As envisioned by the corrected workplan of the STACCIS project, an in-depth demonstration of selected telematics products developed mostly in the framework of the Education & Training sector of the European Commission DGXIIIC Telematics Applications Programme was organized in Moscow in the period of time October 2 - 4 and 6, 1997.

The principal organisers of the demonstration were UNESCO and Earth Data Network for Education and Scientific Exchange (EDNES). Additional assistance was provided by the Russian National Commission on UNESCO, the British Council, Eurasian Association o f Distance Education, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State Lomonosov University, Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics, Moscow Institute of Electronic Technologies in Zelenograd, including its UNESCO Chair for Informatics a nd Electronics.

The first implementation plan outlining the demonstration, was proposed and discussed at the working meeting of the national STACCIS coordinators in Kiev in Decmber 1996. The preparatory stage took most of 1997 and close cooperation has been achieved b etween STACCIS management team and the TAP developers in France, UK, Greece and Ireland.

On 2, 3 and 4 of October, in-depth demonstration of the selected products was organised in a number of venues, strategically located and affiliated in Moscow in order to ensure the most representative and influential audience. The demonstration was fol lowed by an East-West Consensus Workshop (October 6 - 8), where a summarising presentation of the TAP products preceded discussion between the developers of the TAP products and the representatives of the target groups in the CIS partner countries.

The demonstation started on October 2, 9h30-13h00, at the new building of Presidium of Russian Academy of Sciences (32a Leninski prosp.), with the focus on environmental component of the demonstration. In the afternoon on the same date and f or the whole duration of the following day October 3, 10h30-18h00, the demonstration moved to the Moscow University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics (7 Nezhinskaya st.), with the focus on education and training components. At these dates th e European Conference of the Eurasian Association of Distance Education was taking place in MESI and participants were informed about concurrent demonstration and most of them took active part in the demonstration.

On October 4, 10h00-13h30, the specialised section of the demonstration, with the focus on environmental applications was organised in the Center of Geophysical Data Studies and Telematics Applcations (3 Molodezhnaya st.), accompanied with the p resentation of the STACCIS Information - Demonstration Centre, including the demonstration of the new optic-fiber communication node specially set-up for the demonstration and the following activities of the IDC. Later in the day a special program of demo nstration, including overview of communication solutions, was proposed by the communication and networking centre of the Moscow State Lomonosov University (Vorobievy Gory).

On 6 October the demonstration was organised in MIET (Zelenograd), where it preceded the East-West Consensus Workshop on Telematics Applications.

Such a large scale event could only be organise through leveraging with other supporting resources. Most of the organisations listed above provided considerable contribution towards the demonstration in terms of human action and technical support.

The demonstration audience was formed as a combination of key specialists and users group representatives from seven European CIS countries, participating in the STACCIS project (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russian Federation , and Ukraine) and local Moscow audience who recieved information about the forthcoming demonstration through information dissemination activities of STACCIS in advance. The total number of participants in all five locaitons exceeded 600 people. The g roup of key participants, who started follow-up activities during the demonstration, is given in the Appendix 4. Professionally, the audience included:

• telematics users, developers, and vendors of computer hardware and software;
• telecommunication service providers and database holders;
• environmental scientists and geoscience specialists;
• scientists and engineers from applied mathematics and statistics, computer sciences, electronics and telecommunications, World economics;
• university professors and tutors, students and postgraduate students, especially those who are involved in distance education and training;
• college, gymnasium, and school teachers;
• medical doctors;
• specialists in finance, banking and crediting, accounting, auditing, and commerce;
• businessmen and managers;
• librarians and artists;
• tourist operators.

The actual demonstration of TAP products was preceded by extensive preliminary scanning and evaluation of the candidate products, based on available information concerning users groups structure, potential and needs. A series of working meetings an d hands-on eveluation sessions was organised through 1997. As the result, a group of most promising projects was marked.

