University of Jos: First PHEA ETI Visit Report

Dates: 23 – 27 March 2009

Venue:
Day 1 Senate Chamber, Administrative Block, Bauchi Campus

Day 2and 3: ICT Centre, Permanent Campus

SAIDE/CET Team: Andrew Moore and Monica Mawoyo


Table of Contents

Introduction

UniJos Context

Review of pre-visit Questions

Perceptions of impact of PHEA ETI participation for UniJos

Envisaged level of stakeholder involvement in the PHEA ETI project

UniJos Policies to support use of educational technologies for teaching, learning and research

Current status of technology use at UniJos

Educational technology use research, teaching and learning

Budgeting for educational technologies at UniJos

Framework for rewarding research output

Review of visit meetings and workshops

Day 1 Workshop

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3: Review of Institutional IT Policies and Directives

Sessions 4 and 5

Day 2 Workshop

Session 1: Presentations of UniJos ICT projects

Session 2: Recap of Day 1 activities and presentations

Session 3: Presentations on Potential PHEA projects by faculty/area of work

Session 4: Developing fundable projects

Day 3 Workshop

Session 1

Session 2

Feedback/discussion on presentations

Research on educational technology at UniJos

Session 4

Conclusion and way forward

Appendix A: ICT Directorate Organogram

Appendix B: UniJos e-Learning Strategy

1. Executive Summary

2. Introduction

3. The Strategic Framework

4 e-Learning Goals and Strategies

Appendix C: Modification of SIS since 2004

Appendix E: Departmental Initiatives – E-learning Initiatives at UniJos

Introduction

This report is a summary of the Partnership for Higher Education (PHEA) Educational Technology Initiative (ETI) first visit proceedings at University of Jos (UniJos), Nigeria. The visit, which took place from 23 – 27 March 2009, was aimed at introducing the university management and workshop participants to the PHEA ETI project, as well as initiate the process of developing educational technology projects for consideration for funding for Part B of the PHEA ETIinitiative. The SAIDE/CET Coordinating team were Andrew Moore and Monica Mawoyo and the UniJos coordinating organiser was Daniel Yakmut, the ICT Directorate Director. The purpose of this report is to:

  • Provide brief contextual background about UniJos,
  • Summarise and discuss responses to pre-visit questions that were sent to the key coordinator of the PHEA ETI project at UniJos, Daniel Yakmut,
  • Describe the key activities undertaken on the five days of the visit, and
  • Outline the way forward for development of projects as agreed with the PHEA ETI committee at the end of the first visit.

UniJos Context

A federal funded university established in 1975, Unijos,is the only university in Jos. The Nigerian public university system is based on two models, the federal system and the state system. Federal universities are funded by the federal government while state universities are funded by the particular state they are located in. UniJos has four campuses and eight faculties: Arts, Education, Environmental Science, Law, Medical Sciences, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences.

At UniJos, teaching and learning are supported by a library system that spans across all four campuses. The library provides access to electronic theses and dissertations from the Universities of Pretoria, West Virginia, Mississippi, the Australasian digital theses programme, and Caltech library services. The university provides access to the following electronic databases, some of which the university pays a subscription fee to be able to access:

  • Journal Storage Project (JSTOR)
  • EBSCO Host
  • Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA)
  • Oxford Journals
  • Health Internetwork Access to Research Institute (HINARI)
  • Database of African Theses and Dissertations (DATAD)
  • Online access to Research in the Environment (OARE)
  • National Virtual Library

Users also have access to the e-granary digital library, which consists of over three million full text resources including sites, journals and e-books. The library also offers internet resources based on faculty and subject area, for example, internet resources for the Faculty of Arts would include religion and different types of religions or English Language and accompanying resources on Shakespeare, World’s literature etc.

Review of pre-visit Questions

UniJos has an ICT Directorate headed by Daniel Inusa Yakmut. Daniel was awarded a Cisco Networking Academy‘s Global recognition award for his contribution to the Networking Academy in Africa. He was one of 13 people awarded with this honour from 3, 000 nominations.[1] The ICT Directorate has a direct relationship with the Vice Chancellor’s office and this enables firm decisions and achievable progress to be made with projects as the VC is always briefed on projects being undertaken in educational technology in the institution. The following organogram shows the governance structure of UniJos and the ICT Directorate’s position in the structure in relation to the VC’s office.

Source: University of Jos

As this governance structure shows, the ICT Directorate has a very direct relationship with the VC. The directorate has about 48 staff.[2]The roles of the directorate are:

  • Coordinating the university’s network services through provision and maintenance of all ICT infrastructure at UniJos,
  • Acquisition of educational technologies,
  • Providing pedagogical and technical short courses for staff and students to get used to the system. This training includes basic ICT operations,
  • Training staff on the Moodle Learner Management System. There are some departments in the faculty like Maths and English who are making use of online learning for some of their courses.

