The purpose of this report is to summarize findings and present recommendations from a multi-method assessment of the status and capacity to engage key web applications and technologies at the seven East African institutions of public health higher education which comprise the LIPHEA  / HEALTH  Alliance.  The assessment, conducted by Tulane University in spring 2009, assembles information on internet connectivity, usage of existing LIPHEA web applications, e-learning, open learning resources, digital libraries and the engagement of important web trends such as social networking and software as a service.   It is intended to (1) identify common challenges, success and priorities in critical areas of IT and web technology, and (2) to produce a set of recommendations for regional network-level activities in the short and long term in order to strengthen the capacity of individual institutions to engage these resources and each other on the web. 

Connectivity

While upgrades to the regional fiber optic network are on the immediate horizon, the overall level of connectivity at partner institutions is still low, bandwidth is expensive and the amount of bandwidth purchased from ISPs is not necessarily provided.  Some institutions are in the process of experimenting with bandwidth management strategies and techniques and experiences related to these strategies should be shared among Alliance institutions.  Access impediments related to power outages and computer hardware and software maintenance are also points where best practices could be shared regardless the status of the regional fiber optic network.

Several institutions are effectively using local area networks (LANS) for delivery of high speed web applications such as online learning systems to internal audiences.  LANS are useful environments for developing new and experimental web applications. 

Existing Web Applications

The LIPHEA Knowledge Center is currently functioning primarily as an archive and source of general information about the LIPHEA and HEALTH Alliance.  The most popular sections of the website are the Featured Presentations and those areas which present information about the LIPHEA project itself and member institutions.  The site is not being utilized as a collaborative team space or a source of fresh news and events.   This could be due to a combination of factors including bandwidth limitations (slow page load speed in the region), infrequent updates, low awareness of the site, and less relevant materials or inconvenient organization of materials.  Page load speeds should be addressed with regional, optimized hosting and the provision of a low bandwidth version of the site.  In order to address update frequency, a formal web publishing process and team should be established.  Awareness of the site can be increased through the implementation of push and pull syndication features, particularly a regular LIPHEA newsletter highlighting recent activity and events.  Periodic usage surveys could also be done to ensure continued relevance and accessibility of content.

E-learning

All seven institutions have engaged e-learning technologies to varying levels.  There is wide interested in a few learning management systems, particularly Moodle, KEWL Next Gen, Blackboard and TUSK.  Interviews have revealed that relative to the university as a whole, the schools/departments of Public Health tend to be relatively early adopters with regard to e-learning, and are often confronted later with issues of integration and data conservation once university level policies are established.  Conservation of data and existing course material should be a key guiding priority, and exit strategies should be maintained regardless of system selection. 

With an eye toward making inter- and intra-institutional harmonization less awkward, the HEALTH Alliance could be leveraged to promote open standards for learning object and course creation, storage and sharing.  At the network level this could perhaps occur through a series of regular meetings of Alliance IT and instructional design staff focused on the sharing of lessons learned and best practices with regard to standardization, system selection, faculty adoption and sensitization, program implementation and technical tools and techniques.  Existing university level e-learning policies and systematic reviews of software and strategies are valuable and should also be shared among the Alliance members.  A HEALTH Alliance toolkit for the production of standards compliant courses and course materials might be an excellent starting point for network collaboration.

Open Educational Resources and Digital Libraries

Open educational resources (OER) are educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and--under some licenses--to re-arrange, improve and redistribute.   A new generation of important initiatives and services focused on the archival, organization and syndication these OER are now accessible on the web.

Current utilization of OER among HEALTH Alliance members appears to be extremely low.  Much health-focused OER content developed internationally is already available through sites and archives such as MERLOT and a growing number of university OpenCourseWare implementations.  The HELATH Alliance network could be utilized to collaboratively assemble and develop a more contextually relevant set of OER focused on key subject areas and geographies.  This kind of activity could be particularly useful in the creation and maintenance of regional standardized curriculums such as that being developed for zoonotic diseases.  OER standards, utilization and faculty sensitization could be another very profitable focus for potential regular web-technical workshops.

With regard to digital libraries, interviews confirmed that local digital collections are usually not continuously maintained and lose relevance over time.  Living, community-supported systems should be investigated; a directory of Alliance member publications may be a very good pilot activity.  Most institutions have been able to access the WHO HINARI system.  This valuable source of online biomedical and health literature is made available to developing countries at no cost, and is highly recommended.

IT Human Capacity

All of the schools/departments employ their own IT staff or consultants, and it appears that these people are being employed in a very broad set of IT-related tasks.  Interviews suggest that most of the IT specialists are initially employed for hardware and systems administration, but there is an apparent need to move beyond this hardware focus to a strengthening of the knowledge management (KM) capacity of this group.  Regular IT workshops could focus on common IT and KM priorities such as knowledge management systems, e-learning best practices, OER for public health, web publishing processes, appropriate engagement of new technologies and technology partners and previously identified high priority system/network administration issues such as antivirus strategies and bandwidth management.  Better networking of IT personnel could be an efficient way to increase the depth of breadth of specialist knowledge accessible to each institution.  IT internship and youth engagement strategies, perhaps modeled after Google “Summers of Code” and software development sprints, might be good way to fill the pipeline with the most talented young IT personnel available in the region.

Social Networking, Software as a Service and Mobile Apps

•    Social networking, primarily using Facebook, is already happeing. Potential for twitter
•    SaaS still limited primarily to Google Apps
•    Some mobile apps have been developed

Conclusions

The LIPHEA / HEALTH Alliance has proven to be a strong, effective and productive network, and has already collectively produced a variety of shared resources.  Through strategic activities—often via external or international partners—and despite short term issues such as connectivity limitations and the relative short supply of IT personnel, the Alliance members have managed to experiment with and engage e-learning and other web technologies well in advance of their host universities.  In leveraging this healthy network for IT/KM priorities through intra-alliance technology partnerships, the assessment team sees a new opportunity to build web-technical capacity for health and health education.  Through collaborative sharing of knowledge, lessons and best practices, and in combination with institutional sensitization to issues such as intellectual property and open standards, the already healthy rate of innovation among the partners can be sustained and the depth of technical and specialist knowledge available to partner Universities substantially increased.