Curriculum Co-Development with African Universities:

Experiments in COLLABORATION ACROSS Two Digital Divides

Pearl T. Robinson

Tufts University

This is a project that addresses the need to rethink the pedagogy of International Studies in an age of globalization. It embraces the premise that mastery of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is one of the driving forces behind the fast-paced changes revolutionizing the acquisition, transmission and validation of knowledge. It rests on a foundation of collaborative networks – students producing new knowledge with assistance from their instructors, techies teamed up with content people, and Africans working in tandem with virtual partners. Its ultimate goal is to transform traditional approaches to teaching and learning. Progress is linked to the ability of educational entrepreneurs, wherever they may reside, to develop alliances that create synergism and add value to material resources. Implementation involves negotiating power/knowledge dynamics across two Digital Divides (DDs). The process is neither simple nor easy.

The Curriculum Co-Development (CCD) Project began as a proof-of-concept experiment around the notion of a metacourse. The term metacourse refers to two or more campus-based courses that are linked by an overarching theme, a core body of knowledge, overlapping readings, and a series of interactive web site exercised designed to involve groups of students at distant institutions in a common learning plan. It consists of the sum total of all the lectures and syllabi associated with the individual on-site course; the web page (including text and image documents, video clips and links); and the new knowledge generated by students through their various online interactions. Tufts University and US-AID’s Leland Initiative provided start-up funding.[1] A grant from The Ford Foundation formally launched the Project.

In January 2001 Political Science students at Tufts University, the University of Dar es Salaam, and Makerere University began participating in a metacourse organized around the theme “Regionalism in Africa.” Using BlackBoard’s CourseInfo software as a platform, they interacted through two web sites that connected their respective courses on Regionalism in African International Relations (Tufts), Regional Integration (UDSM), and International Relations (Makerere). This initial effort to develop a prototype for an information technology (IT)-assisted metacourse was construed first and foremost as a way to bring international perspectives to learning.[2] Now into its second year of implementation, the Curriculum co-Development project has evolved, expanded and adapted to meet the pressing needs and conditions that prevail at the African partner universities.

In its present form, CCD continues to rest on a foundation of cross-university collaborative networks and the vision of a pedagogy that improves the quality of education at each site. However it now encompasses three models of technology-enhanced learning: the metacourse, policy chats with virtual guests, and the use of websites to manage large classes. What all these models have in common is a collaborative approach to curriculum development that draws on content, instructional resources, and technical expertise located at two or more universities.

We continue to view the metacourse as a particularly important contribution to pedagogy. However its successful implementation requires careful planning, meticulous coordination, and at times extraordinary efforts to deal with Africa’s bandwidth limitations. We have found that the on-line policy chat with virtual guests is an effective device for connecting students with people from around the world – especially when combined with Discussion Board assignments and web-based documents. Finally, we have established that the use of an e-learning web site can be a remarkably valuable tool for teaching computer skills, providing up-to-date content, and managing large classes.

CCD is barely a year old, and we still have much to learn. The fully articulated model includes an annual Staff Development Workshop that would ensure sustainability. Such a workshop would build in opportunities to

· fine-tune the various models of curriculum co-development,

· learn more about the pedagogy of e-learning,

· hone new disciplinary or multidisciplinary methodologies,

· update computer skills,

· conduct literature reviews,

· share materials on gender analysis and other neglected aspects of the curriculum,

· identify new software and online data sources, and

· building library acquisitions appropriate to the needs of instruction.

Thus far, no such workshop has been planned due to lack of funding.

Human and institutional capacity-building are equally as important for sustainability. What this actually means has to be defined by each of the partner institutions in terms of its own needs. While the focus is on curriculum development, it is critically important that the onsite instructors maintain a good working relationship with the technical support personnel, the Webmaster, the ICT staff at the university’s library, and whoever is responsible for the various training regimes.

At UDSM, the Main Library’s ICT staff under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth Kiondo has developed an excellent training program that includes keyboarding skills, an introduction to TEIL (technology enhanced independent learning), an introduction to the Internet, search engines and search strategies, subject gateways, Blackboard and its applications, an introduction to CD-ROMs, as well as opportunities for intensive practice.[3] This training was devised in 2001 for CCD students in the Regionalism metacourse and repeated this year for students in the CCD course on the Sociology of Forced Migration. The program is a model that is now available for courses throughout the University.

