Management Of An Academic E-library Project

The Republic of Guinea has nearly80state-owned and private higher-educationand research centers. The number of researchers, including foreigners, is around3711persons across the country. The financial support or funding of high-education andresearch comes from two main sources: the central government (through subsidies) andinternational cooperation with mainly France, Japan, Belgium, Canada, the World Bank,UNDP, UNESCO, ISESCO, etc.University of Conakry (UGANC) which is the biggest with1000lecturers and17,000students has established its own intranet/Internet systems since2003. Therealization of this network was funded by the World Bank and the Government ofGuinea for a budget of about U.S.$2000000((two million U.S. dollars) as part of aProject to Support Development of Higher Education and Research. And, the network isextended throughout the Guinean educational system. At the University of Conakry,each department has a public office allowing students and lecturers to have access toinformation systems and internet. These offices are unfortunately not efficientlyequipped with computers because the number varies from5to9for more than1000users per department or school.The University of KANKAN, the second largest university with800lecturers and14,000students and located at680km from the capital Conakry, is connected to theInternet with the financial support from USAID.However, major constraints must be overcome to create good conditions for thedevelopment of science and technology in Guinea. The main constraints can besummarized as:The use of outdated infrastructure and equipment;Insufficient training and specialization of scientific and managementpersonnel;Severe lack of modern library;Difficulties related to the acquisition of hardware/telecommunicationequipment and computers to build a reliable infrastructure;Training of technical team to maintain and operate the network; Training of trainers of the users of the information systems in higher educationarea.Thanks to successful achievements in the educational enrollment, the numbers ofstudents in the high education systems of Guinea will increase continuously. Therefore,the number of educated people that can benefit from an electronic library services willincrease too. Also recently, under-sea cable of high speed internet was installed in theAtlantic Ocean on the Western-African Coast of Golf of Guinea. This internet cable willfacilitate the connection to high speed internet in most west-African countries such asGuinea.For nearly a decade college and university libraries have utilized availabletechnology to develop a Web presence. As more and more users access the libraryremotely, the library Web site has become increasingly important as a communicationtool. The library web interface represents a critical meeting ground between theinformation professional and the individual who is seeking information.A digital library or e-library is a distributed electronic collection that coversvirtually all fields of human endeavor including art, music, medicine, science, movies,videos, books, product literature, newspapers, brochures, and catalogs. The focus of theDigital Library initiative is to advance the means to collect, store, and organizeinformation in digital forms, and make it available for searching, retrieval, andprocessing via communication networks, all in user-friendly ways.With online delivery of courses, the role of the librarian has changed. Access toadequate library services and resources is essential for attainment of superior academicskills in post-secondary education, regardless of where students, faculty, and programsare located. Students can accomplish much of their searching and accessing of libraryholdings from outside the building. The digital library delivers a library and its servicesany time, any place, and in any medium. Without human intervention, electronicinterface represents the only opportunity to provide library services and resources toonline users.Nowadays, it is imperative that college students acquire the ability to locate,evaluate, and use information successfully. While electronic information sources havebecome easily available through a desktop computer, the abundance of choices, sources,and search engines make the task of locating reliable and accurate information morecomplex. It is essential that individuals know how to use computers, database, Web search engines, and other information technologies to achieve a variety of educational,occupational, and personal goals.This thesis aims to the study and analysis of an academic digital libraryproject in a sub-Saharan African country, Guinea. The main objectives of the study are:Describing the use of online library with taking into account the characteristicsof the users;Highlighting the relevance and benefits for users (in higher education,secondary and technical schools) that can benefit from the electronic library;Highlighting a project management method based on the estimation of costs,budget and durations of activities.Our designed digital library should be able to gather information or data publishedin various forms and in various media such as books, magazines, audiotapes, videotapes,digital optical discs. The website will be designed so that access to digital data andinformation is easy and simple for people who have only basic skills and education. Acommon challenge that distance learning library services has is to reach students whomay never come to the library and may not understand how essential these services are.The design and evaluation of digital libraries are complicated by the newness of thesystems, their ability to integrate a range of functions that were previously designed andevaluated separately, the heterogeneity of their user population, the physicallydistributed nature of usage, the ability to fragment and rearrange previously integrateddocuments and images, and the rapid versioning of digital objects. The users generallyrequire a simple, user-friendly interface to search and retrieve electronic resources. But,this simplicity is not easily gained when one considers the challenge of providing accessto a range of electronic resources from multiple sources. Gaining access to databasesand e-journals often means that the library signs varied agreements and protocols from arange of content providers. There are several policy implications that will need to beaddressed in order to facilitate the promotion of permanent access to digital scholarlyresources in most sub-Saharan African countries such as Guinea.The first visible part of the homepage will contain all relevant information requiredfor navigation. Important information such as the name of the website and itspresentation will be shown on the homepage. Other main information will be availablethrough one single click on links. We will implement a quality service to maintain andupdate content of the website which will be accessible to all users, regardless of the technology they use. Maintenance is also intended to ensure that the site remainsoperational and continuously available online.Regular backup’s techniques will enable a proper functioning of the