1. ICT Integration in African
Universities:
Challenges and Opportunities
Greig Krull
Saide
ODL Summit - 31 August 2012
2. Agenda
• Context – Motivators and Constraints
• ICT Integration in the areas of Higher Education
– Research, Teaching, Administration
• Challenges and Opportunities
– Environment, Institution, People, Technology, Learning
• Case Study: Partnership for Higher Education in Africa
• Discussion
3. Key Trends in Higher Education
People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and
wherever they want to
Technologies used are increasingly cloud-based, and notions of IT
support are decentralised
World of work is increasingly collaborative, driving changes in the way
student projects are structured
Abundance of resources / relationships via the Internet is increasingly
challenging us to revisit our roles as educators
Shifting education paradigms to include online learning, hybrid learning
and collaborative models
New emphasis on more challenge-based and active learning
The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition
4. Significant Challenges
Economic pressures and new models of education are bringing greater
competition to higher education
Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag the emergence of new scholarly
forms of authoring, publishing, and researching
Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in
every discipline
Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward
with emerging technologies
Challenges for libraries and university collections: how scholarship is
documented, and the business models to support these activities
The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition
5. Context
1. What is your biggest motivator to integrate ICT into
your teaching and learning?
2. What is your biggest constraint to integrate ICT into
your teaching and learning?
12. Environment
Challenges Opportunities
Limited Regional Infrastructure Partnerships between institutions, governments
- Electricity and businesses
- Access to resources
Sustainability Articulate a vision and a strategic framework for
harnessing the potential of ICTs to address a
country's development challenges
Policy Implementation Overarching and guiding national
telecommunications and ICT policies, particularly
as they relate to ICTs in education
13. People
Challenges Opportunities
ICT Literacy of Teachers Provide prior training for faculty when
introducing ICTs
Extra effort and time involved Implement incentive systems that promote the
in using technologies use of ICTs
Lack of readiness of students Provide support and training for students
to use technologies
Shortage of people with Develop internal capacity in the use of ICT
technical skills to maintain ICT
systems
14. Institutions
Challenges Opportunities
Major financial investment • Vision and commitment of the leadership to
needed deploying ICTs
• Require strong institutional policy (resource
allocation)
High cost of acquiring and • Regional approach for joint negotiations on
maintaining ICTs the cost of bandwidth
• Identify ways in which the application of
ICTs will significantly enhance the research
and teaching capabilities
High cost of content (e- Look for freely available resources e.g. e-
journals, digital libraries) journals
Consistency across Centralised units
departments
15. Technology
Challenges Opportunities
Reliability and Security • Create a technology plan (includes long term
budget)
• Funds and staff available to sustain investments
in ICT infrastructure and support systems
System / Data Integration • Piloting (test the efficacy of a technology)
• Possible sharing or coordination of ICT usage
with other institutions
Inexperience in procuring Understand total ownership cost (acquisition,
appropriate ICT installation, power supply, maintenance,
replacement, training etc)
Limited bandwidth Enhance bandwidth/connectivity through the
acquisition of suitable infrastructure
16. Learning
Challenges Opportunities
Delivery methods – online, • Review student needs, technology and
blended etc content availability
• Learn from experience
“Dumping” content Produce high quality content with sound
instructional design
Content not adapted to the Customise learning content appropriately
technology and context
Limited interaction between Effective interaction of students with content,
students and fellow students and teachers/tutors during the
teachers/tutors learning process
17. Summary
• Look to integrate emerging technologies into policies and
programmes
• Identify the specific roles of ICT in enhancing research and
learning capabilities
• Requires sound financial and pedagogical planning
• Provide for adequate infrastructure - backed by capacity
building
• Enhance ICT though inter-institutional collaboration
• Wide adoption of ICTs calls for mindsets and skill sets that are
adaptive to change
18. Case Study
Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA)
Educational Technology Initiative (ETI)
19. Project Objective
“To support interventions in universities to make increasingly
effective use of educational technology to address some of the
underlying educational challenges facing the higher educational
sector in Africa”
The strategic objectives of the PHEA ETI are to:
• Support teaching and learning initiatives that integrate educational
technology
• Promote collaborative knowledge creation and dissemination
• Refine institutional systems so that they support teaching and learning
more directly
• Research and report on educational technology activity in African
universities
20. Universities Involved
University of
Education
Winneba (Ghana)
Kenyatta University
University of Jos Makerere (Kenya)
(Nigeria) University University of Dar es
University of (Uganda) Salaam (Tanzania)
Ibadan (Nigeria)
Catholic
University of
Mozambique
22. OER Challenges
Licensing and
Finding relevant /
Copyright
quality resources
Clearance
Policy implications
Adapting or for ICT and
remixing resources Intellectual
Property
23. Achievements
Growing Deployment Research
Commitment to • Moodle • Case Studies
ICT • Other • Evaluation
• Policies technologies
• Leadership • Online Courses
designed
• Online Courses
taken
24. Lessons Learnt
• Working through rigid hierarchies creates problems in
communication and implementation
• Often Educational Technology units are marginalised
• Capacity development is a key need, including ability to design
projects
• Lack of institutionalised incentives for academic staff to engage
with educational technology
• Limited ICT infrastructure remains a major barrier
25. Conclusions
• Basic problems such as limited bandwidth and intermittent
electricity place significant limitations on the potential for
growth
• However…
• Telecommunications capacity is growing rapidly
• Expanding range of devices at reducing costs
• Explosion of available quality content online that educators
and students can link to
• Need governments and institutions to continue investment
and focus on ICT use in higher education
See the results: www.oerafrica.org (follow links to the PHEA Educational Technology Initiative)
26. Summary
Open Adequate
Education
Infrastructure
Principles
Capacity Adaptive
Building to Change
Look to
Collaboration
add Value
28. References
• Johnson, L, Adams, S, and Cummins, M (2012). The NMC Horizon Report:
2012 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
• Isaacs, S and Hollow, D, (eds) 2012. The eLearning Africa 2012 Report,
ICWE: Germany.