At Makerere, the Faculty of Social Sciences is fully supportive of CCD. The Faculty Administration established an ICT Committee to handle issues related to the development of ICT and also to oversee the use of its new Computer Lab, which was established with funds from the Ford Foundation grant. Dr. Charles Bwana, who is presently the Campus Coordinator for CCD at Makerere, chairs this group. Part of the Committee’s mandate is “to provide for future expansion of the computer lab and sustenance of the CCD project.”[4]

Tufts is a Research I university with a commitment to advanced networking – including Internet 2. In 1996 the campus’ Information Technology Services (ITS) team introduced Blackboard’s CourseInfo software, which enables instructors to create web sites to enhance their course offerings. In addition to setting up and maintaining the web sites and keeping abreast of rapidly changing developments, the ITS team offers ongoing training for instructors, online assistance for instructors and students, as well as technical support and backup. Tufts presently has over 800 individual courses enhanced by CourseInfo web sites in departments across the university.

As a result of CCD, Tufts’ Blackboard web master, Neal Hirsig, has become a virtual ICT colleague of his counterparts at Makerere and UDSM. The same can be said for Keith Malvetti, a Tufts network engineer who has traveled twice with me to East Africa. Malvetti has given informal seminars on networking issues to the ICT staffs at UDSM and Makerere, and through e-mail exchanges he has helped to trouble shoot networking and BlackBoard problems with his counterparts at Makerere and UDSM. As an offshoot of this tech support collaborations, Florence Kivunike, the E-mail and Web Administrator for Makerere’s Directorate for ICT Support (DICTS) spent two-weeks at Tufts studying our ICT infrastructure and management as preparation for setting up Makerere’s e-mail system.[5] Dr. Bruce Metz, Tufts’ Vice President for Information Technology, extended the invitation. Dr. Tusubira, the Head of DICTS, paid for Kivunike’s trip with some of his Sida/SAREC funding. Fostering collaborative relationships among the tech people at partner institutions has now become integral to the concept of CCD.

As of this writing, a total of 15 courses have been taught among our three institutions using CCD resources – 2 at Tufts, 2 and UDSM, and 11 at Makerere. The list is as follows:

Tufts University

2001 Regionalism in African International Relations – taught as a metacourse

2002 People on the Move – conceived as a metacourse

University of Dar es Salaam

2001 Regional Integration - taught as a metacourse

2002 Population and Development: The Sociology of Forced Migration – conceived as a metacourse

Makerere University

2001 African International Relations – taught as a metacourse

2002 African International Relations – taught with CCD Policy Chat

2002 State and Civil Society – conceived as a metacourse

2002 Gender and Environment – web site used to manage large class

2002 The International Women’s Movement

2002 Human Resource Management

2002 Introduction to Sociological Perspectives, Theories and Methods – web site used to

manage a large class

2002 Sociology of Health

2002 Population and Society – web site used to manage a large class

2002 Refugees in the Great Lakes Region – conceived as a metacourse

2002 Rural Development

Bridging Digital Divides

From its inception, the CCD Project has sought to introduce the infrastructure and pedagogy of technology-enhanced learning to students in International Studies courses at UDSM and Makerere, while at the same time making use of e-learning as a tool to enhance critical thinking and analysis on the part of students at all three institutions. In short, it is an ambitious undertaking that attempts to bridge two Digital Divides.

The Digital Divide is a metaphor for describing the gap between the technology-rich who have access to computers and the Internet at school, home and in the workplace and the technology-poor, who have little to no access at all. Digital Divides exists within advanced industrial countries, where the urban inner-city poor and people in remote rural areas have far less access to technology than the societal norm. However at the global level, the Digital Divide evokes the image of a huge canyon, with the continent of Africa isolated on the far side as the poorest of the technology-poor regions in the world. Factors used to measure progress toward closing the digital gap include

· increases in the number and deployment of computers,

· student-to-computer ratios, and

· Internet access.

Across the continent of Africa, the rapid infusion of computers through schools and universities, the workplace, and Internet cafes, is making strides toward bridging this Digital Divide.

To date, inequities in the availability of computer technology and Internet access remain a serious problem in Africa. However a new Digital Divide is now apparent at some of the best schools and universities in the technology-rich countries of the world. It is the divide between those students who are being taught to use the Internet and computer resources in ways that enhance critical thinking and learning, and others who use computers primarily for information processing, storage and access, or to facilitate routine administrative and communications tasks.[6] Many schools and universities that have plenty of computers available are using them in ways that will do little to close this second Digital Divide or to enhance student learning. In effect, the new inequities involve not so much access to computers, but the way computers are used to educate children and mature learners.

