CURRICULUM CO-DEVELOPMENT (CCD) PROJECT ACTIVITIES IN THE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AT MAKERERE UNIVERSITY[1]

Introduction

The idea of starting the CCD project at Makerere University was first mooted in 1997 when Professor Pearl Robinson of Tufts University was a visiting Ford Foundation Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Makerere University. The project implementation preparations took off after the Mr. Kasaija Apuuli and Dr. Charles, both lecturers in the Department of Political Science were invited to the United States to undertake training in the Blackboard software in September 2000. Together with their University of Dar es Salaam counterparts, the two undertook training in keyboarding, design of website, teaching of International Relations on the internet among other subjects covered.

Implementation of the project at Makerere University

The CCD project finally took off at Makerere University in March 2001, this was beginning of the Second Semester of academic year 2000-2001 and they involved only one course in political science, namely African International Relations (PS 301). The course begins with the current theoretical and conceptual discourse on regional integration. Then it exposes the students to the various theories of integration, and finally it looks at the current debates in regional integration using examples drawn from Africa, Europe, America and Asia. A new topic on African feminism has also been incorporated in the course.

Before the start of the CCD project activities in the Department of Political Science, a lot of preparatory activities were undertaken to make the project implementation a success. These included;

1. Selecting on-line student participants. It was necessary to carry out a student selection process because of the large number of students. Since the facilities were inadequate, it was agreed that we start with only 25 students.
2. As the Department of Political Science and the Faculty of Social Sciences did not have computer facilities, the students were taken to the computer laboratory of Main Library of the University. Ten computers were availed to the students. However, not all of them were available to the students at any particular time. Due to technical factors, some were not working. As a result there were only two or three computers available for the instructors and students.
3. Training the selected participant students in the Blackboard software. This was done in the main Library computer laboratory using the computers that were available. The training was done by the Instructors namely Kasaija Apuuli and Charles Bwana and the project technical support person, Mr. Elly Gamukama.
4. The Project Online Teaching Program was done through a number of activities including weekly discussions, course reading documents, e-mail correspondence and interactive website exercises such as the virtual chats.

The virtual chat was probably the most innovative and interesting part of the project. It involved students and teachers from the three participating Universities chatting together on the Internet. Well structured issues were posted on the course website beforehand, for students to discuss and give their views, and students were also free to raise their own issues among themselves and or with individual members of staff teaching the meta-course in the three Universities.

But despite all this, there were problems encountered of inadequate computers, inadequate bandwidth and the fact that we were using the Main Library computers which also had to shared, with the rest of the University community.

Expansion of the CCD Project in the Faculty of Social Sciences

A second CCD project workshop was held at the University of Dar es Salaam Tanzania in November 2001. Makerere University was represented by instructors from the Department of Political Science, Sociology and Women and Gender. Thanks to a Ford Foundation grant, the Faculty was able to put up a computer laboratory of its own. Under the grant, the Faculty acquired 20 computers, printers, a CD writer, scanner and other computer accessories. A Local Area Network (LAN) was also done for the Faculty. The laboratory has revolutionized teaching via the internet in the Faculty. Due to this facility, web-based courses have tremendously increased in number in the Faculty. The project has been expanded to Sociology and Women and Gender Departments. Despite this however, a number of problems remain. These include:

1. The demand for the computer facilities is very high while the computers are few. At any particular time only 20 students can be accommodated in the Lab., but the Faculty has a student population of about 4000.
2. The bandwidth is very inadequate. It takes ages to log onto the internet due the small bandwidth.
3. The computer laboratory itself is very small in size.
4. Computer literacy of students and staff is very low.
5. Unlike in developed countries, the computer facilities at Makerere University in general and the faculty of Social Sciences in particular, are not available to students twenty four hours. There are restrictions on the time available for computer use by the students.

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[1] Kasaija Phillip Apuuli, Department of Political Science, Makerere University.