During preparatory stage, development teams for each project was contacted and a scenario for the demonstration elaborated and approved. Depending on the product requirements, the demonstrations of particular products was planned as a real-time on-line interaction with remote resources in the EU countries, based on local servers or depending on stand-alone pre-recorded demonstration versions. The following products and technologies were selected and prepared for the demonstration, per sector:

T3 is a composite project which unifies a number of telematics and multimedia-based educational activities. The project was presented by a group of specialists from Exeter University, UK, headed by Prof. N. Davis. As agreed at the working meetings with the members of the project team in Exeter the following products were brought to the demonstration by Prof. Davis and Dr. Dominic Prosser:

As a TAP support action project, ETHOS provides both a service, by providing links between TAP developers and local authorities and a product - namely, a planning support tool. As proposed by the Tagish Ltd. - the developers of the pr oduct, the best way of dissemination of the ETHOS services would be to assemble. set-up and install a fully functional ETHOS information server in Moscow before the beginning of the demonstration.

However, applicable regulations of the EC precluded this option, and to cope with the problem, a special mission was organised and financed from extra-budgetary sources, to assemble an operational package of specialised software and information resourc es so as to install them on one of the existing servers in Moscow and thus to ensure real-time access to the project databases during the demonstration, and after.

This was possible through the efforts of the British Council, who organised a visit of STACCIS project manager A. Eliutin to the development centre of Tagish Ltd. in Alnwick, UK to prepare the necessary information structure.

The total amount of software/date required to prime the server, exceeded 3 Gbytes. By the beginning of the demonstration the entire system was fully operational and the members of STACCIS engineering support team ( D. Nechitailenko) were trained and pr epared to demonstrate the system.

ÚDARÁS NA GAELTACHTA [The Gaeltacht Authority], Ireland, demonstrated the following group of projects, presented by John Glynn, COINS project manager, and David Walshe:

TAP E&T projects PRONET and TRANSMETE, which are led by the Greek company EUROCOM Expertise SA, were demonstrated as an example of an on-line multimedia computer based training services with tutoring support systems and database servi ces for environmental scientists and economists. The projects were presented by Nicolas Antimisiaris, head of the EUROCOM development section.

To create an atmosphere of constructive professional dialogue at the demonstration, a number of invited participants were encouraged to demonstrate telematics applications and technologies developed in the CIS partner countries. These included:< /P>

IBS (Information Broadcasting System) - MIET, Russia

Information Broadcasting System (IB Systemä ) designed, produced, and provided by Information agency IT&S based in Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology (Technical University) (MIET (TU))agency IT&S. IB Systemä uses TV signal for information broadcasting. Applications include education, health, sports, finances. Delivery of Internet and World Wide Web services via radio and television channels is currently under active discussion.

The MESI team have developed a distance education system for economics and finances including dynamic block modeling of distance education courses. Being a key member of the Euroasian Association for Distance Learning, and appointed as a focal body in Russian Federation for distance education development and implementation, MESI is now in the position to propose a practical solution aimed at creation of a wide area multibranch distance education system all across Russia. The propotype solutions and the first results were presented by President of MESI Prof. V. Tikhomirov.

As a result of mutual demonstration of achievments, a letter of intent was signed by Prof. V. Tikhomirov and the head of T3 development team Prof. Niki Davis (University of Exeter).

• the experimental measurements on remote automatic complexes in on-line mode.
• Connection to systems of planetary, overland, satellite and interplametary monitoring
• Hypermedia databases for courses in General Physics (Mechanics, Molecular Physics, Electromagnetism, Optics and Nuclear Physics.)

Distance learning course, developed by the International Research and Training Center UNESCO/IIP in Kiev, Ukraine, and disseminated via e-mail for Ukrainian and Russian students in the late 1996. This activity is a part of STACCIS workpackag e WP6 and was found appropriate for the demonstraiton.

