Going Digital

Going Digital: Taiwan Experiences

Chao-Chen Chen
Professor
Graduate Institute of Library and Information Science,
National Taiwan Normal University
Co-Principal Investigator of Applications Service,
National Digital Archives Program
E-mail:cc4073@ms73.hinet.net

Abstract

Taiwan has been undergoing an e-Revolution as unprecedented technological advancements in various fronts have taken the nation by storm. Sophistication upgrades in mobile technology, for instance, have transformed everyday life of Taiwanese people. In an attempt to make appropriate responses to this e-trend, Taiwan Government launched e-Taiwan and m-Taiwan Projects. Implementation of these projects aims to enhance Taiwan’s overall competitiveness and economic advantages in its international trades worldwide. Of the nationwide programs included in the e-Taiwan Project, two of them bear critical significance in library and information science: National Digital Archives Program (NDAP) and National Science & Technology e-Learning Program (ELNP). These two programs are projected to lead Taiwan to the cutting edge in digital content creation and applications. This article is firstly to describe e-Taiwan and m-Taiwan Projects and NDAP and ELNP, and secondly to share experiences we have learned from their implementations so far. This article finally is to delineate the impacts on Taiwan libraries these e-programs have apparently brought about.

1. Introduction

Research and development of information technology in Taiwan has over the years advanced Taiwan to be the fourth largest information hardware manufacturing country in the world. Moreover, rapid increase in internet usage causes changes not only information and telecommunication industries but also consumers’ demands and marketing management models. These inter-related factors in turn spur the creation of the digital content essential to e- and m-Revolution in Taiwan. In an attempt to make appropriate responses to this e-trend, Taiwan Government launched e-Taiwan and m-Taiwan Projects. Implementation of these projects aims to enhance Taiwan’s overall competitiveness and economic advantages in its international trades worldwide. Under e-Taiwan Project, there are several programs, two of which being important nationwide programs: National Digital Archives Program (NDAP) and National Science & Technology e-Learning Program (ELNP). These programs have their purposes to help drive Taiwan to the vanguard in digital content creation and applications.

What follows includes an introduction to the significance of these landmark projects and programs as well as a sharing of experiences we have gained and challenges we have yet to face.

2. Epoch-Making e-Plans in Taiwan

(1) e-Taiwan Project

To meet with the challenges we face in the digital world, the Taiwan government has in recent years actively worked to promote digitization through a number of initiatives to improve the nation's IT proficiency and the competitiveness of domestic IT industries. In May 2002, the National Information and Communication Initiative committee (NICI) and other government agencies worked together to launch the e-Taiwan Project as a part of the Challenge 2008 Plan. The focus of the e-Taiwan Project is to design and implement programs for the development of the nation's information and communications infrastructure and applications (FIND, 2004).
The e-Taiwan Project will bring benefits to economic development, infrastructure framework and government services. The Taiwanese government plans to invest in this project a total of NTD30 billion in 6 years. The enterprises thus created are expected in return to generate a revenue of about NTD100 billion and offer more than 20,000 jobs opportunities. Moreover, it is predicted that the number of internet users will reach 50% of the total population by 2007, and the broadband subscribers 35%. In terms of government services, it will bring 600 major government services online and expedite document sharing efficiency (e-Taiwan Project Office, 2005).
The vision of e-Taiwan is diagrammed as follows (e-Taiwan Project Office, 2005).

Fig-1: The vision of e-Taiwan
Source?NICI?2005?. The vision of e-Taiwan. Retrieved April 27, 2005 from http://www.etaiwan.nat.gov.tw/content/application/etaiwan/vision/index.php

There are 59 sub-projects in the e-Taiwan Project and they are classified into 5 major categories??e-Taiwan Project Office, 2005?

a. e-Infrastructure subprojects. It serves as the pillar in continuing to promote information and communication infrastructure development as well as network security. The objective is to establish a comprehensive network of wired, wireless, mobile and fixed broadband internet networks.

b. e-Society subprojects. It promotes online education, entertainment, culture, health care, and transportation services. These initiatives will improve the quality of services available to the public.

c. e-Industry subprojects. It serves as the pillar to promote industry digitization, facilitating Taiwan's transition into a high value-added manufacturing and service center. It strives to strengthen our supply chain and management system logistics and expand our international sale channels and venues.

d. e-Government subprojects. It stimulates on-going implementation of innovative government services including integrated ¡§single-window¡¨ government services, G2B2C electronic transaction systems, and online public services.

e. e-Opportunity subprojects. It aims to maximize the usage of limited resources to expand digital opportunities and improve access in remote regions of Taiwan, in underpriviledged and disadvantaged groups, and downstream industries. The long-term goal is to share our digitization experiences with other countries so that international digital divide can be effectively bridged.