Some of the questions employed to assess whether an educational institution is facing the new Digital Divide are as follows:

· How often are students using the Internet and other computer resources to learn?

· Are students using computers that employ sophisticated communication tools?

· Are students using computers that can handle large amounts of data?

· Are instructors getting training on how to use technology to enhance learning?

· How much thought are universities putting into the role technology should play in learning? [7]

For the most part, the significant increase in the numbers and deployment of computers at universities in Africa has proceeded with little attention being paid to the promotion of a central role for technology in learning. The CCD Project defies that general pattern. Rather, it seeks to simultaneously bridge the divide in access to computers and the Internet, and use technology to enhance critical thinking and learning.

What follows below are sketches of three CCD experiments:

Experiment #1 – The Regionalism Metacourse

Three campus-based courses were components of the Regionalism metacourse: Regionalism in African International Relations (Tufts), Regional Integration (UDSM), and African International Relations (Makerere). Each course proceeded separately and at its own pace, though students shared and discussed certain readings agreed upon in advance by instructors. The instructors proposed that roughly 25% of the readings would overlap, and that each course would address some aspect of the following topics:

· The Globalization/Regionalism Debate

· The Conflict in the Congo

· The African Crisis Response Initiative

· Africa in the Global Environmental Policy Debate

· African Feminism.

The expectation was that these themes were would animate the online interactions. Dialogues were to occur as postings on the Discussion Board. We thought that some of the discussions might begin as national dialogues – i.e., interactive exchanges among students and instructors on the home campus. However the intent was to launch two or more international dialogues involving participants from all three universities. No one was thinking digitally at the time. The plan was simply to squeeze traditional materials into the new format. But events intervened. And communications technologies took us in radically different directions.

The metacourse got underway in January 2001, just as the U.S. Presidential elections were in their final phase. American foreign policy was the focus of the second of three debates between candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush, and their responses to a question about nation-building in Africa pricked the interest of Phillip Kasaija, who was watching on CNN in Kampala. Kasaija wondered what Tufts students thought about this exchange. His question was posted on the web site as assignment #1. Thus began the metacourse’s first Discussion Forum – on the proposed Africa Policy of the U.S. Presidential candidates.

At this point, broader networks added a dynamic factor that moved the exercise into a larger realm. The students were instructed to go to the web sites of all the Presidential candidates, look for their Africa policies, and post them on the Discussion Board of the metacourse web site as background for responding to Kasaija’s query. When Harvard professor Jendayi Frazer learned about this assignment, she e-mailed me a policy paper that she had drafted for the Bush campaign and requested that it be posted on the metacourse web site. I then got the names and e-mail addresses of Al Gore’s Africa policy people and posted them on the web site as well. Students were invited to contact these sources and request additional information about the candidates’ Africa policies. They discussed these policies for the rest of the term. UDSM and Makerere students joined in these discussions as well.

Among the documents posted on the site were two video intended for use in the Globalization debate: one of President Clinton extolling the benefits of globalization for the U.S., and another of Patrick Buchanan bemoaning the nefarious effects of globalization on Americans. The Buchanan clip was an eye-opener for our East African partners. They were quite surprised to find that such a prominent American politician could be anti-globalization.

The second discussion Forum was initiated by a question that UDSM Instructor Andrew Kiondo plucked from the headlines. Students were invited to share their views on the forthcoming birth of the African Union. None of the Tufts students knew anything abut the AU, so they went online, found some articles, and posted on the metacourse web site. Not only did this topic fill the Discussion Board for the remainder of the semester; it also became the focus of our very lively first Virtual Chat.

In both these cases, the digital format and e-communications proved far more amenable to the immediacy of unfolding events than traditional sources of course materials. Students became purveyors of information, able to construct knowledge from various online sources. Moreover, they related these events to the theoretical literature on regionalism and globalization. They became participants in an international virtual learning community as they performed various learning assignments.

Andrew Kiondo’s assessment of this experience is worth mentioning – particularly in light of the sharp criticism that has befallen the World Bank’s African Virtual University:

[8]

Experiment #2 – Policy Chat with Virtual Guests

In January 2002, the African International Relations course at Makerere began experimenting with a second CCD format. In this version, a stand-alone course is enhanced by an e-learning web site that facilitates a combination of asynchronous learning[9] exercises and real-time virtual chats with one or more invited guests.