The IRTC has conducted the study of telecommunication networks in Ukraine in order to find out whether they can be used for uninterrupted, lifelong and distance education. On the basis of this research the national priorities for Internet-based distanc e education has been developed. Three main stages for introducing distant Internet-based education in Ukraine are:

1 - the preparatory stage, distant education in the asynchronous (e-mail) mode;

2 - on-line distant teaching via WWW-based courses delivery;

3 - using advanced technique in distance education, such as multimedia tools, video conference software, virtual laboratory concept, etc.

The Kiev IDC addresses the first and second of above stages for European CIS-countries, representing considerable number of distant learning resources. Quality of education in telematics field could be essentially improved by using and adapting to the local conditions West educational technologies and examples of good practice. To bridge the gap between users and suppliers, information support and training should answer users’ needs, including those, which are not formalized as a set of requirements to corresponding software tools.

The distance course "The Basics of the Internet" has been prepared and introduced in to practice in Ukrainian and Russian. The duration of study was 3 months, 352 students from Ukraine, Russia, Kirghizia and Kazakhstan were subscribed to it. The first part of distance course "Communication and information technologies for teachers" in English has been prepared for the second stage. The course implies the use of WWW-server. The course contains 30 lessons and is oriented to the wide rang e of computer and telecommunication users which are eager to know more about the whole Internet and Ukrainian information networks. More than 200 organizations took part in this course.

This work was linked with Copernicus Project No. 1445 and partners plan to continue their support, including the University of Exeter telematics Centre in the UK.

The product was presented by the group of French and Russian scientists Prof. J.Bonnin, Prof. A. Gvishiani, Dr. M. Zhizhin. SMDB is produced by the consortium of French, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek and Russian Institutions united into European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) with support of the European Commission.

SMDB is WWW on-line world-wide data base of the ground motions of the soil in the nearfield of strong earthquakes. This kind of data is used for seismic safety evaluation of constructions of nuclear power plants, large chemical factories, other importa nt buildings, etc. The data base contains the information from all seismic regions of the world and may have an important interest for the audience of Atomic Energy Institutions from the European CIS Countries participating in STACCIS where nuclear plants produce a big deal of their electrical resources. The data base as a telematics product is user friendly and transparent, vivid.

The project and its results were presented by the head of European development team (Austria-Italy-Russia) Dr. V. Gitis, Institute of Information Transition Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences.

GEO is designed to create problem-oriented information technologies in sophisticated geological applications, such as: mineral, oil and gas exploration, seismic hazard and seismic risk assessment, earthquake prediction, selection of nuclear power stati on sites, complex environmental zonation of urban territoies. GEO is developed by consortium of Russian and Austrian scientists.

This project is a result of collective efforts of the Center of Geophysical Data Studies and Telematics Applications and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris. The project, supported by DGXII was presented by Dr. A. Beriozko.

ATTILA is a multifunctional integrated (raster/vector) modular geoinformation system. Suited for a wide range of applications the system was developed primarily for the studies of natural hazards and risks. Simple data formats and easiness of conversio n data from one form into the other allow transmission input and output data through networks.

The demonstration of each product at each location consisted of two parts: the first part was actually an in-depth presentation of the product by developer(s), with reporters addressing the audience using projection equipment and additional illustrative materials. During the first part the general characteristics of the product, its usage, limitations and particularities could be discussed with the audience and illustrated by on-line materials.

The second component of the demonstration was arranged as a hands-on session, when the users’ inquiries were addressed on a face-to face personal basis, and the users were able to test-run the demonstrated products with advice and guidance of the devel oper.

As a conclusive session, just before the start of the East-West Consensus Workshop, a synthetic presentation of the entire set of the demonstrated products was delivered by the Co-Chairperson of the demonstration Prof. Niki Davis.

1. Actual attendance. The audience for the demonstration included key participants, explicitly invited to take part in the demonstration and general audience.

