Overview: Effective Use of the Internet in Seven Steps

Overview
Effective Use of the Internet in Seven Steps

Information exchange has always been an important component of international development. It is becoming even more so as the world moves toward an information-based economy. Accessing information enables organizations to learn about new ideas, funding opportunities, and relevant conferences and publications. Disseminating information increases an organization's visibility and impact on its target audience. Communication with other people and groups increases understanding. The Internet is a new, valuable tool to communicate with others and to retrieve and disseminate information—one of many tools that organizations in both the public and private sector are now using as part of their everyday business.

This manual is designed to help decision makers and staff of NGOs, educational institutions, and government agencies take advantage of this powerful technology to achieve their organization's objectives. Planning how you will use the Internet and understanding its technical and financial requirements will help you find the most cost-effective way to connect to the Internet. Planning will also help you make best use of the Internet once your organization is connected to it.

This manual outlines a seven-step process to understand the big picture about how the Internet can help achieve your organization's objectives. With the materials and exercises in this manual, you, along with others on your staff or in your work group, will have a "do-it-yourself" way to plan how your organization can achieve its objectives through use of the Internet.

We recognize that readers and their organizations will be coming to this book with a range of experience. Some will already be regular users, perhaps have their own Web site, and live in places where they can take advantage of relatively fast and inexpensive Internet access. Others may not yet be connected to the Internet and, when they eventually are, will only be able to access it through unreliable and/or expensive telephone connections. We hope this manual is useful to this range of users so that they can pull from it the information they need.

If you need more in-depth information on the technical aspects of the Internet, refer to the background section in the appendices of this manual or go to the Leland Initiative's Web site, which has a list of resources and links to access them. This section of the Web site was set up to complement the information in this manual and allow frequent updates to it.

Before you go any further, if you need more information on what the Internet is or does, refer to the background section in the appendices of this manual.

What Is the Internet?

The following definition comes from a fact sheet published by the U.S. National Research Council's Board on Science and Technology for International Development (BOSTID):

"The Internet is a cooperative computer network of networks that links governments, schools, libraries, corporations, individuals, and others to each other and to vast information resources. The Internet protocol links many disparate and independent networks together so that they appear as a single network to the user.... About 149 countries have connections to some sort of an international computer network; of these, about 63 countries have direct connections to the Internet [1997 statistic].

The Internet is an open network. Anyone or any group is welcome to use it, as long as that person or group has a terminal or a computer with the correct software and the ability to pay the costs.

No single organization owns or operates the Internet. Several thousand organizations administer their own individual networks and these combine to form the total Internet."

The full text of this fact sheet and others on Internet basics can be accessed through the Leland Initiative Web site or, for those who do not yet have Internet access, by writing the BOSTID Information Services Network at 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20418, USA.

Seven Steps to Using the Internet Effectively

In planning to use the Internet, organizations are faced with human, technological, and organizational considerations. Perhaps your first questions should be: How can this tool be used to help my organization do its job? How can I make my colleagues feel comfortable with a new way of sharing information? Once they have accepted the innovation, how should the organization determine what new equipment it needs? How should the Internet be integrated into everyday operations or used for new ventures?

SEVEN STEPS TO USING THE INTERNET EFFECTIVELY

whole.gif (9602 bytes)

We suggest a seven-step process in planning for the introduction or the expansion of Internet usage in an organization. Work through all the steps, or refer to the step most useful to you.

People are finding hundreds of different ways to use the Internet. As just one example, the University of Zambia Medical School's Web site has an online dictionary that translates common medical terms into five indigenous languages. Health workers can refer to the dictionary to carry on at least basic communication with patients in their own language.

What do these steps entail?

Step 1: Awareness Building

Cultivate a general appreciation and knowledge of what the Internet is and what it can do for your organization.

Step 2: Assessing Your Organization's Use of Technical Information

Identify factors involved in creating a positive environment for the use of the Internet within your organization.

Step 3: Finding Answers to Technical Questions

Plan and carry out practical steps for connecting to the Internet.

Step 4: Training Your Organization to Use the Internet

Develop hands-on knowledge of Internet tools useful in achieving your organization's goals.

Step 5: Action Planning for Use of the Internet

Produce a plan for integrating the Internet into your organization's work.

Step 6: Implementing Your Action Plan

Begin to implement the action plan.

Step 7: Reviewing Progress and Looking Ahead

Determine the level of success of your Internet activities and identify your next steps for using it.

Although we present these steps in sequential order, you may find it more appropriate to do them in a slightly different order, or perhaps do two at the same time. For example, you may concurrently train your staff (Step 4) and work with them to develop an action plan (Step 5).

