By: Ghada Ahmed Othman
Department of Training and Professional Development at the University of Science and Technology organized a lecture on the electronic services provided by the university. Dean of Libraries at the University, Abdel Razek Mahmoud said that checking information validity on Internet became available to all researchers after the international conference held in Tunis which is concerned with how to search for and verify information via Internet, something not available in the past. He added while lecturing at UST International Hall that everyone benefits from services provided via Internet, pointing out at the same time that the Internet Society in Sudan as everywhere worldwide is in charge of arranging access to its sites and does not grant a site to any institution without making sure of the interested party existence on the ground in order to prevent chaos and confusion of published websites and information. He clarified that when a student wants to apply to university, for example, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is the body that accredits university institutions, meaning when he/she writes University of Science and Technology within her/his desires, this means that the address is correct and unambiguous and therefore there is no piracy here.
Stressing that all life is linked to a specific code and that the current generation deals entirely with Internet which necessitates dealing with the World Wide Web by all means, even kindergartens, refugees and nomads, where Internet has become available to everyone. He also stressed that those who studied information technology are the ones who enjoy browsing process the most, and this is the correct educational process as obtaining information is easy, but the difficulty lies in the process of memorizing, evaluating and retrieving. However, some software can be used to do this. Dean of Libraries added that the electronic services at UST depend on three axes: First is the paper medium which is books available in the library for students at all complexes, but there are 75% of paper information in information institutions that have not yet been transformed into digital information. Noting that paper medium itself shows you whether the book you want actually exists or not, indicating that a digital repository that contains sources of information produced in digital media is available and that some information and events have been converted to be in an electronic form.
In addition to databases provided by UST library to students, results of international research include nearly three hundred and fifty thousand scientific papers as well as thousands of scientific papers. So, they can be used for citing and enhancing their research. Therefore, the electronic aspect of the databases is very important as the sources of knowledge and for digital repository, as databases are mechanisms of knowledge. He pointed out that there are Sudanese researchers who have presented a rich and distinguished production of books, and the university has five global websites available, and that local content is available as well. Besides working papers, workshops and initiatives can be viewed by any college in the university and as result benefiting from problems they encountered on the university’s website. The university’s digital repository contains academic production, including books, videos, and periodicals, in addition to UST archive, students’ photos and activities, graduate magazines, the portal, newsletter, and workshops including the lecture I am presenting right now. All of that can be found on the university’s website, pointing out that the university browsing system was developed by UNESCO.