Among key participants were all national focal points from CIS partner countries (except the representatives of Belarus, who could not attend the event due to internal problems at the time); professors from leading universities, local, regional and national administrations, related to education system, nuclei of strategic users groups. The list of key participants is given in Appendix 4.

General audience attended the demonstration following the announcements disseminated by STACCIS management through STACCIS Web site, mailing lists, advertising in "Computer Week", one of the most widely disseminated computer journals in Russi a, and taking advantage of the associated events concurrent with the demonstration at some sites.

With unrestricted access of general audience the exact figure of attendance is hard to come with, however, the project team own assessment is in the range of 600 - 700 persons.

2. Users feedback. In order to collect and process feedback information for follow-up actions and next demonstrations, two types of information was addressed, and for this two types of questionnaires were developed and distributed before and dur ing the demonstration.

The first form is intended for the project demonstrators and helps keeping track of the users attention per product, user category, nature and details of interest. This "checklist", developed in English only, is given below in a slightly shru nk form, to save space.

The structure and the format of this information gathering tool helped demonstrators with tracking the inquires and guided them through working discussions so as to collect as practically usable information as possible. The information gathered through applications of these forms is being processed now.

The second type of information gathering tool was intended for the visitors of the demonstration. As the bulk of the audience came from Russia or CIS countries were Russian is widely spoken, this questionnaire was developed in Russian and is given at t he next page in abridged translation:

If you don’t mind please provide your contact info:

3. Preliminary feedback analysis has shown that the highest degree of the potential users’ interest was caused by the products intended for high-school teachers assistance and information support of small and medium business. As the main problem in the usage of the demonstrated products in CIS countries, as noted by most of the participants, were the language and inter-cultural differences. The participants more than once commentd on the need to start specialised support actions as a series of foll ow-up activities to the demonstrations, in order to adapt the demonstrated products to the local condiitons in CIS.

Participants from Trans-Caucasus CIS countries informed about their interes and intention to organise a TAP demonstration in Tbilisi, with a focus on training for SMEs.

Both proposed demnostrations, in Kiev and in Tbilisi, are seen by participants as regional events.

4. Direct links established As a result of the demonstration, a number of direct connections were established, as reflected by the memorandums of understanding between the Open University, Faculty of Technology, UK and the Moscow Institute of El ectronic Technology; between the Republican Centre of New Technologies in Education of Kazakhstan and the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, and others.

It was agreed that the future development of Internet-based distance course "The Basics of Internet" will be a co-operative effort of the International Research and Training Centre in Kiev and the University of Exeter Telematics Centre, UK.

The results of the STACCIS project in general and the particular achievments of TAP brought to the demonstration were used for information dissemination via the educational network maintained by North-Western Polytechnical Institute (NWPI), which is co nnected to 34 academical sites in the North West of Russia.

This educational network provides education and professional training using traditional correspondence, and lately is switching to modern information technologies, combining audio/video materials with comuter networks and digital data exchange.

The representative of NWPI network informed the working meeting about the plans to disseminate the key information concerning the demonstration, products presented and contact information via all channels available to the network.

5. Consensus Workshop input The demonstration of TAP products was immediately followed by the East-West Consensus Workshop on Telematics in Education and Training. To keep the participants of the workshop updated about the practical implications of STACCIS, a synthetic presentation of the entire scope of demonstrated TAP products was delivered by Prof. N. Davis. Most of the participants of the workshop had the opportunity to attend the demonstration, so the problem of usability and adaptation of TAP products to the language and cultural environment in CIS target countries was discussed and got its reflection in the recommendations of the Workshop, excerpt of which is given below:

Appendix 1 Programme of the demonstration

Appendix 2 Copies of memorandums of understanding, signed during the demonstration

Appendix 3 List of key CIS participants

Appendix 4 Report on the participation of the COINS project representatives in the STACCIS project Demonstration in Moscow from 2nd to 6th of October 1997

Appendix 5 Address list of the authors