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Universidad Nacional Agraria Direccion de Planificación
Table
of Contents
The National Agrarian University (UNA) consists of four faculties and two regional departments (Juigalpa/Chontales and Camoapa/Boaco), with a student population of 2.685 students, and 201 teachers. UNA has a total of nine programs of regular under graduate studies, three programs for distance education, an international course of specialization and a master's course. Together with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences it develops a program of doctoral education that involves 12 candidates. UNA is distributed over five campuses, three in Managua, and one in Boaco and another in Chontales. The Institutional Strategic Plan of the university for the five-year period 1999 - 2003 has the following goals: the establishment of a computing center that offers services to the sector of agriculture and forestry, and to the university community; to extend the university wide connectivity infrastructure; to develop the corporative information systems and to offer service of: electronic mail; information search; web-pages and training in computing and the use of Internet. For the implementation of the goals anticipated in the strategic plan, in the computing area, the present policy document is implemented, which forms part of the Project of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which the four Nicaraguan public universities (UNAN-Managua, UNAN-Leon, UNI and UNA) develop with support from SIDA/SAREC. The Project for the Development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to be proposed for financing from SIDA should be derived from the Policies of Information and Communication Technologies and from a Master Plan of implementation for those Policies. Also it should be derived from the proposal for the organization, administration and operation of a common INTERNET communications node for the four mentioned Universities. The Technical Committee for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) was established the 16 of January of year 2001, in order to develop the area of ICT of the UNA, through the elaboration of policy documents, of an implementation master plan and the request for financing of an ICT project to SIDA/SAREC.
The area of ICT of the National Agrarian University has as its: 2.1 Mission To contribute to the development of the Information and Communication Technologies to help the university to serve the agrarian sector, through the development of the necessary infrastructure and human resources, that permit to improve the quality of the education and the services that our institution offers. 2.2 Vision 2.3 Objectives General Objectives
III. POLICIES FOR INFORMATION AND COMUNICATION TECNOLOGIES 3.1 Organizational structure for the implementation of ICT The administration
of the information resources of the National Agrarian University
is organized under the structure of an Information Technology
Committee and an Office for Information and Communication Technologies
(OTIC). Three levels compose the structure for the administration of the information resources of UNA: A first level of decision-making, a second for proposition and deliberation and a third executive level The first level constitutes the University Council, the second level constitutes the Information Technology Committee and the third level constitutes the Office for Information and Communication Technologies (OTIC), that depends administratively on the Rector To exert its functions the OTIC is structured in three work areas: a) The area of systems and applications, b) the computer systems area and c) the area of technical support. Following is the structure for the administration of the information resources: The Information Technology Committee will be conformed by thirteen members that will be integrated in the following form: The Rector, who will preside over it, a committee secretary, that will be the Head of the OTIC, a delegate from each one of the four faculties, a delegate from the Administrative and Financial Direction, a delegate from the National Center of Agricultural Information and Documentation, a delegate from the Direction of Planning, a delegate from the Direction of Teaching, a delegate from the Direction for Investigation, Extension and Postgraduate, a delegate from the Public Relations office and a delegate from the Association of Students The Information
Technology Committee will have the following functions:
3.1.2
Knowledge and skills of the personnel
3.1.2.2
Position: Person in charge of computing systems
3.1.2.3
Position: Person in charge of Technical Support
The faculties and the supporting units are responsible for the planning and administration of the information technology that they acquire and maintain to maintain the activities that are specific to their necessities and compatible with the strategic goals of the University a) The faculties and other units that require it, will maintain computer centers to take care of the necessities of their students according to the curricula, as well as their personnel, whom does not have access from their offices a) Any data base outside of the centralized systems that a faculty or unit needs, is their own responsibility but they should coordinate with the OTIC for the use of the networks and other centralized resources. a) The use of computation should be promoted in all offices. In this context the term computation will be understood as the application of ICT, mainly desktop computers to support general office tasks. This applies to teachers, investigators, directors and authorities, as well as to secretaries and other office workers. The mainly used applications in the different offices are electronic mail, word processing, spreadsheet programs, document storage and recovery, "desktop publication", and access to Internet and Intranet. b) The university should centralize all it's acquisitions and backup of applications for text processing, statistics, applications for graphical publication and design and applications for the processing of results from standardized laboratory services. 3.2.4 Geographical information system a) It will be tried to offer high-speed connectivity to the SIGMA unit that will have specialized equipment with high capacity of processing and storage of data at its disposal.
