A FORESIGHT STUDY APPLIED TO NATIONAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORKS Abdul Yaver1, J.M. Sánchez-Torres1, M.A. Amortegui2, L. Giraldo2 1
Universidad Nacional de Colombia (COLOMBIA) Red Nacional Académica de Tecnología Avanzada RENATA® (COLOMBIA)
2
Abstract The aim of this paper is to show some results of a foresight study for a Colombian National Research and Education Network (NREN) which has three goals are to i) Identify trends related to NRENs characteristics and new and improved services offered by several NRENs; ii) Identify the national capabilities related to these services comparing with the international NRENs; and, iii) Propose lines for strategy management on advanced technology services for the Colombian NREN, that is called RENATA® (National Academic Network of Advanced Technology). The approach of this study was conducted by using competitive intelligence and foresight techniques, which means: a planning process in order to obtain the definition of the exercise scope, the establishment of relevant aspects for searching and analysing; a benchmarking process in order to identify services trends; a gathering process using a survey for RENATA’s users; a consulting process with an international expert panel. The main result related to the international benchmarking enabled to conclude, among other things, that more network services are being built to provide dark fibre links to users, increasing the flexibility and agility in the delivery of new and better services, this is a trend that will continue and that should be encouraged. Moreover, collaborations with mobile service providers should be established to offer academically innovative solutions to users. Colombia, along with countries such as Canada, Spain and Brazil, reached a precedent respect to the potential that open the participation of non-university hospitals for remote care in the health sector. Related to the perception of the RENATA’s services the main results showed that professors, researchers and Information Technologies managers are the most frequent users of the services. In addition to this the services of advanced connectivity, video conferencing, live streaming, and virtual office, are the most known and used by members of the network. According to user’s answers, the main barrier to the development of services is the weak relationship and collaboration between the industrial sector and Government agencies. The international expert panels gave a feedback to these results and some guidelines for the direction board of RENATA® are obtained. Keywords: National Research and Education Networks, Foresight, Competitive Intelligence.
1
INTRODUCTION
Large and rapid scientific and technological advances in continuous growth fields have been generated by a clear dynamism within the global competitiveness and searching for new knowledge frontiers. It is as well as the development and innovation in telecommunications contributes increasingly to the educational evolution through the use of services and technological tools. This orientation to use of telecommunications for educational purposes already generates research works, commercial products and adapted services, being a hinge element for collaboration and scientific development of all countries. In spite of the complexity that represents for developing countries make inroads into the development of advanced technology to promote collaboration, research, and education, countries such as Colombia can be benefited from good practices evidenced in the international arena, and contextualize it in the best way at the local level contributes to develop throughout Latin America. Therefore, given the interest of the country in this topic and the efforts of organizations as the National Academic Network of Advanced Technology RENATA® and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia to characterize and investigate such services, was set up this foresight study in order to know the current situation of Colombia and the trends in the services of the NRENs and then propose strategic action lines to
Colombian NREN to optimize the partnerships for research and the education environments. Therefore, the aim of this research is to improve the existing services or develop new ones, based on trends identification from the findings in the process of benchmarking, and present strategic proposals for action to the NREN from our country. This paper is structured in three main sections, and these are, respectively: a contextualization about NRENS, foresight and competitive intelligence concepts, and about RENATA®; A comparative analysis on trends in services of NRENS in selected countries; and finally the elements of the future vision and course of action for the services offered by RENATA® taking into account criteria discussed in the benchmarking of the previous section and the opinion of experts.
2 2.1
LITERATURE REVIEW National Research and Education Networks NRENs
The NRENs are physical telecommunications networks of high speed, independent of the commercial internet, designed to be essential infrastructure for the advancement of education and research in a country, facilitating the reliable, efficient and cost-effective exchange of computer resources through services for communication and collaboration among researchers. Each country decides which groups will benefit from your national research and education network, and many choose to expand connectivity and services to libraries, hospitals, laboratories and governmental organizations to allow, for example, Tele-medicine services [1]–[3]. The presence of an NREN indicates the ability of a country to participate in national and international research. In 2013, there were 170 NRENs in 137 countries (out of a total of 206 countries studied). Therefore, about two-thirds of the countries studied had at least one NREN. In 2009, 121 countries there were at least one NRENS and, in 2005, it is estimated that 98 countries there were at least one NREN [4]. United States was at the forefront of research and established the first "national networks" in the service of academia, research and the military community [5]. The NRENs usually function as a hierarchy where there a national backbone network, regional networks, metropolitan areas networks (MAN), and networks of the individual campuses or institutions. Users can connect directly to a point on the national backbone network or to a regional or metropolitan network. Given the high capacity of the NREN, traffic congestion usually occurs at the level of the local area networks (LAN). Therefore, regardless of how much capacity have the core, the connectivity of researchers in each Institute is limited by their LAN connectivity [6]. There is no unique structure to model accurately all the NRENs, due to which are influenced by local conditions. However, it is clear that most have common features. Colombia and many other regions of the world have been based on the model of Europe (Fig. 1), a world leader in research and education networks, which uses a structure of organization of a single NREN by country with the coordination and collaboration with a continental Association, and this has been the key to success [7].
