1. ANENT Establishment

In June 2003, a meeting organized by the IAEA and hosted by Korea Atomic Research Institute (KAERI) in Daejeon, South Korea, conceptualized and agreed for the establishment of the Asian Network for Education in Nuclear Technology (ANENT). 7 Representatives from IAEA, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Korea.

In 2004, the first Coordination Meeting of ANENT was hosted by Malaysia with 11 Member States in the Asia and Pacific. The founding member countries were China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam. Ms Fatimah Amim, Malaysia Institute of Nuclear Technology Research (current Malaysian Nuclear Agency) was selected as the first ANENT Chairperson, and the first Terms of Reference was approved. The members agreed to work on five group activities and accelerate the cooperation of the newly established network.

2. Initial Stage with the ANENT Web Portal (WP)

The first product and asset was the English-version ANENT Web-Portal (WP). The portal including concept and design was developed by the KAERI before being reviewed by members. Then, the KAERI undertook the launching and the operation of the WP in their server at www.anent-iaea.org in April 2005. It provides basic information on the ANENT management and activities, promoting external and internal communication.

“About ANENT” and “Activities” have a lot of information about ANENT objectives, members, structure, and activities, and “Links” show a number of useful websites on nuclear knowledge and science and technology. The registered members can login the “Nuclear Education and Training (NET) Database” which contains more than 900 inputs of data about existing lectures and training courses at each institution. “Meeting and Events” provides a list of related events in the past, present and foreseeable future including archival information.

3. The ANENT Cyber Learning Platform

The “Cyber Learning Platform (CLP)” was designed and developed by the KAERI with the assistance of the IAEA. The CLP was added in the WP to support the users to access various types of educational information and training course materials in August 2006. The registered users can login the CLP and play four roles: learner, lecturer, course manager, and general manager. Each mode has several menus depending on their roles and functions. The CLP contains the learning management system to allow teachers to register, enrol, monitor and evaluate students’ learning.

4. Regional TC Project for supporting web-based education

In 2007, a four-year regional TC project entitled “Supporting web-based nuclear education and training through regional networking (RAS/0/047)” started upon request of Member States in Asia and the Pacific. The project strived to address the increasing needs of nuclear education and training opportunities, resources and new strategies through the ANENT CLP for the national and regional capacity building in the region. A wide range of activities includes e-training, Train the Trainers on the CLP as the tool of e-learning, the contents development by expert missions, procurements and fellowship programmes. The participating Member States recognized benefits brought by the project to their national Human Resources Development in nuclear science and applications.

5. Partnership between IAEA and KAERI to support the ANENT

The first Practical Arrangements were concluded to promote the ANENT web-system jointly by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and the IAEA in April 2009. KAERI developed and maintained the ANENT WP to promote information exchange and an associated ANENT CLP to facilitate web-based education and training activities as the regional hub in the Asian region. The agreement was the first step toward building the solid foundation of the ANENT web system for sustainable nuclear education and training.

6. Expanded partnership beyond Asia to support ANENT

The Practical Arrangements with ENEN in June 2009 was the second step toward substantive progress to implement training courses and disseminate a variety of information, curricula and materials in the field of nuclear energy and applications. ENEN is a well-known international organisation for its unique and pioneering objectives and activities to develop the expertise in the nuclear field by higher education and training. ENEN has been a collaborating member of the ANENT providing advice and guidance on the ANENT activities at the planning, implementation and review processes.

7. e-Training courses on Energy Planning

KAERI hosted three e-training courses on energy planning using the ANENT CLP in cooperation with the IAEA’s Planning and Economic Studies Section (PESS). KAERI staff served as the site administrator and video conference organizer, and PESS experts provided the training package and the online tutoring.

1. E-training course on “SIMPACT Model for Evaluating External Cost of Health and Environmental Impacts of Nuclear Power and other Energy Options” in November 2007

2. E-training course on “MESSAGE Model for Elaborating Sustainable Energy Strategies” in February 2009

3. E-training course on “Introduction to MESSAGE for Analyzing Nuclear Options in National Energy Mix” in February 2012

8. Development of e-Learning material

Since the e-learning was still new and evolving area for the region, three procurement orders were made to get the proper nuclear disciplines from the existing Master’s Courses. One was the Multimedia on Nuclear Reactor Physics, developed by Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in Spain. The others were the E-Textbook on Nuclear and Ionizing Radiation Technologies, provided by the University Institute of Advanced Studies of Pavia (IUSS Pavia) in Italy (in preparation), and the Multimedia Course on Scientific and Technical Challenges in Nuclear Power Development, developed by the National Research Nuclear University in Russian Federation.

Within the region, the Asian School of Nuclear Medicine, one of the ANENT collaborating member, coordinated and collected about 100 cases from nine countries and develop the e-Book on Nuclear Medicine. Currently the CDs are available through NKM website upon request.

9. Train-the-Trainers courses to disseminate the skill to use of CLP

Train the Trainers (TTT) courses were organized in Vienna in 2008, in Manila in 2009, and in Abu Dhabi in 2009 under the RAS0047. The objective of the TTT was to provide the participants with opportunities to build capacity to get familiarized with the CLP, and to make it sustainable for any users in learning, organizing, and operating e-training courses. Total 80 participants learned various processes from lecture preparation, course establishment, course registration and learning, to post-learning, which was played by four modes as Learner, Lecturer, Course Manager, and General Manager. Several countries such as Indonesia and Syria conducted the national seminars on the CLP.

10. Partnership with Khalifa University in UAE

When the sixth Coordination Meeting was held by the Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR) in UAE, the intention was expressed to establish a regional hub for web-based education and training. Based on the experience and lessons learned of the ANENT CLP, the new e-Learning Portal was developed and installed at the KUSTAR. In parallel, Practical Arrangements were concluded between the IAEA and KUSTAR to enhance cooperation in education, training and research in nuclear science and technology in September 2010.

11. New Learning Management System installed at KAERI as the regional hub

The significance of the CLP and e-learning activities had been increasingly recognized. However a SWOT analysis showed that many users raised the ageing problem of the CLP system. Thus the IAEA has developed a new Learning Management System (LMS) using an open source, MOODLE software. Like the ANENT CLP, the LMS has the automatic system to allow teachers to enrol, monitor and evaluate students’ learning in each course. Various functions have become easier and simpler to create course contents and navigate by the users.

The LMS was installed at the KAERI during the eighth ANENT Coordination Meeting in December 2011. The KAERI staff serve as the Site Administrator to manage the registration and oversee the whole operation, and the ANENT members play roles as the Course Creators to enrol students and create courses.

At the meeting, the Terms of Reference has been revised in accordance with the circumstance and with a focus of the CLP deployment, utilization and content development. Mr Haditjahyono, National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN) was selected as the ANENT Chairperson, and Ms Nguyen Thi Yen Ninh, Vietnam Atomic Energy Agency (VAEA) was selected as the Vice-Chairperson.

Through the vulnerability test and localization, the LMS was accessible and usable by all participants in the regional course under the new regional TC project RAS0064 in March 2013. In addition, the LMS was remotely used by the participants in the TTT course to conduct e-learning courses on energy planning, which was hosted by BATAN, Indonesia in May 2013.