that everyone enjoyed and realized that there was no need to move from office to office to conduct small discussions and share files but rather to use this technology to save time.

Day two: after recap of day one, the ICTO started the first session by introducing the participants to content management systems (CMS) a dynamic technology that is being used to develop their websites. 
He explained to them that the most CMS applications are joomla and word press that do not need a lot of ICT knowledge to members if they are to basically update the sites with data. He gave more details about joomla and permissions that can be granted to users at different levels including managers, Authors, editors among others and what each of those categories are supposed to do. He further logged in to one of the sites to demonstrate how the district leaders will be logging in to their sites and update them. 

We are impressed by this training and we would like that you give us the passwords and we do a hands on updating with you” said District planner Kyegegwa. 
Later in the afternoon the ICTO introduced the District leaders to the concept of the E-library where he said it would be part of their websites where the District would upload all public documents like District Development Plan, District budgets among others. He also demonstrated and showing them a sample Electronic library and how they will be uploading files which he emphasized must be converted to pdf formats before being uploaded. He also informed the participants that RIC-NET procured a hosting server and therefore has started web hosting. 
He later finalized with showcasing the first stage designs of the Districts website as the RIC-NET server;
http://kamwenge.rwenzoriweb.com                                                                
He said that kabarole and kasese were already online but being redesigned using the modern technologies and bundibugyo was also already online hosted at www.bundibugyo.go.ug and that the training was an entry point to Ntoroko.

In his concluding remarks the ICTO thanked the members for participation and emphasized that they should embrace ICT since it’s the way to go in this rapidly growing world and that this would even ease their work since they would have enough references for information access.

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