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New Masters programme in ICT policy and regulation for Southern Africa
This month seven universities in Southern Africa met at the University of the
Western Cape together with their American and UK-based resource partners to plan
the final details of a new international master's programme in Telecoms and ICT
Policy and Regulation referred to as NetTel@Africa.
One of the things the group of 30 participants had to decide upon was a
learning management system for the online courses that will form part of the
programme. A learning management system (LMS) is a web-based platform to
facilitate the development, management and delivery of online courses. A typical
LMS will contain content building and linking tools, as well as tools to
facilitate the construction of learning by participants in an online course.
Such tools include threaded discussion forums, online assignments, problem-based
learning tools, tools to facilitate group work, and a variety of real time
communications tools.
The group looked at some commercial products, as well as the Knowledge
Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL) from the University of the Western
Cape (UWC). KEWL was initiated by Prof Derek Keats, currently Executive Director
of Information and Communication Services, to facilitate research into online
learning. KEWL is an Open Source product, so it is available free to anyone who
wishes to use it for educational, commercial or any other purpose. However,
according to Dr Maria Beebe of the Center to Bridge the Digital Divide at
Washington State University, what interests the NetTel@Africa network about KEWL
is not the price, but the fact that we are free to modify it to suit our
purposes. This type of freedom is simply not possible with most proprietary
licensed products. Several modifications suggested by the NetTel@Africa group
have already been incorporated into KEWL, and others are under development for
release in the next few weeks.
The research and development of KEWL was funded by the National Research
Foundation (NRF), Telkom, Siemens, Cisco, and the Department of Trade and
Industry through its Technology & Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP).
It is currently continuing development as part of the Centre for Internet
Computing at UWC, an initiative of Telkom, Cisco and THRIP, with a recent boost
of three years of support from the Carnegie
Corporation According to Prof Keats, the next stage of KEWL
development is to get developers in Africa to contribute to the Open Source
development to make this into a truly African product.
NetTel@Africa was established when the Telecommunications Regulators
Association of Southern Africa (TRASA) identified the need to build capacity in
telecoms policy and regulation. TRASA was established in December 1997 in line
with the SADC Protocol on Transport, Communications and Meteorology. The NetTel@Africa
masters programme consists of 10 course modules and a thesis or equivalent, and
will be offered for the first time starting in the last quarter of 2003. A
postgraduate diploma will be possible after one year of full time or equivalent
study, and a Masters degree after two years. The seven participating
institutions in Southern Africa are the University of Dar es Salaam, the
University of Zambia, the University of Botswana, the University of the Western
Cape, the University of South Africa, the University of the Witswatersrand and
the University of Fort Hare.
For further information regarding the NetTel@Africa programme at UWC, contact
Cedric Muleya, Department of Information
Systems, University of the Western Cape.
You may wish to see http://www.nettelafrica.net
or keep an eye on the Information & Communication Services website at UWC
for further announcements.
For further information regarding KEWL, please see http://kewlforge.uwc.ac.za/
(development site) or http://kewl.uwc.ac.za/
(UWC's online learning site using KEWL), or contact Sean
Legassick. KEWL will shortly be available for download from our CVS
server, meanwhile please contact Sean Legassick for access.
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