The ICT Directorate is currently setting up a multimedia lab for use by lecturers for teaching and learning.

A set of 11 questions were sent to Daniel Yakmut before the visit. The questions were aimed at establishing:

1. Perceptions of impact of the PHEA ETI project on UniJos,

2. The envisaged level of faculty, management and other stakeholder participation in the PHEA ETI project,

3. The degree to which UniJos had policies on educational technology to support teaching and learning and research,

4. The current status of technology use to support teaching and learning and research and management,

5. Infrastructure, connectivity and bandwidth capacity,

6. The specific teaching and learning and research projects on the use of educational technology at UniJos,

7. Budget allocations for expenditure on ICT for teaching and learning and for research, and

8. The degree to which the university had a framework for reward of research output.

The following discussion is based on the responses received from Daniel Yakmut. Where possible, the discussion will draw on events and processes and information gathered from the three-day workshops and interaction with various people in the university, to substantiate Mr Yakmut’s responses. The responses to these questions were very useful for preparation for the visit as they were able to map out the context within which the SAIDE/CET team would be working. The responses made the team reconsider the agenda for the three-day workshop to make it most useful for the participants.

Perceptions of impact of PHEA ETI participation for UniJos

Mr Yakmut indicated that he believed the PHEA ETI Project would impact the university of Jos in the following ways:

  • Improving uptake of technology in teaching and learning,
  • Motivating staff who were already using educational technologies for teaching and learning,
  • Encourage sharing of practice and information and skills by lecturers using and researching educational technologies for teaching and learning,
  • Create a rich repository of peer-reviewed e-learning resources,
  • Increase the number of courses available online and using educational technology.

The first visit to the University of Jos revealed a fledgling educational technology use culture, which seemed to have been rejuvenated by the workshops. A few individuals are working in isolation, e.g. an English Department lecturer Jerome Dooga and a professor in the department of anatomy Professor Oguranti, or in small groups, for example the Department of Maths group working on the Hewlett Packard (HP) Technology for Teaching (TfT) project. The fact that there are a few individuals already working on educational technologies in their specific subject areas encouraged active thinking at the workshops for lecturers and support staff to think about how ICTs could specifically address the needs of their department or unit.

Envisaged level of stakeholder involvement in the PHEA ETI project

Mr Yakmut pointed out that the University Management (the Vice-Chancellor, Deputy-Vice Chancellor (Academics), Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), Registrar, Bursar and Librarian) were all highly committed to e-learning. Part of this commitment was evidenced through their participation in drafting and approving of the university e-learning strategy, which has been included as Appendix B in this report. The university has constituted an implementation committee to drive implementation of projects as identified in the e-learning strategy.

The high level of commitment in integrating ICTs to university administration, teaching, learning and research processes was observed during the visit through the following acts:

  • The VC and DVC met the SAIDE/CET team on their arrival at UniJos,
  • The DVC Academics officiated the opening of the three-day workshop programme, where he urged participants to work with the SAIDE/CET team to gain knowledge on developing projects that can “stand the test of time” and
  • The DVC had a meeting with the SAIDE/CET team and the ICT Director at the end of the visit to gather information on progress that had been achieved during the visit.
  • The attendance by staff from various faculties and support services was high on all three days of the workshops.

At the first meeting, the VC offered his apologies as he would not be able to attend any of the workshops as he would be engaged with the reporting on findings of post election violence in Jos in 2008 as well as a senate visit. The DVC Administration, registrar and bursar were not able to attend the workshops. Although the librarian and deputy librarian were not able to attend the workshop, their participation was through a representative, a medical library librarian.

The perception by Mr Yakmut was that there would be keen participation in the PHEA ETI project, all eight faculties in the university would participate in the workshops and the project. The newly formed research management office was also envisaged to participate in the project and workshops. The School of Post Graduate Studiesalso expressed an interest in getting involved. The following specific departments and units were also envisaged to participate in the PHEA ETI workshopsand project:

  • ICT Directorate: This unit isin charge of the provision and maintenance of all ICT infrastructures in the University. It also provides leadership and direction for the use of ICT.
  • Department of General Studies: This department teaches general courses that are mandatory to all students at different levels. As a result, they are faced with the challenge of large classes most of the time.
  • Directorate of Academic Planning and Management: This is the quality assurance unit of the university that regulates and monitors all departments to ensure that minimum standards are maintained in all programmes of the University.
  • Research Management Office: This office has been recently constituted to manage research development and dissemination in the university.
  • Advancement Office: This unit is responsible for marketing and public relations as well as fund raising for the University.

