ICT Integration in African Universities:

Challenges and OpportunitiesGreig Krull

SaideODL Summit - 31 August 2012

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

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

Key Trends in Higher Education

The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition

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

Significant Challenges

The NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition

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?

Motivators and Constraints

ICTs in Higher Education Areas

Research Teaching

Administration

Top tools for…?

1. Research 2. Teaching

3. Administration

Top 100 Tools for Learning in 2011

© 2012 Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies

Types of Challenges

Environment Institutions

People Technology

Learning

EnvironmentOpportunitiesPartnerships between institutions, governments and businesses

Articulate a vision and a strategic framework for harnessing the potential of ICTs to address a country's development challenges

Overarching and guiding national telecommunications and ICT policies, particularly as they relate to ICTs in education

ChallengesLimited Regional Infrastructure- Electricity- Access to resources

Sustainability

Policy Implementation

People

OpportunitiesProvide prior training for faculty when introducing ICTs

Implement incentive systems that promote the use of ICTs

Provide support and training for students

Develop internal capacity in the use of ICT

ChallengesICT Literacy of Teachers

Extra effort and time involved in using technologies

Lack of readiness of students to use technologiesShortage of people with technical skills to maintain ICT systems

InstitutionsOpportunities• Vision and commitment of the leadership to

deploying ICTs • Require strong institutional policy (resource

allocation)

• Regional approach for joint negotiations on the cost of bandwidth

• Identify ways in which the application of ICTs will significantly enhance the research and teaching capabilities

Look for freely available resources e.g. e-journals

Centralised units

ChallengesMajor financial investment needed

High cost of acquiring and maintaining ICTs

High cost of content (e-journals, digital libraries)Consistency across departments

TechnologyOpportunities• Create a technology plan (includes long term

budget)• Funds and staff available to sustain investments

in ICT infrastructure and support systems

• Piloting (test the efficacy of a technology)• Possible sharing or coordination of ICT usage

with other institutionsUnderstand total ownership cost (acquisition, installation, power supply, maintenance, replacement, training etc)Enhance bandwidth/connectivity through the acquisition of suitable infrastructure

ChallengesReliability and Security

System / Data Integration

Inexperience in procuring appropriate ICT

Limited bandwidth

Learning Opportunities• Review student needs, technology and

content availability • Learn from experience

Produce high quality content with sound instructional design

Customise learning content appropriately

Effective interaction of students with content, fellow students and teachers/tutors during the learning process

ChallengesDelivery methods – online, blended etc

“Dumping” content

Content not adapted to the technology and contextLimited interaction between students and teachers/tutors

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

Case Study

Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA)Educational Technology Initiative (ETI)

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

Universities Involved

Catholic University of Mozambique

University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)

Kenyatta University (Kenya)University of Jos

(Nigeria)

University of Education

Winneba (Ghana)

University of Ibadan (Nigeria)

Makerere University (Uganda)

Project Examples

POLICIES

ePortfolios

OER Challenges

Licensing and

Copyright Clearance

Finding relevant / quality resources

Adapting or remixing resources

Policy implications for ICT and Intellectual

Property

Achievements

Growing Commitment to ICT• Policies• Leadership

Deployment• Moodle• Other

technologies • Online Courses

designed• Online Courses

taken

Research• Case Studies• Evaluation

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

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)

Summary

Adaptive to Change

Look to add Value

Capacity Building

Open Education Principles

Collaboration

Adequate Infrastructure

Thank you

greigk@saide.org.za

greigk_za

Greig Krull

Discussion

www.saide.org.zawww.oerafrica.org

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

http://www.slideshare.net/greigk/ict-integration-in-higher-education-in-africa

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