(2) m-Taiwan

The third IT revolution configures the personal computers, internet and mobile communications into a "Ubiquitous Network." By utilizing this network, the government, entrepreneurs and end-users are able to get needed information by any device, at anytime, in anywhere more efficient, more convenient, and better life quality. With the advantages of world No.1 production value of WLAN products and mobile phone penetration rate, Taiwan government has devoted itself to sharpen our Mobile-competitiveness. The National Information and Communication Initiative (NICI) committee of Executive Yuan (Cabinet), Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) coordinated to propose the "M-Taiwan Project" with a budget of NTD37 billion dollars in five years. The "M-Taiwan Project" is expected to beefup the wireless networks, integrate mobile phone networks, setup the optical-fiber backbones, and execute the Integrated Beyond 3rd Generation (iB3G) Double Network Integration Plan. This project has its purpose to shift Taiwan from an "e-nation" to an "M-nation", to realize the Taiwan vision of "Mobile Taiwan, Unlimited Applications, and Brave New Mobile World."

The vision of m-Taiwan Project is as follows (m-Taiwan, 2005).

Fig-2: The vision of m-Taiwan
Source: NICI (2005) The vision of m-Taiwan. Retrieved April 28 from http://www.nici.nat.gov.tw/content/application/nici/m_vision/index.php?sel=m_vision

The M-Taiwan Project is expected to achieve the following objectives (FIND, 2005):

a. to construct a barrier-less online environment, to improve Taiwan's ranking of Mobile Internet penetration rate from the 20th to 5th in the world.
b. to upgrade Taiwan as one of the top 10 countries with the lowest online access fee in the world. It is expected to decrease the Internet access fee 30%-80%.
c. to promote the communications industry to be another "trillion dollar" industry (in addition to communication manufacturing and communication service industries) in Taiwan.
d. to aggregate the efforts of the cell-phone manufactures, content providers, and telecom companies in order to develop the broadband & wireless infrastructure.
e. to improve the deployment of broadband & wireless infrastructures and availability of e-government services in remote areas so as to narrow the digital divide.

The m-Taiwan Project attempts to make the vision “m-Taiwan, Unlimited Application, and Brave New Mobile World” come true. m-Taiwan will bridge the digital divide and let everyone use information communication technologies anytime and anywhere. It will also transform Taiwan from an e-Country to a m-Country (m-Taiwan, 2005). This project has in it three core aspects as follows:

a. m-Life
m-Life has 4 major sub-projects – m-Social well-being, m-Communities, m-Entertainment, m-Health Care. It hopes to bring the Taiwanese people a comprehensive well-being and construct a quality living environment.

b. m-Services
This aims to complete basic infrastructure in the Taiwanese Government and bring convenient mobile services to everyone. It will build a 6,000 km broadband channel from urban communities/centers to every corner in Taiwan and will let the telecom operators provide fiber optic connections for residential areas.

c. m-Learning
m-Learning begins at school and plans to break the limitations of space, creating a new wave of lifelong e-Learning.

(3) National Science and Technology Program for e-Learning (ELNP)

Included in e-Taiwan Project are two important national scale programs: 1. National Science and Technology Program for e-Learning (ELNP), 2. National Digital Archives Program (NDAP). What distinguishes plans of national scale such as these is that their proposed expenses are guaranteed their availability as their budgets are passed in legislations. In this present section and the next we will introduce these two programs.

On January 15 2002, the National Science Council of the Executive Yuan approved a resolution on the “National Science and Technology Program for e-Learning,” planning to spend USD120 million within a 5-year period for this program. In 2002, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPC) drafted a 6-year national development plan “Challenge 2008” and listed the national e-Learning program as the first key initiative under the “E-Life” category of the “E-Taiwan” Project. Its specific emphasis is to build a high quality e-Learning environment, making Taiwan one of the leaders in e-Learning technologies. This is an integral part of the national efforts to lead Taiwan into a knowledge-based economy.
The program architecture has three main axes (Fig- 3) (NSC, 2003):
.
a. to upgrade Taiwan’s overall competitiveness in the era of knowledge economy
b. to stimulate the development of industries related to e-Learning.
c. to bring about new waves in academic research.

Fig-3 ELNP architecture
Source: e-Learning National Project in Taiwan, Division Head
Planning & Evaluation Div., National Science Council, 2003
http://france.nsc.gov.tw/france/e-learning921201_summary.ppt

This project transforms established centers and institutions such as libraries, schools, and training centers for job skills, Internet cafés and citizen clubs into e-Learning classrooms. Moreover, in order to develop e-Learning activities, these classrooms use resources including a combination of existing content platforms such as education resources, teaching materials for career training, test databases, health education materials, military training materials and so on. Through diverse e-Learning classrooms, we can promote lifelong e-Learning to target groups (ELNP, 2005).