• Commonwealth of Learning. 2009. ICTs for higher education: background
paper from the Commonwealth of Learning. World Conference on Higher
Education, Paris.
• OER Africa: http://www.oerafrica.org/
• PHEA ETI:
http://www.oerafrica.org/phea/PHEAETIProjectHome/tabid/170/Default.
aspx
• http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/
• Tony Mays, Saide, 2012, Recapping OER Presentation
Notes de l'éditeur
New Media Consortium (NMC) – international community of educational technology experts – research looks at impact of educational technology globally in next 5 yearsWork and learning integrated – rise of informal learningDoesn’t matter where it is stored as long as it is accessible – wherever we are and what device we useTeamwork and communication via Dropbox, Skype, GoogleDocs, wikisInformation is everywhere – make sense and evaluateBudget cuts, rise of social networks, hybrid enables best of bothConnect curriculum to real life, more student-centred approaches
Maintain quality while cutting costs – support growing numbers of students with fewer resources; inclusion of corporate learning institutionsCitation-based – difficult to track sharing via social media ,new reviews: link to blogs, retweetingVary rare in education – develop and use digital media literacy skillsRigid processes and practices, status quo, adoption of new technologies seen as outside of role of researcherOpen content, social media, internet access
21st century skills -Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity and innovation, Technology and Life skills
Major constraints:Bandwidth, Limited electricity, Financial resources, Human resources, Hardware, Training
Data processing - Increases in bandwidth and computing power available have made it possible to conduct complex calculations on large data sets Link researchers globally - Greater access to academic resources, greatly enriching research possibilities, Link researchers globallyDigital searching - online full text databases and digital research libraries + Google, Wikipedia Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) - Content dissemination and student support, Online AssessmentGrowing interest in the social networking in education working sites, wikis, communication tools and folksonomiesEarly uptake included systems for: admission and records, examination and transcripts, finance and management informationBetter and increased access to services and informationImprove on the quality and capacity of management information systems to support strategic decision-making and policy implementation;stimulate and facilitate free flow of information throughout the higher education system; respond to the needs and demands for better and increased access to university services and information
5th Annual Survey of Learning Tools,compiled from the Top 10 Tools lists of 531 learning professionals worldwide Implications – number of web applications, few education applications
Provide a sense of focus and direction and spell out clearly how improving the ICT capacity of the education sector can help to address issues of access, equity and quality at all levels. Enable institutions to generate their own internal ICT policies, strategies and plans, they also foster an appropriate allocation of resources.
Since students are often more familiar with these technologies than they areProvide a sense of focus and direction and spell out clearly how improving the ICT capacity of the education sector can help to address issues of access, equity and quality at all levels. Enable institutions to generate their own internal ICT policies, strategies and plans, they also foster an appropriate allocation of resources.
Provide a sense of focus and direction and spell out clearly how improving the ICT capacity of the education sector can help to address issues of access, equity and quality at all levels. Enable institutions to generate their own internal ICT policies, strategies and plans, they also foster an appropriate allocation of resources.foster appropriate allocation of resources determine sustainable staffing issues and faculty roles Enable institutions to generate their own internal ICT policies, strategies and plans, they also foster an appropriate allocation of resources.Funding, talentInstitutional policies and procedures for adopting and adapting technology
Provide a sense of focus and direction and spell out clearly how improving the ICT capacity of the education sector can help to address issues of access, equity and quality at all levels. Enable institutions to generate their own internal ICT policies, strategies and plans, they also foster an appropriate allocation of resources.Build staff capacity in the areas of ICT procurement and contracting Use of unlicensed software an issue
Technology is of little use if the pedagogical skills needed to effectively and optimally use it are lackingDo not underestimate the importance of the effective interaction of students with content, fellow students and teachers/tutors during the learning processHidden costs - substitution of capital costs for labourRequires a paradigm shift to a process that promotes interaction, communication, collaboration and construction
Build staff capacity in the areas of ICT procurement and contracting
Next Steps….
26 distinct sub-projects across 7 HEIs over 3 years
27 ProjectsICT and Elearning PoliciesOnline courses and interactive e-content PortfoliosDigitisation of Exam Papers and ThesesMigration of courses from Blackboard to MoodleOpen CoursewareVideo and Audio LecturesExecutive Information SystemsResearch Papers: Gender ICT Perceptions, Elearning Adoption
Students need to be made aware that assignments etc belong to the institution and openly licensed; contracts for student support for materials development and publicationStaff employment contracts must spell out commitment to materials development as well as IP/copyright licensingKey institutional policies affected: IP, HR, QA of materials development, ICTOther stakeholders: Same QA requirements for OER-based courses as for copyright reserved
Institutional commitments to ICT growing Strong focus on deployment of ICT to tackle teaching and learning challenges:All institutions using MoodleSome deployment of other technologies (mobile, radio, e-portfolios)Extensive growth in number of online courses produced Growing use of online courses on campusesResearch via case studies and external evaluation
Projects : have specific and realistic deliverables and link to already identified institutional prioritiesInstitutional commitment to ICT needed through presence of supportive ICT policies and ICT Funding
The integration of ICTs in higher education is inevitableICT is moving beyond personal computers to mobile technology, Virtual World, Cloud Computing Role of ICTs in improving quality, widening access and cutting costs in the teaching functionTechnology must be seen as a supportive toolThe use of technology needs to add value