website.The content of website will be designed with respect to the potential users needs,such as:1. the website will comply with the legal provisions related to intellectual propertyrights, and clearly define the conditions for using the website and its content,the webmaster will be sensitive to criticism and suggestion by taking intoaccount the evaluation and comments from users;2. multilingual translation of the main content in at least two or three locallanguages will be available;3. the website will be interoperable with cultural networks to enable users toeasily find content and services;4. The webmaster will ensure the sustainability of the website and its contents byadopting appropriate strategies and standards.Any user of our designed digital library will be allowed to understand easily andquickly whether or not he will find the information he is looking for by surfing thewebsite. The website will be instantly identifiable. The user will not have to navigate onthe website without knowing its content and whether or not the content corresponds towhat he wants. One of the key priorities of website is to make navigation easier forusers to find their way and access easily to information.1. The user will always have clear idea about the part of the website on which heis surfing or reading, through mechanism such as navigation menus (>> you areher>> content) category>> page>>);2. The user will always be able to return to the page he just visited previously.This feature will be conveniently used through the command “previous”;3. A menu of internal links will ease reading on long pages, and this menu willallow the users to reach a particular section without having to travel across thelong page;4. The user will still be able to return to the homepage of the website, through thebrowser menu button “home”;5. An overview of the structure of the website, with links to the main section, willsimplify the search for information; 6. A search function on the pages of the site will be developed. This tool can be asclear as possible to maximize the probability that the user finds what he wants.Once the website is operational, features can be implemented for user to submittheir comments and opinions on content, interface, and navigation. This may be anonline assessments questionnaire or a from free text comment.Because of the weakness of the connection to the Internet in these areas ofSub-Saharan Africa, high performance modem of up to28,800bits per second will beused to facilitate fast download, for example, a document if10MB must be downloadedin less than minute.The project budgeting is estimated for a period of three years. The publicitygenerated by the e-library and free E-Textbooks should be used to launch anE-Commerce firm focused on online education. Non-Governmental Organizations,schools and governments in the country should pay to the e-library a periodicsubscription fee for each end-user they sign up, with rates depending on the number ofcourses which will be made available to the user. The subscription model with someNon-Governmental Organizations, schools and governments paying periodicsubscription fees could contribute to the bulk of the revenue, and there should beincreasing profitability as the number of subscribers could increase from year-1throughyear-3. When all cash flow estimates are converted to an annual worth value, this valueapplies for every year of the lifecycle and each additional lifecycle.The PERT/CPM Network is used to represent the project scheduling. The expectedduration of each activity of the project is estimated and a schedule is developed on thebasis of the precedence relations among activities and the expected duration of eachactivity. The entire project can be represented by eight activities: three designing(Prototype design, Revision of design, Initial running) three training (Staff training,Staff input on prototype model, E-Sales training) and two advertising (Pre-designadvertising campaign and Post-redesign advertising campaign). For easy reference, eachactivity is designed by a letter symbol. After identifying the activities, we determine theimmediate predecessors for each one. If each activity of the project were performedsequentially, ignoring the possibility that some of the activities of the project could becompleted simultaneously, the estimated completion time of the project would be90+20+21+25+14+28+30+45=273days. Since work on several of the activities can beunderway at the same time, however, the time required to complete the project will be less than273days. The goal of the management team is to schedule activities so that theentire project is completed in the minimal number of days. As Progress is made; themodel is updated to account for the inclusion of new activities, the successfulcompletion of tasks; and for the inclusion any changes in design, organization, andschedule as a result of uncertainty, new needs, or new technological developments.In modeling the income statement and financing cash flow, the followingassumptions are considered:Subscription based revenue will in the first year consist of10projects witheach200accounts; in the second year:200projects with each200accountsand; in the third year:500projects with each200accounts.As the educational program becomes more proven to Non-governmentalorganizations, schools and governments, the average number of courses takenby each user will be supposed to rise from1in year1to1.5in year3.Each registered user (free users plus subscription users) will on averagegenerate0.5transactions in the market place every yearInitial costs for developing the first round of courses will amount to RMB500,000. Once a backbone of courses are in place, we can expect running costsof RMB250,000per year to develop new courses and keep existing onesup-to-date.IT costs are expected to be30percent of revenue.Other overhead costs will constitute10percent of total revenue.Given the high risk of the project, we can assumed a market borrowing rate forthe bridge financing of20percent, compounded annually and paid togetherwith the principle at the end of year3.Additional funding can be obtained through international and bilateral cooperationwith countries and international institution such as France, Japan, Belgium, Canada, theWorld Bank (Education for All), UNDP, UNESCO, ISESCO, etc.The Electronic library project of the present thesis does not require heavyinvestment. With good applicable project management, the academic electronic libraryis designed efficiently for the benefit of poor people who have not access to moderninformation systems and technology. Also, the designed electronic library should befinancially gainful with possible income from advertisement and other relevant services.In the near future and for a better documentation of the project electronic library, the west-African governments and other non-governmental organizations shouldsupport financially another project which will focus mainly on the translation of foreignin different local African languages. Also, the future project must find ways ofobtaining copyright permission from various publishers in order to be able to duplicateinformation in large quantities.