Birzeit University launched its website on the 6th of June this year, after several months of preparation. The purpose of the delay was to avoid the common problem of websites launched with very little information, resulting in a high falling off of visitors to a site.
The first month saw 1,000 visitors to the site, and a flurry of congratulatory e-mail messages from people glad to see us finally on line. Between 40 and 70 million people, a significant number of these Americans, use the World Wide Web, and friends in the Arab-American community in the U.S. were glad to see a Palestinian institution break onto the scene with an information-packed website.
The website is the result of a joint project between the university’s Public Relations Office and Computer Center, their respective two roles of information provision and technical backup enabling a quick appropriation of this dynamic, new information technology.
In July the entire website was redesigned and relaunched, to an even better reception from visitors around the world.
The month of August saw 1,500 vistors to the Birzeit website, a rise in 50% from the previous month.
A graphic from the most popular section of the site, Birzeit University’s “Complete Guide to Palestine’s Websites”. The balancing, juggling lizard is ‘Mozilla’, the mascot of the widely used Netscape browser. The text below is the address of the Birzeit homepage.
The Birzeit Web Team believes that the increased access is down to three things: advertising, regularly updated information and sites that have a focus outside the university. “People know that we maintain a list of all known websites in Palestine,” says computer center director Marwan Tarazi, “and because this exists nowhere else, they come to us. Many stay and explore the rest of the site, being exposed to information about the university as a whole.”
Three local newspapers have reported on the Birzeit University website. TheIsraeli English- language Jerusalem Post Magazine of 21 June 1996 offered a brief review in its “Surfing the Net” column, recommending the site for those Israelis who wanted “a glimpse of academia and other aspects of life on the other side of the ‘closure’”. On the same day, the Palestinian English- language Jerusalem Times published a feature article about some of the aims and objectives of the Birzeit Web Team: “Most of the information flows from the developed to the developing world.
| “Most of the information flows from the developed to the developing world...This situation must change” |
The bottom line is that if you type in ‘Israel’ on the Web you get thousands of sites, but Palestine has almost nothing. This situaition must change.” On August 14th, the Israeli Hebrew-language Ma’ariv also published a sympathetic review of the “Complete Guide to Palestine’s Websites” section of our website.
Websites are notorious for being incomplete, always under construction and a pain to navigate. The Birzeit Web Team has tried to avoid this in the implementation of the university web project as much as possible.
The first training of 15 students took place during the summer semester, a week-long course held in the Community Health computer laboratory on the Old Campus. Each student had to complete a project in which they constructed a website for a university department. The standard of work was excellent and these sites will soon appear on the university server. With this initiative and other projects, such as the writing of a guide to constructing websites, the Web Team hopes to build a pool of students and staff who are able to carry out the time-consuming work of preparing information material for the university website. Having said all of this, there is a lot of material already on the site to be proud of, making Birzeit’s website the largest in Palestine.
Brief Information: http://www.birzeit.edu/birzeit - From the publication of the same name, this section of the website gives information about Birzeit’s historical background, international relations, student life, campus and facilities, research centers and community-related programmes, university publications, academic information and more. The information is available in English, French and text only formats.
Birzeit Archives: http://www.birzeit.edu/bzuarc - A depository for university newsletters, press releases, human rights reports and photographs, the Birzeit Archives are intended for those who want a deeper look at the university than that provided by Brief Information. Researchers and academics have expressed great interest in this section of our website.
Birzeit and the Web: http://www.birzeit.edu/web - The place to go for information about Birzeit’s journey into the Web, who has been involved, software we use and more. This section includes information about the wider telecommunications issues in Palestine - the availablity of telephones, the quality of the lines, and the status of leased lines.
Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences: http://www.birzeit.edu/ceohs - The CEOHS is renouned for being the insitution which undertook almost all the water and phramaceutical testing for the entire West Bank and Gaza before the Palestinian Authority (PA) arrived. Now it is an approved PA laboratory and will be moving into the sphere of food quality control, thanks to a British government grant. CEOHS's website offers brief information about the centre and links to articles about its work in the Birzeit University Newsletter. Unfortunately, no other written material is yet available.