Makerere instructors Phillip Kasaija and Charles Bwana initiated two African foreign policy debates on their site: one on Collective Security Structures and the other on the War against Global Terrorism. The first followed a traditional format of posting a paper and inviting students to respond. The second used the web site to pull together a mix of data sources and online exchanges in a learning module that could only have happened through the medium of ICT. It resulted in a Virtual Chat with President Bush’s White House Advisor for Africa.

A lecture given by Professor Ali Mazrui at the International Conference Center in Uganda provided an opening for a policy chat. Mazrui’s theme of “Political Violence and Air Safety” sparked a national debate in Uganda about how to address the root causes of global terrorism. Addressing America’s War against Terror, he linked the September 11^th terrorist attacks to the violent politics of the Middle East, and highlighted Palestinian grievances over territory and foreign occupation. Bwana and Kasaija downloaded the text from the online version of The Monitor newspaper, placed it on their BlackBoard web site, and brought the debate into their classroom.

As an alternative construct, they added a policy paper by Stanford University’s Larry Diamond, who argues that chronically bad governance is one of the root causes of terrorism. In “Winning the New Cold War on Terrorism: The Democratic-Governance Imperative,”[10] Diamond stresses the importance of democracy promotion strategies as a long-term solution to terrorism.

Consultations with my Makerere colleagues resulted in a decision to contact Jendayi Frazer (now at The White House as Senior Director for Africa at the NSC) about participating in a policy chat. She accepted our invitation, and then suggested additional documents from The White House and State Department homepages. These documents support the Bush Administration’s current policy – i.e., that beyond the military response, poverty alleviation strategies are crucial for any long-term solution to terrorism. Its prescription for Africa emphasizes trade promotion, increased funding to combat HIV/AIDS, and development aid for countries that demonstrate a commitment to good governance. As the students prepared for their White House Chat, the web site had documents that outlined three root causes of terrorism: the Palestinian situation, poverty, and chronically bad governance. For two months the students read, discussed and debated these issues on their Discussion Board and during in-house virtual chats.

On May 27^th we all met in the chat room of the African IR web site. The time was set for 8pm, when there would be few other users requiring access to the system. Makerere students logged on in their new computer lab (set up with assistance from the CCD Project). The Dar contingent gathered in the UDSM’s Computing Centre. Kasaija, on study leave in Sweden, was unable to join the chat because he couldn’t find a computer at Upsala University with a Java-enhanced browser. Instead, he communicated with Makerere students via e-mail during the chat.

A two-minute videotaped message from Frazer was screened at both locations. Then we all chatted in real-time on our PC monitors. Our words were projected onto a white board, enabling guests to follow the dialogue. The BlackBoard software created a transcript of the entire 45-minute session.

The chat was fast-paced. Many questions were hard-hitting and often critical of U.S. positions. Frazer was articulate, ready with her facts, and a good listener. Toward the end of the hour she announced a Presidential visit to Africa – probably in February ‘03.

The next morning, I briefed Makerere’s Vice Chancellor, P.J.M. Ssebufuwu. We talked about the technical difficulties and regretted that the bandwidth limitations necessitated shutting out all other university computer users for three hours as a precaution. We also shared the pride of accomplishment. The hope is that the high visibility of a White House Virtual Chat will inspire an upsurge of interest in academic technology across the university.

Experiment #3 – Web Site for Large Classes

One of the most vexing problems at both Makerere and the UDSM is the burden of large class size. It is a problem for the instructors, who must handle large numbers with few-to-no tutorial assistants. More seriously, it is a problem for the students, who are being deprived of the opportunity for meaningful contact and exchange with their instructors. An e-learning web site can go a long way toward addressing both of these problems.

Makerere’ Sociology instructor Gabriel Jagwe-Wadda experimented with BlackBoard as a communications management tool. His combined Sociology 216-316 Population and Society class had an enrollment of 107 students. Insufficient books as well as a lack of intimacy posed serious pedagogical problems. Solution: Create an e-learning web site.

