The International Federation of Adapted Physical Activity (IFAPA) is pleased to announce the new online format for newsletters. Members of IFAPA can get this newsletter emailed to them directly and is always accessible through the ifapa.net website.
In this first issue, we have news concerning the awardees from the ISAPA 2017, Daegu, the student representative version of ISAPA 2017, and peices from the UNESCO Chair and ICSSPE.
First though, some information about the new format for the e-newsletter. At the 2017 IFAPA Board Meeting, it was decided to drop the former newletter printed format to stay with the times. Other organisations, such as NAFAPA and AIESEP have also produced online newsletters and now that IFAPA has a stable website, it was possible to make this transition. In the last four years, IFAPA has moved its website and with it, domain name changes.there are also some issues to deal with. Firstly, the oldest domain name, ifapa.biz was probably too commercially driven. According to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, dot biz domains were launched as top level domains in 2001. These domains were created to add to the already existing dot com, dot net, dot org international domains. Dot edu were specific to academic institutes (in North America). Dot biz was intended for only commercial or business purposes, however in the by-laws of IFAPA, there is no mention of the organization of IFAPA as a commercial business. Therefore, when this came to my attention in 2009, I felt it was important that this issue of the website domain gets addressed.
The problem at the time, was the www.ifapa.org and www.ifapa.com were already taken, and is still taken by the Iowa Foster and Adoptive Parents Association. This has meant that IFAPA has been on the look out for a suitable domain name. The domain ifapa.net was also taken by another organisation. Therefore, to replace the ifapa.biz domain to another, a completely different domain name was needed. The website went through a revamp and the domain – ifapa-international.net was acquired and was in operation from 2015-2017. However, there were server problems and the domain name could not be accessed if the ‘www’ was placed in front of it. Then, when ifapa.net finally became available in Decemeber 2016, we managed to eventually buy it and registered it.
I am really pleased to see that IFAPA now has a domain name that represents what it does and what it is. According to the by-laws, an abridged version of its fundamental purposes are to, ‘encourage international cooperation’, ‘promote scientific research throughout the world’, ‘make scientific knowledge of APA to national and international organizations’ and that is through its network. The purpose of dot net are for use with organisations with networks. Therefore, it is my belief that the domain name serves the purpose of the organization’s, and the acquisition was the right one.
A few more notes to consider, during the transition period, IFAPA has lost its twitter handle of #ifapa. I have attempted to reclaim the handle through twitter but without success. The new twitter handle is now #ifapanet. In addition, there are three facebook places.
1. Facebook site – the official IFAPA facebook site, a place to get information through Facebook and is moderated.
2. Facebook group – the unofficial IFAPA facebook place for sharing information with people interested in adapted physical activities. Posts are not necessarily moderated.
3. APA practical tools and tips Facebook site – a site to help members and non-members of IFAPA to share tools and tips in APA. The plan it to eventually merge this with the Facebook site.
In this issue we have several pieces concerning APA from around the world. I welcome new contributions for the coming issues. Please do not hesitate to contact me and submit something by sending me an email to Kwok.ng@jyu.fi
Written by Kwok Ng, IFAPA Webmaster and European Representative to the IFAPA Board