Applying the Process

This manual takes you, your organization, your work team, or any group you intend to collaborate with through a process of examination and discovery. You will think about how you use information now, how you could use it in the future, and how you plan to introduce or expand the use of the Internet into your organization, consistent with your information needs.

To illustrate how an organization might apply the seven-step process, you will follow the progress of a fictitious organization, HealthLink 2000. Although every organization has its own specific needs and conditions, we hope that you will recognize some common issues and constraints while following the HEALTHLINK 2000 example.

The following box introduces HealthLink 2000, a medium-sized (15 people on staff) health education organization located about 200 kilometers from a capital city.

ABOUT HEALTHLINK 2000

HEALTHLINK 2000 seeks to promote positive public health and nutrition practices using the most effective and practical available channels and technologies.

It is located in an agricultural area about 200 kilometers from the capital city. Since being founded 10 years ago, it has relied on traditional communication methods (such as publications and presentations) to keep its target audience and funders informed of its activities, to promote its programs, and to conduct research for program development and public awareness activities.

HEALTHLINK 2000 publishes a quarterly newsletter of health tips and news about its activities. It would like to publish more often, but due to the high cost of printing, postage, and printing supplies, it must limit the frequency of publication.

HEALTHLINK 2000's single telephone line works most of the time. It relies on faxes for the majority of its immediate communication needs, such as arranging meetings and presentations to schools and providing updates and frequent reports to government ministries and its funding sources. HEALTHLINK 2000 has one computer, a Wintel 486 with 8 megabytes of RAM and a 540 megabyte hard drive. It is used primarily for word processing, light desktop publishing (the newsletter), and managing the budget and a database for the mailing list.

HEALTHLINK 2000 has a small resource center, where it keeps books, magazines, training materials, and other resources accumulated over the years. The organization would like to have more information available in the office, but books and magazine subscriptions are expensive, so it does not order a lot of new material. There is no public school or university library in the area. A university is located in the capital city, so HEALTHLINK 2000 uses the mail and fax to contact university faculty or the university library when it has specific information needs. In order to stay in contact with its colleagues in similar organizations around the world, it receives several professional journals through surface mail. One year, using special funding, HEALTHLINK 2000 sent a representative to a health education conference in Switzerland.

HEALTHLINK 2000 has a full-time staff of 15 people, including the president, several health education specialists, an information specialist, and several support staff.

The president of HEALTHLINK 2000, Joan Jones, heard that it was now possible to connect to the Internet in the village where the organization is located. She thought that it might help to improve her organization's activities and possibly enable it to reach more people. But she was also wary of the Internet because she was concerned that it might cost a lot of money, which she did not have, to get a new computer that might become an expensive toy.

Joan asked Tina Tomorrow, the HEALTHLINK 2000 information specialist, to find out more about the Internet. Tina began reading a great deal about the Internet and became very enthusiastic about its potential as an information tool. She also attended a Leland Initiative Internet Awareness Training workshop.

After the training, Tina returned to work excited about what she had learned and with lots of ideas for using the Internet on the job.

Her enthusiasm was only a little tempered when her boss, Joan, reminded her of the organization's limited budget. Tina reminded Joan that part of HEALTHLINK 2000's purpose was to share information as much as possible, and she always tried to find better ways to do this. As a matter of fact, when Tina talked to people about HEALTHLINK 2000's mission, she often emphasized that the organization tried to use "the most effective and practical means of communicating." Tina also emphasized that there were many ways to benefit from the Internet. Many of the people and organizations with whom HEALTHLINK 2000 communicated had Internet addresses, and it could pay for a certain amount of connection time with just the savings from not having to send faxes to these organizations.

"I agree that it might be a good idea, Tina," said Joan, "but there are just too many things I don't know about. I guess there are a lot more questions that I'd need answered before I feel comfortable doing this."

To answer Joan's questions (and those of the rest of the staff), Tina facilitated the seven-step process described throughout this manual. She began with Step 1, raising awareness of the Internet within HEALTHLINK 2000, and, as you will read, assumed the role of "Internet champ) for the organization.

As You Begin to Use This Book

A few more words about this book before you start work:

First, this process requires at least one person or a small team to take the lead as the Internet champion for the organization. You need to show your colleagues how the Internet can improve how they do their jobs and contribute to your organization's overall mission. People may be reluctant to take the time to think through what they want to achieve with the Internet. However, investing the time in the beginning to brainstorm and plan as a group (with feedback and acceptance for the senior leadership) will result in far more time and money saved later on.
You may find that, because of your situation, you spend more time on some steps than on others.
Internet technology itself is changing rapidly. That is part of its power! What seems difficult today will probably be easy one month or one year from now. Be creative in imagining what the Internet can do for you. If Internet technology has not caught up with you yet, changes are that it will soon.

Preface | Table of Contents | Step 1