Baby Steps for Leveraging ICT in Universities in Developing Countries

Let me start with a disclaimer, —- I don´t like baby steps, to me they usually end up in medocre solutions, I would rather fail at doing something really big and thus set the stage for someone else to do something significant by learning from my failure. However, sometimes, baby steps have their place – to set things in motion so here we go.

While many CEOs now find it trendy to talk about how their organization is using IT, that typically  means that there is Internet access and some dysfunctional website which is rarely updated. Sometimes i must admit, these organizations are overwhelmed by the complex solutions we in IT try to pitch. Here are a few very uncomplicated things any serious organization can start doing now …. especially higher institutions in developing countries:

1. Put a PDF copy of every major form used in the organization online. Yes forms are the instruments of bureacracy and in most institutions, there is rarely a  process that doesn´t use a form or another. In my experience, sometimes, there are no copies of these forms available or a copy that has been photocopied so many times it is illegible. So just make fresh copies and put them online in PDF — a fresh one is there for anyone to download and print. Going a step further, each form should have accompanying instructions for how to fill it, who to send it to and what else to bring along when submitting the form.

In the future, this could evolve to the ability for students, employees, customers to fill and submit these forms directly online.

2. Put soft copies of popular literature online – employee handbook, procedures for doing certain things, etc. Not to complicate issues (some of those documents might not be for public consumption), only put non-sentive information online.

This shall in the future evolve to an intranet or private part of the website accessible only to users that login, depending on their credentials.

3. Soft copies of all lectur notes (of course lecturers who simply pass of their old student notes or shamelessly copy other´s notes may resist this , slides, lab manuals etc that students use. I had the terrible experience of having to read notes that I could barely see [50th generation photocopies].

In the future, this shall evolve towards a full-blown Learning Management System (like Moodle).

4. Official lists of the institution eg Admission lists and why year books? (So now any organization can fish out those that falsely claim to have finished from one university)

In the future, this shall evolve to online applications for applying for admission online,  online registration, e-transcripts and to enable third parties authenticate certificates against forgery.

5. Payslips should be sent to employee´s email accounts (even if they are still using free webmail for now .. the ideal will be all employees use the institutions email system)

These things are easy, cheap and don´t require any contractors so COME ON!!

Strategic Issues in ICT for Education

I wouldn’t know the issues that education faces in the developed world … but I have no doubt that developing countries’ educational systems face some unique challenges. ICTs have the potential to alleviate some of those issues but it must be done right.

Well as a citizen of the developing world, I understand these issues first hand. Most organizations love doing grand strategies on how to achieve some business goal but too often those strategies remain and die in the head of strategic and senior management. Why? — because the real executives of an organization i.e. the people who interact with the customer/users are left out of those strategy sessions (real executives are people who DO/execute, like middle managers, life field personnel – how much executing does the CEO do? – that’s what Henry Mintzberg will say). Without the buy-in of these executives, strategies ultimately fail.

I will go deeper into these issues in a later blog, but let me just lay the groundwork here for some of the ways we can leverage ICTs effectively to alleviate the rot in our educational sector.

 

1. Web 2.0 may be disruptive …. but therein lies its potential: Web 2.0 is about user-generated content and leverages technologies like Wikis, blogs, RSS, podcasts, social networks etc… I call it mass democratization. It is disruptive in education because it will significantly change power dynamics that exist in the situation where the lecturer is God/prophet who dispenses information which the students should (in most cases) unquestionably consume. But Web 2.0 unleashes synergies in intelligence and passion that is more than what any single person can come up with. I believe the collective IQ of students (although I prefer ‘learners’) amplified by passion for what they learn and brought together via Web 2.0 exceeds that of any single lecturer/professor/guru.

 

2. In the developing world – evolutionary strategies won’t get us there - we need revolutionary strategies that let us leapfrog years upon years of institutionalized mediocrity and obsolescence. Evolutionary strategies are for ICTs are akin to re-inventing the wheel – a very stupid thing in an age where mass collaboration enables us learn and benefit from other’s experiences and mistakes. Revolutionary strategies will have lots of casualties (in terms of obsolete skills, out-of-touch and clueless people and old technology) – harsh maybe but sometimes the only way to new life is destruction (like the phoenix)

 

3. Effective strategies must focus on solutions to business problems, NOT infrastructure & technology: Just look at the Web 2.0 poster children like Wikipedia and Digg. The former was born out of the desire to leverage collective knowledge and the age-old philosophy of ‘two heads are better than one’. The later was out of the desire not to have what we read being filtered by editors of dubious expertise and questionable motivation. These survive and will keep thriving because the focus on a business goal or problem to be solved and NOT on technology gives them great flexibility in the means of attaining that goal – whatever technology that will be used to achieve those ends will be used.

When a strategy focuses on solutions and not technology, it becomes easier to make a business case for it (and more importantly you can get the buy-in of the usually technologically clueless CEO ). As an example, both the CEO and CIO may easily agree on the following :

‘We need to deploy a Virtual Learning Environment and online testing to improve quality of teaching and reduce over-burdened teaching corps. Such a a project will cost us $2 million.’

However, both the CEO Chancellor and CIO and especially the CFO/Bursar are not likely to agree on the following

‘We need to implement a broadband fibre optic network to connect all buildings of the university to the Internet.This will cost us $1m’

The fact is that a the first project may well involve the second! but the second is a ‘those guru’s thing’ as far as the business side is concerned while the first could well be ‘ … something that makes my job easier/makes me look good’

4.0 De-couple the new ICT Unit from the Core Organization: The IT department/unit/directorate represents a force that wants to change the status quo – something other parts of the organization/institution may not be very enthusiastic about. In the case of universities, the same mentality, human resources practices that have led to this much ineptitude and rot can not suddenly make the kind of significant and revolutionary changes that must be made to help the institution leapfrog its current weaknesses. Thus the IT department should leverage a few strong institutional assets (eg Alumini, researchers etc) but decouple itself in terms of HR strategy, work ethic (we all know the work-ethic of the typical civil servant in the developing world ….). This decoupling should largely free the unit of the stifling bureaucracy and enable it quickly learn from its mistakes and correct its course.

 

Finally, I couldn’t agree more with Tom Peters that the IT departments should increase their failure rate – yes …. the faster you try and fail at different things, the more likely you will stumble on the one that works. After all, strategy is useless unless it is executed to yield business results that are SMART (specific, measurable, attained/achieved, repeatable, and timely)

Shalom people, and let the rants/barbs/comments flow.

 

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