SECOND MEETING OF REGIONAL COORDINATION PROJECTS OF
INFORMATION ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 
INFOCYT - MERCOCYT - RICYT
July 13-14, 1999 - Guatemala City - Guatemala

The INFOCYT Consultation Meeting was held in Guatemala City on July 13-14, and provided an opportunity to review the goals set in the First Meeting, last year in Santiago, Chile and evaluate the progress of the INFOCYT project. The meeting also served to plan the expansion of INFOCYT phase II to other countries in the region and to coordinate with other Internet based projects on Science and Technology. 

Representatives of OAS and the MERCOCYT, RICYT and INFOCYT projects as well as representatives from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela and El Salvador were present at the two-day meeting.

At the meeting two regional centers were proposed. One center will be responsible for political issues and other will be dealing with technical matters.  These centers will serve to develop, enhance and manage the content of the system. Guatemala will be responsible for Central American and Argentina will be in charge of the countries of Mercosur.  The regional Centers will have the general administration of the information. Once completely developed, the system will have total control of a local institution.    

The centers will be in charge of: 

·      Developing manual of instructions of how to add and update information on line.

·      Supporting the development of national centers and to identify topics of high-priority.

·      Incorporating other complementary programs to INFOCyT: TECLA and CYTED. 

·      Defining and promoting a strategy of how to expand INFOCyT into the local information systems. 

In the meeting it was agreed to create an email list to facilitate communication among INFOCYT members and the regional scientific community. 

The participants agreed to create on-line manuals, one for technical issues and other for on-line help on the input and update of information.

It has approved the addition of a system to better manage the quantity and quality of information added to INFOCyT.  For this matter, Guatemala is evaluating the use of the GLIMPSE, an indexer/search program, for its possible incorporation into the INFOCyT system. An issue to consider is that since GLIMPSE is a system application that currently, runs only on the UNIX/LINUX operating systems is not possible to be installed on a MS Windows NT platform.

Next year we expect to further develop and promote the INFOCyT project in the region and to coordinate with other local and regional institutions with similar projects.

Guatemala City,  July 14, 1999

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