a) The rendering of data communication services such as: Email, access to Internet, services of Internet/Intranet, should be assured at the user level. At the moment those mentioned services are the mayor users of low level network services. b) All the Internet services are handled in a centralized form, this with the objective to have a higher control over the services offered by the Campus Network UNA. c) The Office of Information and Communication Technologies (OTIC) must authorize all services that use Internet technology, which faculties or departments want to offer. d) There will be Central Internet Servers with sufficient capacity to give service to all the university, and to perform functions of: - Electronic
mail server Their capacities of Hardware and Software will allow them to offer services of virtual domains, on line databases, among others. e) Extension of the Internet Node with the necessary communication infrastructure that allows all the users of Campus Network UNA, efficient and constant access to the Internet. This access will facilitate search and interchange of information with the rest of the world and participation in inter institutional projects at national and international level, that require an Internet connectivity infrastructure capable to support, the new systems of information interchange like: Digital libraries, MetaBase, etc. f) The use of Internet Services in the access points (like Internet café, computer centers, etc), will be limited to the use of all those services that the Internet Node offers. All services not considered as indispensable can be blocked. g) A mailbox for electronic mail will be guaranteed for all the teaching and administrative personnel, as well as to all the active students of the UNA, h) The Internet Node of UNA offers access to Internet resources to other institutions, independent organizations or private people who request therefore and fulfill the established norms. This when the available bandwidth so permits. i) The Internet Node of UNA will charge users, internal as well as external, by services of Internet. These charges will be used to create a fund for reinvestment and payment of ISP. j) To make of Campus Network UNA, a network safe for its users by means of the implementation of mechanisms for virus protection, encryption of keys, etc. The security of the campus network will be coordinated by the OTIC. a) Each student who leaves the Agrarian National University must have assured the capacity to use the ICT tools relevant to exert his office and for continuous learning. b) Information and Communication Technologies should be included as a curricular component, in all the study plans that UNA offers to the community. c) Programs (software) for the necessities of the education must be accessible for teachers and students. d) Suitable education, in the handling of ICT tools must be offered to the employees and students. e) That the teachers and students, will have more access to the Information and Internet technologies, by creating more access points, as well as support to teaching and investigation. f) To contribute to the interchange of information and experiences, supplying an electronic mail account to the teachers and active students of UNA. g) To improve the information interchange, the creation of a room for video conferencing is necessary, that will benefit the teachers and students and, thus stimulating the scientific investigation. h) To facilitate to the teachers of UNA, the tools necessary so that through the Internet, they publishes their investigations and scientific works, contributing to the development and fortification of the students. i) The Office for Information and Communication Technology in coordination with the faculties and the DIEP, will impel technology days, where they will expose to the university community scientific works referring to Information and Communication Technology, Expo-sale of technology, competitions of scientific works, etc. j) To facilitate the use of ICT in the programs of distance education. k) To optimize the access to the resources of the university for the distance students trough the use of ICT. l) To implement a program of virtual education that helps the local education as well as the distance education trough the production of digitized didactic materials and trough the network and other ICT. a) To centralize and to regulate the preventive and corrective maintenance of computer equipment, hardware as well as software for the whole university. b) To establish unique procedures for acquisition of computer equipment in general (Hardware and Software), based on the present and necessary technologies. c) To establish norms and procedures for the installation of local networks in the buildings of UNA d) To establish technical support for the training of teachers and administrative personal of the university. e) To assure the power supply for the electronic equipment, by means of norms of international security that adapt to our necessities. f) To impel the advance and the technological culture in the university by means of seminaries, workshops, and lectures, in which technical themes over update of personal computers are approached.
a) The Direction of Teaching at the UNA, should count on an Academic Information System for the observation, collection, classification and analysis of the information that contributes to the process of implementation of the academic student file, through a secure system for data transmission, organizing a reliable database that is accessible at any moment. b) The Academic Information System must be Standard in all the faculties, having an exclusive operator by faculty, for the manipulation of the same. c) The ICT Office, as part of a team, will be the one in charge to evaluate and to approve proposals for an Academic Information System, for its later maintenance. d) It will implement access to databases with updated technology. e) It will implement technologies that allow perfecting the systems of accreditation, admission and certification of qualifications.
a) To implement a system of management and financial control that links the financial unit, accounting, audit and other small units of cash desks. b) To implement a general budgetary system that includes the different sources of incomes and debits c) To implement a human resources system, in the aspects of payroll and personnel management.
a) To implement an Information System for projects and investigation programs. b) To implement a centralized service of applications, like statistical packages, and storage of data for use in the investigation.
a) To implement a Statistical Information System b) To implement a management system that contributes to the decision-making.
a) To offer to access to the internal and external users to the different databases from the units specialized in agricultural information of the faculties and central library. b) To improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the library operations and services through the modernization of the Agricultural Information System c) To improve the automated cataloging system to facilitate the administration of existences and loans. d) The specialized units will use standard unique software, Micro ISIS-Agrin. e) To digitize all the existing information. f) To diversify and to increase the library services, facilitating electronic means to access. g) To establish a center for the editing and design of publications, Web pages etc. With its specialized applications h) To establish tele-centers in regional places with importance for the agricultural sector where there are no other possibilities to access the systems of the university. i) To facilitate the access to agricultural information and other information and communication important for the sector in the whole country. a) The university will have a regulation that guarantees that employees and students follow national and international norms for the use of networks and follow norms of ethical behavior in the relations with fellow workers and students. b) Greater attention will be dedicated to the aspects of author rights, security of data and secrecy of information. c) For transaction of subjects on security incidents and abuses of the data network a data security group will be established.
The areas of strategic importance that the university has determined, by order of importance are: 1) An internal
network that connects all the academic and administrative units
of the university.
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Copyright Proyecto TIC Nicaragua 2001-2002
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Design: Luis E. Palma |