COIN launched its latest online community resource called Capricornia Online Voices on Wednesday, 19 February 2003 at the COIN Internet Academy.

Capricornia Online is an Internet site designed to help the local community participate in online activities. “Voices” is the second stage of the Capricornia Online project. It will provide a forum for discussion of issues of importance to the region.

“For example, the community can post articles and then other people comment on them using their keyboards,” explained Kevin Tharp, site administrator.

The first stage was the opening of “Groups”, a site where local non-profit community groups can build web sites for their organization. The third stage will be the opening of “Faces”, where local individuals will have the ability to build personal web pages. Capricornia Online is available at http://www.capricornia.org.

“It is important for people to understand how to use a site like Capricornia Online if it is going to be successful, so we take time to help people learn how to use the tools available,” added Tharp.

To help people learn how to use Capricornia Online, COIN provides informal hands-on group-learning sessions. These group-learning sessions are scheduled each Tuesday afternoon from 1:00 – 5:00, and are periodically scheduled on evenings and weekends. Since limited space is available in these sessions, bookings should be made through the COIN office at 4926-9347. Details about Capricornia Online, including learning session times are available online at the website.

COIN (or COmmunity INformatics) is a combined project of the Rockhampton City Council and Central Queensland University. Its offices and training lab are located at the corner of East and Fitzroy streets on the ground floor of the old commonwealth building.