Digital divide is the gap between those who can use computers and Internet technologies and those who cannot. Digital divide can be demonstrated by poor information access, scarce education, rare job opportunities, low income, etc. The main tasks of this project are: establishing indicators for digital divide, evaluating the current situation of digital divide, factors analysis of what make digital divide, planning for strategies of how to eliminate digital divide, creating integrated resources, and seeking out invisible underprivileged groups in the digital divide.

c. Mobile Learning Device – Multi-function e-Schoolbags

This project researches and develops advanced mobile learning device such as multi-function e-Schoolbags. These m-Learning devices can help people in learning, while surpassing the limits previously imposed by time and location.

d. Network Science Park for e-Learning

This project wants to create a Network Science Park to integrate all technologies and outcomes developed by the ELNP. This Network Science Park serves as the converging point for services, industries, technologies and experts. This Park supports e-Process industries ?technologies and markets, platforms and quality control?and links to physical service centers. It has been estimated that this Park will play an important role in the Chinese e-Learning world.

The definition of advanced e-Learning Technology in Taiwan is the technology that is yet to come or the technology that is yet to mature. Such technology will take years to research and develop. This project groups advanced e-Learning Technology into four categories - platform, content, software and certificated standards. Mobile learning device and e-Learning support device are not included in this project; rather, they are included in the Mobile Learning Device project as these two projects are closely related.

This project studies “science, technologies and mathematics” in the aspects of learning and cognition. It will create a digital literacy database, a digital database with e-Learning/ teaching/ assessment models, e-Learning strategies and behavior database, and a database on the mental and physical impacts of e-Learning on children and students. This project strives to develop native e-Learning theories and structures of “science, technologies and mathematics.”

This project aims at the study to plan and develop the environment for e-Learning industry. Moreover, it trains personnel and explores policies relating to e-Learning profession.

The “National Digital Archives Program” (NDAP) was launched on January 1st, 2002 and is sponsored by the National Science Council (NSC). Its objective is to promote and coordinate content digitization and preservation at leading museums, archives, libraries, universities, research institutes, and other content holders in Taiwan. The first phase of this program is a 5-year plan for the period 2002 to 2006. This program is unique in that it combines humanities with information technology. Of the nine National Science and Technology Programs presently sponsored by NSC, this is the only one that focuses on both the humanities and social sciences. The budget for each of the first three years is NTD337 million, NTD367 million, and NTD561 million respectively (Approximately $9.6, $10.46, and $16 million USD). It is estimated that the annual growth rate for the projected budget will be approximately 20% or higher in 2005~2006.
The ultimate goals of NDAP are manifold aiming to help preserve and sustain our culture and civilization. They are to:
a. Preserve national culture collections.
b. Popularize fine cultural holdings.
c. Revitalize cultural heritage and cultural development.
d. Invigorate cultural, content, and value-added industries.
e. Promote knowledge and information sharing.
f. Enhance research, education, and life-long learning.
g. Improve literacy, creativity and quality of life.
h. Explore collaboration among international communities.

NDAP has archived a large amount of digital content in these 4 years. The subjects the archives cover include botany, geology, zoology, world maps, astronomical maps, archeology, etc. The core value of digital content is the diverse application of value-added content. Only when the content of digital archives is diversely applied and used can it demonstrate its value to everyone. Fig-4 illustrates a scenario of what we envision to be the derived benefits of the NDAP.

For the digital content to be widely used, it is imperative for commercialization to be in place to enhance information accessibility and public awareness. In the process of commercialization, licensing becomes an integral part, to help ensure that quality and integrity are not compromised in the information shared.
This year, we held “NDAP 2005 Exhibition and Licensing”, a major step taken to further flesh out keypoints for Taiwan’s digital content and invigorate the digital market. The goals of “NDAP 2005 Exhibition and Licensing” are as follows (NDAP, 2005).

a. To commercialize value-added products. NDAP encourages various industries to apply digital archives.
b. To standardize licensing process. NDAP will create a single window on licensing affairs, and speed up the process of commercializing digital archives in their businesses.

The attendees of “NDAP 2005 Exhibition and Licensing” includes archiving institutions (including National Palace Museum, National Museum of History, Academia Sinica, Historica Sinica, National Taiwan University, National Library of Taiwan), demonstration institution (including National Science & Technology Museum, National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, National Museum of Prehistory, etc.?and industry affiliations. Through this exhibition and licensing, NDAP, Council for Cultural Affairs, academic research institutions, education organizations, value-added industrial enterprises and commercial agencies will combine digitized content to meet with market demands. Taiwan is entering into the phase of application of digital content) NDAP, (2005).