ICTs have important implications for all these units and how they can enhance their work processes. There was a very strong showing on all three workshop days, from the ICT directorate. The General studies department and the Advancement office were also represented and by the end of the workshops had started conceptualising quite concretely how technology could be used for their own specific work. All faculties were represented at the workshops.

UniJos Policies to support use of educational technologies for teaching, learning and research

UniJos have put together an e-learning strategy (Appendix B), which outlines four goals for the development of educational technology in the institution. These goals are:

1. Provide a high quality and robust Institutional Leaning Management System (LMS) with appropriate e-Learning tools and resources.

2. Enhance the integration and co-ordination of the diverse universityagencies that currently support teaching and learning

3. Provide appropriate and sustainable infrastructure and support

4. Encourage academic staff to take the lead in embedding e-Learning inteaching, learning and assessment

5. Encourage continuous evaluation and assessment of e-LearningProcesses

6. Support the development of research into e-Learning[3]

A committee was set up by the VC on 8 May 2008, to address ICT development in the university and this committee was inaugurated in May 2008. The committee produced the first draft of the e-learning strategy in August 2008. This draft was reviewed by the committee in September and a final draft produced. The final draft of the strategy was submitted to the VC in September 2008 and it was been considered by management in January 2009. The e-learning strategy is closely aligned with the university e-learning policy that has been approved by management.

Current status of technology use at UniJos

UniJos has several services running that use technology. The university has a locally produced Student Information System (SIS) that supports online registration of first year students, student results and online payments of fees. A description of how this SIS has been modified since its roll out in 2004, is available as Appendix C of this report.

While the institutional preference for learning management system is Moodle, KEWL is also in use in the university. There has been progress in the acquisition of electronic resources by the library, although Mr Yakmut’s position is that more resources could be acquired. The library also provides access to free databases. The faculty of law subscribes to Hein Online and Wes law, which are accessible to students. Through the DATAD project the University library is digitising the abstracts of postgraduate research theses and dissertations.

UniJos has wired and wireless access. University management including deans and directors, as well as administrators, have network access to their offices, which can enable them to access the SIS, the web and mail services. However, not all the heads of departments have connections, mostly at new campuses. It is estimated that only 45% of management utilise technology. Further, only a few administrators are competent in using ICTs. The ICT Directorate is embarking on a training campaign to try and get more managers and administrators competent enough to utilise technologies effectively. Mr Yakmut indicated that use of educational technologies among senior academics is low, at an estimated 25%, although some academics have been utilising educational technology in exceptional ways. The varied adoption of educational technologies was evident at the workshops, where some academics and administrators displayed much confidence in speaking about their engagement with technologies, while others were very unsure and were amazed at Andrew’s presentation on the possibilities for education with technologies. Most participants utilised the workshops opportunity to ask more questions and gain practical knowledge from those pioneering projects with ICT.

The available 205 computers for student use on campus arenot sufficient. However, as a result of network availability and increased adoption of ICT in teaching, students areacquiring their own computers, with an estimated 1000 students owning their own laptops ordesktop computers. The university’s 205 computers are located in computer labs for student access. There is full utilisation of available computers by students.

According to Mr Yakmut, the connectivity and bandwidth on the Local Area Network (LAN) is generally good. A significant portion of the LAN backbone runs on gigabit speed, so, the connections at most access locations is 100mbps, with only a few locations running 10mbps. The Internet connection is via VSAT with a current bandwidth of 6Mbps (4.5Mbps down and 1.4Mbps).

Because of the national power crisis, electricity has remained a huge challenge for the University. However UniJos has made efforts at creating an “Oasis of power” using battery backup to provide power to critical infrastructure and services. The electricity crisis is quite acute, but the university seems to be managing it well. On the first two days of the workshop, electricity went off several times during workshop presentations but generators would take over quite quickly.

Educational technology use research, teaching and learning

UniJos has, since 2001 provided Cisco training, specialised training in Internet Technologies that utilises e-learning, with most of the training materials and tests accessed online. Mr Yakmut cited the departments of mathematics and anatomy as taking the lead in the innovative use of technologies for teaching and learning. The department of Anatomy in the MedicalSchool has designed and produced instructional CDs and also placed interactive learning and teaching materials online. The department of English is also engaged in using Moodle to tutor and teach students in some English courses, including a course in discourse analysis which makes use of a social discussion forum for debating issues. The projects from the departments of anatomy, English and maths will be discussed in more detail in the discussion of ICT projects from UniJos that were presented on Days 2 and 3 of the workshops.

UniJos, led by the ICT Directorate, hopes to accelerate the integration of e-learning in various departments. To realise this, the e-learning fellowship, a pool of innovative academic staff that have been chosen to demonstrate the benefits of utilising ICT in teaching, learning and research has been formed. Implemented projects in the three aforementioned departments have led to research evaluating the impact of the technologies in use, for teaching and learning.