Pharmacy and graphic design students
from around the world collaborating online
to raise public awareness of critical health issues in Kenya
A series of Frequently Asked Questions have been developed to help you understand more about the VIP project. These have been arranged into five categories:
VIP = Visualising Issues in Pharmacy.
There are many communities in need of a project such as VIP. However, rather than focusing on various locations all over the world – it was decided that for this project to be realistic and effective we should focus on a specific location.
The Nyanza Provincial General Hospital in Winam (NPGH) has been chosen as a main focus for this project due to its role as a referral point for over 16 district hospitals in western Kenya. One of the major problems NPGH faces is the issue of abandoned patients. Hundreds of patients are abandoned each year, and this is primarily based on a lack of appropriate knowledge within the community to deal with certain diseases. The VIP project aims to help raise awareness and knowledge within such communities, to ultimately reduce abandonment levels and ease the strain on the hospitals such as NPGH.
Icograda is the International Council of Graphic Design Associations
IEN is the Icograda Education Network.
Find out more at
www.icograda.org
www.education.icograda.net
FIP is the International Pharmaceutical Federation and IPSF is the International Pharmaceutical Student's Federation.
Find out more at:
www.fip.org
www.ipsf.org
PHARMACY STUDENTS
We are targeting pharmacy students for the first stages of this project, so the only prerequisite is that you are enrolled in a pharmacy course/degree.
GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDENTS
The second stage of this project targets graphic design students. Any student enrolled in a design school or university studying within areas of Visual Communication such as Graphic Design, Digital Media/Arts, Photomedia, Illustration, etc.
The VIP project offers graphic design and pharmacy students the chance to be part of an innovative and exciting international online project. Using the Omnium Interface, the VIP project will form a community of academic and creative young people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. This community allows for a unique and stimulating learning environment, as well as the opportunity to receive on-going feedback to your work from professional practitioners and academics in both fields of pharmacy and design.
Above all, this experience is about collaboration - bringing the two fields of pharmacy and design together to create meaningful change where it is needed.
The project is totally free of charge for those students selected to take part.
The VIP project will be carried out over 12 weeks, commencing April 2007 and concluding in June 2007. Weeks 1-7 involves the pharmacy research, whilst weeks 6-12 will form the graphic design period.
Due to differing time-zones from which participants will be working and the online nature of the activity, there are no official participation times throughout the project. However, it is expected that students will be able to spend at least 10 hours per week contributing to the project. As this is an online project, regular participation throughout each week is crucial for successful group dynamics. To visit the community only once or twice a week is not enough. Regular daily visits to converse with team-mates and tutors is imperative.
Unfortunately, neither Omnium nor Icograda or IPSF can determine this, although students are able to receive academic credit following discussions with their own course authorities. This is at the discretion of each institution individually. Omnium and can provide each educational institution represented by students with full project details in the hope they may influence individual decisions made by your course authority.
Other than a good command of English there are no pre-requisites for both pharmacy and graphic students. We only ask that you be passionate and committed to the project.
Experience in Graphic Design programs is considered advantageous for the graphic students, but is not a necessity. The last Creative Waves project included students at various levels of study: from undergraduate to postgraduate levels.
Access to a computer with the Internet is required for all students. For the graphic design students, a variety of imaging software will be used throughout the project so access to these is important. Graphic students will also benefit from having access to a camera and a scanner.
Yes - The Creative Waves VIP project is facilitated using the Omnium interface. This operates efficiently on both Macintosh and PC platforms, via almost any Internet browser (version 5+), and on 56k dial-up connections or faster.
Initially, participants are required to log in using private passwords. They first create their own individual homepages within the Omnium software before accessing the wide range of features provided. Working in small teams, participants work with each other using the sketchpad, file sharing and pin-up wall features. They have several choices for communicating with fellow team-members, supervisors or other working groups including: live chat rooms, asynchronous message boards, and discussion & feedback areas. In addition, facilities are provided for publishing: lecturers, seminars, briefs, activities, useful links and galleries of participants' work. Participants can easily transfer a variety of files to each other including: text documents; graphic and sound files; Shockwave/Quicktime movies.
Definitely - It is very easy to use. It does not require users to have high-level technical ability or any knowledge of web programming languages such as HTML. Uploading and exchanging work is as simple as choosing files from your desktop and selecting where you wish to send or display them.
As VIP is a non-profit initiative and a collaborative learning experience, no one person can lay claim to own any of the work that is produced throughout this project. However, Omnium owns copyright on the Creative Waves concept and therefore reserves the right to reproduce and publish any work or contributions created throughout the project. This may mean reproduction for promotional, marketing or educational material, such as magazines, books, newsletters, websites and conference presentations. It must be stated that VIP is intended as a non-commercial project, so any material reproduced must not be utilised for financial gain without consultation with Omnium – and in this event contributors must be credited for their work.
If at any time any commercial activity should be made as a result of the VIP project, all profits will be donated to the Omnium Creative Network to support its global creative projects within developing countries – http://ocn.omnium.net.au
In past Omnium online creative projects, involvement by staff from institutions of the participants has been a very important aspect. There are many roles that staff can take. They can act as mentors for their own students by observing and encouraging their work through advice and feedback. In some instances, classes have run in parallel with such project so students not officially taking part can also experience the brief. Staff can also act as guest tutors to the whole project and visit the various design teams to offer advice and feedback. Staff can also join live chat-sessions to encourage the project participants as a whole or individually within their teams. Omnium, Icograda and IPSF certainly encourage staff participation from a variety of institutions and are more than willing to receive suggestions on how they could contribute in ways than other those suggested above.
This would totally depend on how much time could be offered. Unlike the students taking part, staff can contribute just a small amount of time or be an ongoing contributor. There is no reason why external staff can not contribute even formally with written guest lectures or provide relevant academic papers for the participants to read and useful web-links to accompany the various stages of the project.
There are many options available for your involvement in the VIP Project whether you are a professional graphic designer, photographer, writer, academic or researcher. Throughout the six-week period, these could include:
For reading proposals that are pharmacy and health related contact Dr Nataly Martini n.martini@auckland.ac.nz.
For reading proposals related to graphic design or socially aware design please contact Omnium at vip@omnium.edu.au
The decision to allow any sponsorship would have to be decided and approved by The Omnium Project. Any enquiries regarding sponsorship should be directed to vip@omnium.edu.au
In most cases, we would welcome media coverage and exposure through newspapers, magazines, online journals, websites, etc.
If you have enquiries and suggestions, please email vip@omnium.edu.au
All information relating to the project will be available on the Creative Waves VIP website http://creativewaves.omnium.net.au/vip A variety of digital file formats for promoting the project can also be downloaded from the site.
In most cases, this is certainly an option although again, this would have to be approved by the The Omnium Project. Any enquiries regarding this idea should be directed to vip@omnium.edu.au