Fig. 1 Structure of the National Research and Education Networks in Europe [8].
2.2
Competitive Intelligence & Foresight
On one hand, the competitive intelligence (CI) is a systematic and organized effort by the company to observe, collect, analyze, disseminate and recover information about the facts of the economic, technological, social or commercial environment, relevant to involve an opportunity or threat to the
company. It requires an attitude of attention or alert individual. The organized sum of these attitudes is the forecasting function in the company. Ultimately the CI filters, interprets and values information to enable users to decide and act effectively [9]. The CI's mission is to alert to company managers about all scientific or technical innovation that can change their environment [10]. The CI includes company efforts for knowing all the evolutions and developments that occur in the domains of the techniques that currently are likely to affect it in the future [11]. On the other hand, foresight is a set of systematic attempts to look at in the long term the future of science, technology, economy and society, with aim to identify emerging generic technologies which probably generated the greatest economic and social benefits [12]. I.e., foresight studies seeks to identify strategic activities for the future development of the countries and the technologies associated with them [13]. The synergy between these disciplines reduces the risk in decision making regarding the future through the development of strong bases to improve competitiveness in the medium and long term. Its results can be used by all economic actors, without generating monopolies of any kind, that is, without altering the market [13]. Then, the purpose of the competitive intelligence and foresight is to prepare the coming way, adopting it as a way desirable and possible in the future [14]. Foresight and the CI are disciplines complementary and useful when it comes to face dynamic and complex environments, and when it is required to make strategic decisions, that is, those with high impact, high costs and irreversible effects on short, medium and long term. For a real impact on the organizations these disciplines should be systematic, that is, these must carry out over and over again. These disciplines require a long process of learning, where skills are developed thanks to the realization continues exercises. The articulation of foresight and CI processes requires a design according to each organization and situation. It is necessary to adapt the methodological and conceptual diagrams appropriately for each context [15].
2.3
National Academic Network of Advanced Technology RENATA®
RENATA® Corporation is the Colombian NREN which connects, coordinates and integrates the actors of the national science, technology and innovation system among themselves and with the world, through the provision of services, tools and infrastructure. RENATA® contributes to improve the level of effectiveness and competitiveness of scientific and academic country production. RENATA® aims to promote the development of the infrastructure and high speed services, the use and appropriation of these services, as well as articulates and facilitates actions for implementing research, development and innovation projects for developing the knowledge and information society in the country [16].
3
METHODOLOGY
This was a descriptive study, with a non-experimental design and mixed strategy, based on the synergy between the competitive intelligence cycle and the foresight cycle [15]. This study was done through three main stages described below: i)
Benchmarking process: In order to identify trends related to NRENs characteristics and new and improved services offered by several NRENs there was a selection of countries under comparative analysis was used. The countries were selected based on criteria such as: emerging economics: Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, India; emerging economics similar than Colombian’s economy and context including Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey and some Latin-American countries; and, countries with higher activities related to NREN work. Based on the above, the selected countries were: Germany, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Spain, United States, Mexico, United Kingdom and Turkey. Then, it was performed through a benchmarking of organizational features, services and practices of each NREN [17], [18] based on a documental review . We obtained comparison tables of features for each NREN analyzed sorted by region.
ii)
RENATA’s user perception: A perception survey was applied to RENATA®’s user. Thus it identifies the national capabilities related to these services comparing with the international NRENs. There were 303 responses.
iii) Expert’s consultation: It was performed an on-line survey to explore expert’s opinions based on the previous results about the future of NREN services, asking aspects related to importance,
materialization, scientific and technological capacity of this services, among others, and the positive or negative influence of different aspects related to NREN environment. Thus the on-line survey was sent to sixteen NRENs managers and six responses were obtained.