Department of Public and Community Health: http://www.birzeit.edu/chd - For over 15 years, this university department, like many others at Birzeit, has been providing a vital service in the absence of government. The Department engages in research and planning for the health and development sectors, and includes information on its new diploma programme. Comprehensive information is provided about its new Primary Health Care Diploma.
Human Rights Action Project: http://www.birzeit.edu/hrap - Birzeit's Human Rights Action Project, founded in 1977, has followed the case of every student, faculty and staff member detained by the Israeli military authorities, as well as "cases of restriction orders, house raids, deportation, and denial of freedom of movement and travel as it relates to university and academic activities". The website is relatively underdeveloped, but offers a link to the university Human Rights and Press Release Archives, depositories of all publications and press releases by the project and Birzeit's Public Relations Office that are concerned with human rights issues.
Law Centre: http://www.birzeit.edu/law - Birzeit University's Law Centre is at the forefront of the battle to make sense of the multiude of existing laws in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Its website is a precurser to a coming Law Archive and a searchable database of Palestinian law. The website gives an excellent introduction to challenges facing the legal sector in Palestine.
Nigel Parry - A Personal Diary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (1989-present): http://www.birzeit.edu/diary - The Personal Diary is more of a human rights website than anything else, logging the realities of the peace process mainly after the Oslo 2 redeployment in the Palestinian Area A town of Ramallah, the Area B village of Birzeit and the Birzeit University community. Confused with all these A's and B's? Tell us about it! With photos and regular entries, this has been a facinating project to work on and, as yet, relatively undiscovered! It's worth will increase as the entries do, currently numbering around 40.
Around Birzeit: The Ramallah Online Travel Guide: http://www.birzeit.edu/ramallah - Adopted by Birzeit University as part of its own website, this online travel guide researched, written and HTMLed by a 1995/96 Birzeit Palestine and Arabic Studies student offers the most up-to-date travel information on what to do in the region around Birzeit University. The villages of Birzeit, Jiffna, Ein Kenya and Taybeh, as well as the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh get a mention. More detail than any existing travel guide book, Lonely Planet and other book guides would be wise to beat a path to her door and ask for permission to use her material. Judging by their various coverage of the West Bank, ranging from "we didn't think it was safe to send people there" to the tiresome "Israel built Birzeit University" garbage, it is a matter of international urgency. The guide includes information about museums, art galleries and cultural centres, hotels, shops and restaurants, going as far in some cases as to include complete menus! A definite Golden Olive.
Events in Palestine: http://www.birzeit.edu/events - It's early days for this guide, a suitable companion to the Ramallah Online Travel Guide, with information channels still being set up between Birzeit University and the Birzeit Web Team responsible. However, all material becomes part of an archive and, although not yet comprehensive by any means, there is some interesting information and a partial report on the Palestinian International Festival 1996.
Educational Network: http://www.birzeit.edu/ednet - The Educational Network website is a good resource for information on education in Palestine, containing articles, interviews, contact addresses for NGOs working in education and more. The site is particularly good as a reference for material on the handover of education to the Palestinian Authority. Its webmaster tells me another update is due soon.
RIWAQ - Centre for Architectural Conservation: http://www.birzeit.edu/riwaq - RIWAQ's website has brief information on the centre, a report on the architecture of the old town of Nablus, a "Virtual Exhibition of Palestinian Tiles" and a very nice layout.
An important part of any project on the Web is to monitor who is reading what. The Birzeit webserver statistics for August revealed where the visitors were focusing:
In order to increase the number of visitors to the Birzeit website, we are asking all members of the Birzeit community to do the following:
Address: Public Relations Office Birzeit University
P.O. Box 14, Birzeit, West Bank, Palestine
Tel: +972-2- 998-2075 Fax: +972-2- 995-7656 E-mail: webmaster@birzeit.edu