Annex VII is created as an extension of earlier work performed in Annex V - Education and Training. The Annex V performed a number of surveys of the status regarding the education and training in the global hydropower sector and also created recommendations / examples of contents for training contents in planning and maintenance courses. A subtask in Annex V concentrated on the usage of information technology and the Internet in hydropower education and training. The Annex VII is an extension of that last subtask in Annex V (subtask 5).
During the work with Annex VII it became more and more clear how important of training and education is for the global hydropower and energy sectors. Mostly dependant on three major factors:
Combine these factors with limited resources for learning, limited number of professional teachers and specialists that themselves are close to retirement and the importance of new methods of training becomes obvious. Annex VII and the Hydropower Competence Network is planned and designed to counter the negative effects of the developments mentioned above.
The objectives of this Task are to create a pilot version of an Internet-based international network for training of personnel in the hydropower industry, including a number of dedicated node organizations willing and able to contribute in hydropower Competence Network (HCN), a selection of training courses adapted to the tools and methodologies of HCN, a user-friendly tool for administration of learning materials, students, teachers and economy on the Internet, to test the pilot version of HCN bilaterally between a selected set of node organizations, and to produce an operational framework for HCN. The HCN infrastructure will be based on a product developed by Enviro Data, Sweden, named OmnIES. The HCN will license a pilot version of OmnIES during the lifetime of Annex VII.
In order to accomplish the foregoing objectives, Participants will carry out the following Subtasks:
Participants plan to arrange three regional workshops, and to invite already identified and potentially interested parties from the region to attend the workshop. Invited organizations could be hydropower-generating companies with a need for staff training, universities or schools with courses or course elements that could be adapted to net-based learning, or training centres with existing products suited for the HCN or with plans to develop such products. The workshop agenda includes presentation of the HCN concept with standards and methodologies, demonstration of tools with pilot learning material, screening of special needs that calls for adaptions, discussion of core competencies of various staff categories and identification of partners for further talks.
Learning materials will be prepared by a limited number of node organizations based upon a standard prepared by the task force. Bilateral links will be set up, and selected learning material tested on the HCN platform, followed by potential modifications. A typical test link could be between a training centre or university and a customer organization such as a power company. Possible extensions of the HCN functionality may be an additional outcome of the subtask.
The pilot version of the Hydropower Competence Network will be established with the selected organizations as network nodes. The system will be tested including accounting, access control and security of materials, and a marketing plan for the HCN will be developed.
This Annex shall remain in force for three years. It may be extended by agreement of two or more Participants, acting in the Executive Committee, and shall thereafter apply only to those Participants.
| Mr Tore S. Jørgensen (Operating Agent) International Centre for Hydropower (ICH) Klæbuveien 153 N-7465 Trondheim NORWAY tore.s.jorgensen@ich.ntnu.no | Professor Kyohei Baba K. Baba Engineering Consultants Co. Ltd. 3-3-3 Tranomon Minato-Ku Tokyo 105-0001 JAPAN kbaba@mb.infoweb.ne.jp | |||
| Mr. Sten-Erik Björling Enviro Data Varvsgatan 47 S-972 33 Luleå SWEDEN s-e.bjorling@enviro.se | ||||