Spain is way behind France in providing viewdata services because of lack of government support. And, more specifically, the situation of the Madrid-based Documentation Service for Education, DOCE, hasn’t been helped by lack of funding and poor publicity from supplier Telefonica Ibertex, according to director Maria Jesus Roderiguez. The DOCE was set up five years ago to provide up-to-date information for both teachers and pupils in secondary education, and originally sent data out on floppy. In January 1991, it set up a server centre, the smallest in Spain, to take advantage of Telefonica de Espana SA’s viewdata service. But Ms Roderiguez is dissatisfied with the level of funding provided by Telefonica – while other centres received approximately $14,000, the DOCE got only $2,125. She also said that Spaniards’ general ignorance of the benefits of such a service wasn’t helped by poor advertising from Telefonica. In her view, past promotions should have focussed on individual sections of the population instead of trying to interest everyone at once. The result, she said, was that information on such matters as new curriculae, AIDS and prevention of drug abuse reached only about 250 users. Ms Roderiguez is particularly concerned because there are 32,000 education centres in Spain, each with 24 potential users.