This was a no-frills site. It contained Word files, narrative text, and links to online documents and course-related web sites. There were no pictures, no video clips, no multimedia embellishments. Using the software’s Group function, Jagwe-Wadda divided the students into 13 clusters so that they could work with partners. He posted an “As You Read …” folder on the site’s Assignments Page, where students could go for suggestions and tasks meant to foster a deeper understanding of the various readings.[11] Assignments, coursework papers and tutorial questions constantly took students to the site’s Documents and External Links. The External Links connected to web sites in the course’s topical areas as well as to general issues. Moreover, Jagwe-Wadda in the role of e-moderator was a frequent presence online, providing e-guidance and substantial feedback to the students.

This experiment had a number of positive outcomes. By the end of the semester, the site registered 36,309 hits. The overwhelming majority (75.23%) were on Main Content Areas – indicating that students made extensive use of the online documents. Logons remained steady throughout the semester, and access occurred almost entirely during hours that the Faculty’s computer lab was open.

In this regard, the Lab’s access policy was a key element in the overall pattern of successful implementation. Lab hours are Monday – Friday, 9am – 10pm, and Saturday, 9am-5pm. Access is free to students in web site-enhanced courses. The equipment is well maintained. All PCs in the Lab are Internet accessible. Timing software on the PCs helps manage the flow of traffic through the lab. And the lab is staffed with a mix of professionals and students to enable it to remain open during mealtimes.

The success of Sociology 216-316 is particularly instructive for anyone interested in effective uses of ICT to create a new environment for learning and teaching at universities in Africa. Its simplicity bodes well for widespread replicability. Moreover, as the CCD Project has demonstrated, the basic skills needed for implementation can be acquired in a 3-day training workshop.[12] To the extent that such e-learning courses are embedded in cross-university collaborative networks, they stand a much better chance of creating synergy and achieving sustainability.

Eiplogue

What I have presented here are provisional notes on the evolution of a concept. Not covered are the CCD Project’s role in the “Gender and Technology” project at Makerere, start-up activities that are a prelude for establishing a Digital Repository to support courses, and the ongoing need for training and staff development workshops. The Appendix provides additional data on CCD courses, annotated photographs, and assessments by some of my academic partners at Tufts, Makerere and UDSM.

[1] Pearl T. Robinson, The Metacourse: From Concept to Implementation, report prepared for Computer Frontiers, Inc., US-AID, Leland Initiative, Medford, MA, 2001.

[2] Pearl T. Robinson and Steve Cohen, “Curriculum Co-Development: Asynchronous Networks for Bringing International Perspectives to Learning,” paper prepared for the Carter Lecture Series, sponsored by the African Studies Center, University of Florida at Gainesville, 23-25 March, 2001.

[3] “TEIL Training for Sociology Students,” University of Dar es Salaam Library Services Newsletter, Issue No. 9, June 2002, p. 2.

[4] Dr. Charles Bwana, Monthly Status Report for the CCD Project for the Month of January 2002, p. 1.

[5] Mrs. F. Kivunike, Email and Web Administrator, DICTS, “Study Trip to Tufts University, 1^st – 20^th November 2001,” December 2001.

[6] Education Week on the Web, May 10, 2001, “The New Divides.”

[7] Education Week on the Web, May 10, 2001, “The New Divides.”

[8] Andrew Kiondo, “The Metacourse: Implementation at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,” paper presented at the Ford Foundation conference on Innovations in African Higher Education, October 1-3, 2001.

[9] Such networks involve people who are learning together – but not necessarily at the same time nor in the same place. ALNs are networks for anytime - anywhere learning. The model combines self-study with substantial, rapid, asynchronous interactivity with others, usually through the Internet. In ALN learners use computer and communications technologies to work with remote learning resources, including coaches and other learners, but without the requirement to be online at the same time.

[10] Larry Diamond, “Winning the New Cold War on Terrorism: The Democratic-Governance Imperative,” Institute for Global Democracy, Policy Paper No. 1, March 2002.

[11] The “As You Read …” folder was a device introduced to the CCD Project by Sociology professor Paula Aymer of Tufts University.

[12] A small grant from the Carnegie Corporation supported a CCD Workshop, held November 21-23, 2001 at the University of Dar es Salaam’s Computing Centre. This is where Gabriel Jagwe-Wadda got his basic training BlackBoard’s CourseInfo software and the methodology of CCD. Back at Makerere, he worked closely with Johnson Mwebaze, the Systems Administrator at the FSS Computer Lab. Through e-mail and virtual chats, he worked with me, and sociologists Paula Aymer of Tufts and Datius Rweyamamu of UDSM.