4
RESULTS
Applying the methodology in this section, we present some results:
4.1
Benchmarking process
One of the most relevant element that was found out among the countries analyzed was their financing. The majority of the NRENs are supported by the government, however there are autonomous for choosing their goals and projects, as shown in table 1. Table 1. Financial dependence and governance of the NRENs [23], [24]. Type
EUROPE
Region
NORTH AMERICA
Country Germany Spain United Kingdom
ASIA/OCEANIA
LATIN AMERICA
USA Canada Australia Turkey Brazil Chile Mexico Colombia Financing
Total
Partial
None
Governance
Autonomous
Dependent
Another important aspect is that the largest number of connected institutions are in the University sector followed by research institutes, non-university higher education centers (with Mexico and United Kingdom as main contributors). On contrary, organizations such as libraries, museums, hospitals, primary and high schools and government entities represent less than 20% of the institutions connected. Table 2 shows the number and percentage of institutions connected to the different analyzed NRENs, showing levels of appropriation by the academic and scientific communities. The cell's color represents the range of percentage of institutions or entities connected compared to the total number existing in the country, if there are no specific numerical quantity of institutions or entities connected, the abbreviation "n.d." is displayed to indicate that data doesn’t exist. Table 2. Number and percentage of entities connected to NREN from each country [23], [24].
Region
EUROPE
NORTH AMERICA ASIA/ OCEANIA
LATIN AMERCIA
Libraries, Museums, Hospitals Cultural centers
Country
Universities
Higher Education Centers
Germany
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
Spain
93
6
199
n.d.
n.d.
48
57
32
United Kingdom
167
428
36
n.d.
n.d.
8
n.d.
6
USA
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
Canada
190
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
2000
24
62
127
Australia
58
16
28
61
80
8
6
8
Turkey
162
n.d.
16
n.d.
n.d.
1
n.d.
13
Brazil
826
3
167
11
n.d.
154
53
77
Chile
17
n.d.
4
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
3
Mexico
111
103
28
n.d.
n.d.
2
5
18
Colombia
142
n.d.
6
n.d.
n.d.
3
14
4
Research Institutes
High Schools
Primary Schools
Government entities
>80 % 60-80 % 40-60 % 20-40 % <20 % No percentage data n.d. No numeric data
Colombia, along with countries such as Canada, Spain and Brazil, reached a precedent with respect to the potential which opens the participation of non-university hospitals for remote care in the health sector, this is corroborated in the expert’s opinion to qualify as being of high importance the connectivity for hospitals and clinics. Table 3 shows some examples of the services provided by the different NRENs that were compared, showing the equivalent services in RENATA® and exposed if there are services that RENATA® does not offer at the time. The latter is exposed identifying with dark green to services with a strong trend, and light green to services with a slight tendency. There are more services compared in this study but Table 3 shows the results specifically related to connectivity services, cloud services, security services, and videoconferencing and communications services. On one hand, regarding connectivity services, remote support, domain management, and network time services are slight trends not currently provided by the Colombian NREN. On the other hand, regarding security services, network security and security for e-mails and blacklist are a strong trends not currently provided by the Colombian NREN.
4.2
RENATA’s user perception
Fig. 2 shows the barriers considered by RENATA® users that influence the optimal provision of services, where "1" is not barrier and "5" is an insurmountable barrier. According to RENATA® users, limited collaboration between universities and institutions and the limited relationship with governmental entities, constitute a significant barrier to use the advanced technology services. Therefore NRENs have to strike a balance between what they will do themselves and what they will do with a communities or business partners. Limited cooperation between universities and institutions
Limited relationship with government entitie
40%
40%
35%
35%
30%
30%
25%
25%
20%
20%
15%
15%
10%
10%
5%
5%
0%
0% 1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
Fig. 2 Barriers to optimum provide RENATA® services.
4
5
Table 3. Trends on some services provided by selected NRENs. NORTH AMERICA
EUROPE Classification
SERVICES Connectivity
Connectivity services
Cloud services
Remote support Domain Management Network time services Eduroam Platform for interaction File Sharing Cloud Storage Deepfield Analytics Service (Cloud monitoring)
RENATA® Services Conectividad Avanzada
Spain
United Kingdom
USA
Canada
Australia
Turkey
Voz Renata
Oficina virtual En vivo…
Eduroam Colaboratorio Renata Cargo Renata Cloud
Web filtering Security services Network Security Security for e-mails and blacklists Videoconference Videoconference SMS messaging IP telephony and communications Providing mobile … communications Web conference Streaming…
Germany
ASIA / OCEANIA
Videoconferencia Renata
LATIN AMERCIA
Brazil
Chile
Mexico
Colombia
4.3
Expert’s consultation
Among the aspects that were rated highly important by more than 60% of the experts, and are within the trends dropped by benchmarking, we can mention: Develop innovative applications which will be tested in academic institutions, companies or pilot projects, provide services for Identity Federation, provide services for meetings and calendar within communities, update or reach a capacity in the order of 100 Gb/s or higher, connect libraries, museums and cultural centers, connect hospitals and clinics, connect governmental entities, provide signal transmission services IPTV, multicast and streaming, provide users with dark fiber links, and provide services for the provision of mobile communications. RENATA® have to work in strengthening the services that are mentioned above or in the development of the same if it does not even offer them. Fig. 3 shows the importance that experts give to each topic related to advanced technology services proposed as trends.
