UNESCO Bangkok has designed a participatory online database, National Education Systems and Policies in Asia-Pacific (NESPAP). NESPAP is a web-based knowledge portal that provides improved access to policy, information and knowledge resources on national education systems in the Asia-Pacific region. NESPAP aims to:
- Strengthen UNESCO’s knowledge sharing function by providing an online information for policymakers and other education stakeholders; and
- Reinforce the capacity of institutions to efficiently cooperate and implement partnerships and interaction with educational planners, managers and practitioners at regional, national and sub-national levels.
As one of the major sources of education resources of UNESCO Bangkok, the portal provides the following:
- Networking opportunities;
- Thematic discussions; and
- Access to education policies and resources.
NESPAP has expanded its functionality since 2011. It was first designed as an online document repository “NESPAP Open Platform eLibrary” (online repository) in collaboration with Science & Technology Knowledge Services in 2011, and was redesigned with three components, namely “eMap,” (profile database) “eForum” (discussion forum) and “eResources” (online repository) in 2012.
Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) has been collaborating in the development and management of NESPAP since 2013. Since then, new components: Education System Profiles, eJob (job board) and eConf (event management system) have been implemented. The following figure provides an overview of NESPAP with currently six components.
Tokyo Tech created manuals for users as well as the staff members of UNESCO Bangkok Office who are involved in the management of the database. In addition, Tokyo Tech organized training sessions for some of the UNESCO staff members for them to get used to it. For users, tutorial videos will be created and published in the future.
Researches on NESPAP/participatory database
- Inoue, T., Yamaguchi, S. & Takada, J. (November, 2015) “Study on People’s Motivations to Use Participatory Education Database”, Paper presented at the Japan Society for International Development (JASID) 28th annual conference, Niigata, Japan.
- Inoue, T., Yamaguchi, S. & Takada, J. (November 2015) “Sustainable Management and Use of Participatory Education Database for Knowledge Exchange and Sharing”, Paper presented at the 10th Asia-Oceania Top University League on Engineering Deans Meeting and Student Conference (AOTULE 2015), Singapore, Singapore.
- Inoue, T., Yamaguchi, S. & Takada, J. (August 2015) “Motivations of Content Development in Online Research Database: Towards Sustainable Platform for Knowledge Exchange and Sharing”, Paper presented at the 7th Multidisciplinary International Student Workshop (MISW 2015), Tokyo, Japan.
- Inoue, T., Yamaguchi, S. & Takada, J. (June, 2015) “Motivations of Content Development in Online Research Database: Towards Sustainable Platform for Knowledge Exchange and Sharing”, Paper presented at the Japan Society for International Development (JASID) 16th annual conference, Tokyo, Japan.