Undoubtedly e-Taiwan and m-Taiwan will elevate Taiwan’s overall competitiveness and accelerate Taiwan toward comprehensive digitalization. With virtually unlimited dynamic applications from e-Taiwan and m-Taiwan, information will reach requesting individuals in real time basis via channels such as cell phones and wireless broadbands. At the core of e-Taiwan and m-Taiwan lie two critical factors, digital contents and digital applications made available to people with diverse needs. Therefore, these digital programs and applications would apparently bring tremendous impact upon institutions, businesses, and related aspects in our society, including government, schools, libraries, museums, media, entertainment, publishing, and tourism. Because of such impact, Taiwan will be undergoing dramatic changes in its foreseeable future.

In the implementation of NDAP and ELNP, some of the major results and problems arising so far are as follows:

(1) NDAP: Results and Problems
NDAP has yielded the following encouraging results.
a. Enhance academics and businesses in their capability to process vast amount of information flowing.
b. Enrich our otherwise rather poor information on Taiwan.
c. Make accessible to the general public materials which had been only accessible to research scientists before.
d. Extend cooperation circles between research scientists who would otherwise be rather isolated in their individual labs.
e. Speed up the utility and usefulness of information via commercialization process.

Beyond dispute, NDAP has created some significant results. Yet, we are not to overlook the problems encountered, including the following:

a. Due to lack of standard to evaluate the quality and value of information to be considered for digitization, expenses have been expended on relatively trivial data. Consequently, information, which should be regarded as minimal in value, has been wrongly judged and overpriced in licensing and commercialization.
b. Because of digitization technology coming largely from USA, we made some poor decisions and wasted expenses as failure occurred when we did not take into consideration our specific perspective and needs.
c. Copyright presents another critical issue to be resolved satisfactorily. The majority of digital archives contain materials which are open to the public with neither copyrights nor downloading rights incurred on them. Consequently, financial benefits expected to be generated from those endeavors have been rather minimal.

(2) ELNP: Results and Problems
E-learning has so far effectuated the following impact upon academic, business, and government institutions.

a. Training cost overall has been reduced and its effectiveness increased.
b. Distance learning has become an effective tool in various levels. Students have additional accesses to the wealth of information and material available in e-learning environs.

Yet, there exist some problems to be resolved, including the following.
a. More business CEOs need to be convinced so that they may have a far-sight vision for e-learning.
b. More school principals are yet to be educated so that they may be open-minded about developing e-learning environs. It is critical that they would not waste their resources by merely duplicating e-learning stuff already existing.
c. More schools are to see in themselves more teachers willing and competent in developing e-learning materials, as well as more students taking advantage of e-learning environs.
d. Integration is to be accomplished in e-learning materials between libraries, government organizations, and businesses. Authorization to access e-learning materials has to be incorporated as part of quality and integrity control process.

Libraries apparently constitute a vital part of the infrastructure of the information society. Impacted by digitization waves, libraries in Taiwan should continue their striving towards the following modernization goals:
a. To digitize their special collections, so that they can be widely available to the general public.
b. To create institutional repository, so that publications from colleges, universities and research institutions can be made available for open access.
c. To pool together several libraries to purchase e-books, e-journals and databases, so that they can readily be accessible to the general readership ASAP.
d. To construct a portal for information services, open linking related knowledge, so that enquiries can be met with spontaneous responses.
e. To construct supporting facilities for e-learning and to encourage learners towards using e-libraries and digital collections.

Internet allow libraries to tightly collaborate together and let libraries work closely with other non-library institutions, as librarians expand their concerns from library in-house collection to Internet resources and other digital archives. Digitization and modern technologies help libraries disseminate information, deliver their services, and narrow the gaps easily ignored by commercial information agencies. Digitization and its related enterprises inevitably entail greater social responsibilities. Situated in the cutting edge of this digitization trend, we need to consider responsively what roles librarians are to play and discuss issues about information communication, access and availability.

FIND (2005/05/05 ) “e-Taiwan Program was revised in 2004. The Infrastructure, e-Society, e-Industry, e-Government and e-Opportunity plans form the core initiatives of the e-Taiwan Program.” Available on: http://www.find.org.tw/eng/news.asp?pos=0&subjectid=6&msgid=165 (Retrieved: 20050610)

FIND (2005/01/08) , Taiwan government proposed "M-Taiwan Program" to promote a ubiquitous network and e-services in Taiwan. (2005/1/18) FIND (Focus on Internet News and Data) Available on: http://www.find.org.tw/eng/news.asp?pos=0&subjectid=6&msgid=164 (Retrieved: 20050610)

National Science Council ( 2003) “e-Learning National Project in Taiwan,) ( PPT file) Planning & Evaluation Div., National Science Council, 2003. Available on :http://france.nsc.gov.tw/france/e-learning921201_summary.ppt (Retrieved: 20050610)
NDAP (2005), National Digital Archives Program, Available on http://www.ndap.org.tw/ (Retrieved: 20050610)

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