Provide signal transmission services IPTV, multicast, streaming Provide services for the distribution of multicast content via lightpath Provide services for the provision of mobile communications Provide security services for architecture Provide services for web filtering and security of emails and blacklists Offer services for storing audiovisual content Provide Cloud storage solutions Connect governmental entities Connect hospitals and clinics Connect libraries, museums and cultural centers Provide services for Network operations center (NOC) Provide configuration services with Network Time Protocol (NTP) to synchronize Provide services for remote applications support Provide services for monitoring network performance to optimize and measure traffic and connections Update or reach a capacity in the order of 100 Gb / s or higher Provide users with dark fiber links Establish partnerships with mobile service providers to offer academic innovative solutions Provide services for development of scientific and academic processes Finance together allies NREN innovation projects through public calls Provide services for meetings and calendar within communities
Provide services for issuing digital certificates Provide services for Identity Federation Provide services for managing domains Develop innovative applications which will be tested in academic institutions, companies or pilot projects
0% Irrelevant
Low
20% Medium
40%
60%
80%
100%
High
Fig. 3 Importance that experts give to each topic related to advanced technology services.
The expert panel considered the development of scientific and technological capabilities as a very important aspect for the development and provision of services of the NRENs, i.e. it demonstrates the importance of the presence of departments for research, development and innovation in institutions. Therefore, the NRENs must ensure that community is kept up to date with the evolution of networks through the Organization of workshops and conferences, and the participants in these events must be members of institutional management, and the information technology staff. Fig. 4 shows the level of incidence that the expert panel gives to different aspects that may influence on optimal provision of NREN advanced technology services, showing that development of scientific and technological capabilities, community integration, implementation costs, support of government entities and support and partnership with the private sector, are de most important aspects that influence on optimal provision of NREN services.
Access costs for institutions Level of training of human resources in the country Support and partnership with the private sector Support of Government entities Implementation costs Legislation - Regulations (Public policy development)
Community Integration Development of scientific and technological capabilities 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Irrelevant
Low
Medium
High
Fig. 4 Incidence that the expert panel gives to different aspects that may influence on optimal provision of NREN advanced technology services.
5
CONCLUSIONS
Using foresight and competitive intelligence as a systematic process NRENs obtain inputs for taking in account in theirs strategic business planning and service delivery. Thus, the benchmarking remarked that the financial government supports the NRENs, it means that this dependence can be a risk in the long-term. In spite of the dependence there is autonomous governance, which generally involves decentralizing decision-making to NRENS, enabling them to make a greater number of decisions about their operation and work. Also the benchmarking showed Colombia, along with countries such as Canada, Spain and Brazil, reached a precedent with respect to the potential which open the participation of non-university hospitals for remote care in the health sector, this is corroborated in the expert’s opinion to qualify as being of high importance the connectivity for hospitals and clinics. In the Colombian case as a developing country, for instance, these hospitals have implemented tele-medicine services for attending vulnerable population in far and poor areas, showing benefits of using NREN’s infrastructure. Regarding to services provided by NRENs, it is observed least common connectivity services such as remote support, domain management, and network time services in which less than four NRENs provide. Also, it is showed rather common connectivity services that include dark fiber for linking users,
increasing flexibility and agility in delivering new and better services. Also security services are part of rather common services that are offered as a way to protect the data to increase NREN’s users productivity by reducing wasted time and resources. The NREN services offered by RENATA have been growing and some of them are part of emerging services. And as mentioned before non-academic institutions are part of the beneficiaries, it is necessary to implement tools for improving the levels of usage of the majority of the services between the regular end-users. More of National Science, Technology and Innovation system capabilities, more demand of services means a great effort, on one side, for maintaining a modern infrastructure and on other side for developing skills on the end-users and on the technical administrators of the NRENs.
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