University students to be trained on blogging

AMMAN — Social media experts and bloggers from Jordan and the region will train ICT students at Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) in professional blogging on technology issues to increase Arabic web content under an initiative launched Sunday.

Starting this week, ICT students at the university will be trained on creating blogs and online content in Arabic under the “Dawwen Tech” initiative launched by LG Electronics in collaboration with PSUT to instil professional technical blogging practices among young people.

“The initiative falls within the university’s social responsibility strategy,” PSUT President Mashhoor Al Refai, said at the launch. 

“Universities across the country have a duty to adopt similar initiatives due to the critical informational gap they serve to bridge,” Refai added.

Half of the Arabic content on the Internet is replicated on different websites and written in weak Arabic, according to experts.

Online Arabic content does not exceed 3 per cent of all content on the web and about 33 per cent of it is restricted to members of online forums inaccessible to the public, according to Google.

About 75 per cent of Arabic content on the web comes from Jordan, according to experts in the ICT sector.

Arabic speakers account for 5 per cent of global Internet users. About 65 per cent of Arab Internet users look for Arabic content, according to Google figures.

“Young Jordanians can play an important role in increasing Arabic content on the web and the training they will receive at PSUT will help in this regard,” LG Levant’s Brand Manager Feras Shabaneh told The Jordan Times after the launch of the initiative.

“The initiative will be launched at several other universities and academic institutions in the near future,” Shabaneh added, noting that ICT students will help increase digital Arabic content on a variety of technology issues such as cloud computing, telecom networks and solar energy.