Annual Report - Information about Computer Network (Norway, March 2000)

A) How many percentages of the ex-PYs in your country use e-mail?

100% of the members of the ex-PYs in Norway has an e-mail address.

B) Do you use computer network among the AA members within your country? If yes, how do you operate the network?

Yes we use computer network among the AA members within Norway. We have 3 different mailing lists, one for the ex-PYs from the 8th SWY and one for the ex-PYs from the 12th SWY. The third list is for both of these two groups, which is the Norwegian Alumni Association.

C) Please list the URL of AA and/or personal homepage(s) which has the information about SWY.

The Norwegian delegation from the 8th & 12th SWY has a homepage with the following URL:
http:// www.gjefle.com/swy8
http:// www.gjefle.com/swy12

D) What is your future vision of the computer network of your AA?

We believe that the SWYAA of Norway will continue to use the computer network that we have established. It is an easy way to get in touch with all our members. The challenge is to make sure all the members checks their electronic mails on a regular basis. It is our goal to have an annual meeting were all the members can meet face-to-face, and discuss matters important in our association. These meetings can be planned through our computer network.

E) Do you have any idea for establishing global network of SWYAA using computer network?

Mailing lists for the ex-Pys is a good way to get in touch with other known and unknown members of the SWYAA around the world. Reunions, meetings, and other kinds of information can be shared easily among the members. On the SWY 12 we heard that there is discussion about the possibility of having a SWY Homepage on the Internet, where all the different AA of the world can contribute. This seems like a very good idea. There are probably many alternatives when it comes to organizing these pages. We can think of at least two solutions:

• Establishing one common homepage for SWYAA with general information about the program itself with links to homepages all over the world. This solution is probably easiest to organize, because all the local SWYAA are responsible for their own homepages (keeping the actual files on different servers around the world) . The common page can have contact information to all the SWYAA who doesn't have a page of their own.
• The second solution is to organize a system for all the homepages of the SWYAA, where all pages are located on the same server. This includes giving each delegation space on the server where they can publish their pages.

If this alternative is chosen it is of the utmost importance that the systems are easy for the users to update. Unless the users have direct access to the server through FTP, the maintenance of the pages become difficult.