Summary

The African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR) project, initiated by the University of the Western Cape (UWC), is a collaborative effort among several African higher education institutions. It attempts to create educational and business opportunities that contribute towards the development of Africa through Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) development activities. To start off this effort, it has taken an existing e-learning platform application, Knowledge Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL) that was developed at UWC, and rebuilt it to run on a FOSS platform. The new version of the software, KEWL.NextGen, is based entirely on FOSS and it has an innovative modular architecture that is implemented using a model-view-controller (MVC) design pattern and offers great flexibility to adapt the framework for any purpose. It also has unique features like the support of offline authoring of content, active mirroring, and instructional design capabilities.

The FOSS collaborative development model utilized by the AVOIR project allows many institutions, organizations and individuals all over Africa to volunteer or contribute to the project. With the choice of using FOSS and its related technologies, the core AVOIR team has been able to benefit from FOSS and offer FOSS-related services to the local government, education and business sectors. All this has contributed towards capacity building and as the project management is based at UWC, the project has resulted in a broad knowledge of FOSS being developed there too. This has enabled UWC to successfully implement an enterprise architecture strategy in which FOSS technologies and solutions are preferred.

The first phase of the KEWL.NextGen e-learning platform development has been largely completed successfully. As a result of this success, alliances have been established between AVOIR and initiatives for other projects utilizing FOSS. Some of the desired shorter term outcomes of the AVOIR project like the use of higher educational institutions to drive the production of innovative software and to provide advice, accessibility and enhanced local support for FOSS have been realized with the KEWL.NextGen project. However, it is still too early at this stage of the AVOIR project to determine if the desired long-term outcome, in which FOSS is to contribute significantly towards sustainable growth and development within Africa, can be realized.

Background of Organization

The AVOIR project is a collaboration by several African higher education institutions to build a group of core FOSS developers in Africa who are able, through software development activities, to create educational and business opportunities that contribute to development on the continent.

AVOIR is not primarily a software development project; it is a project about human development, capacity building and creating opportunities for people through the formation of transnational alliances both within and outside of Africa. Core developers from African universities and other organizations participate in most of the software development activities, particularly the first software project from AVOIR, KEWL.NextGen. After the first working code had been released, other institutions and individuals have been encouraged to volunteer their contributions to the project in true FOSS community fashion.
 
The AVOIR project is governed by a board consisting of volunteers within the partner institutions. Each of the formal partner institutions receives a salary for one developer funded by AVOIR and there is a partially-funded project manager and funded researcher based at UWC. Participating institutions are encouraged to seek their own funding for extended participation, this being the only mechanism currently available to bring new partners into AVOIR.

The project was initiated by UWC, and at present UWC employs 13 full-time developers, graphic artists, usability testers and a project manager. There is also a very strong internship programme, and at any one time there are at least three interns working on the project. AVOIR's partner network consists of 15 developers and development teams scattered throughout Africa, all of whom are actively involved in developing and contributing to the projects that AVOIR is involved in.

Objectives of Project

The main goal of the AVOIR project is to see if concepts of knowledge ecology can be used to build a sustainable and expanding system of free software creation that contributes to economic development in Africa. The knowledge ecology can be viewed as having three core components: people, processes and technology. These are seen against the background of the higher education and broader socio-political landscape in much the same way that energy, nutrients and trophic relationships interplay with the broader physical environment in natural ecosystems.

Some of the desired outcomes of AVOIR are as follows:

• Higher education institutions in Africa to drive the production of new and innovative software for use in the higher education, education, business and government sectors.
• The availability of better advice, accessibility and enhanced local support for FOSS in education, business and government.
• An increase in the number of graduates trained in the application of FOSS principles and enhanced employment opportunities for graduates of higher education institutions.
• Enhanced relationships between higher education and business built around the development and support of FOSS.

Aside from the above medium-term outcomes, a long-term outcome is to contribute towards sustainable growth and development within Africa.

The target audience for AVOIR includes public higher education institutions and software developers in Africa, working in collaboration with one another and with software developers in other parts of the world. Side benefits of the tools being developed will also accrue to other educational institutions, including schools, private education and training organizations, and businesses.

The African higher education institutions involved in the project are: University of the Western Cape, University of Jos, Catholic University of Mozambique, University of Dar es Salaam, University of Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Universite Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Makerere University, Uganda Martyrs University, National University of Rwanda, University of Ghana, and the University of Eduardo Mondlane. In addition, Nelson Mandela Metropole University, University of Namibia, Sokoine University (Tanzania), Polytechnic in Blantyre (Malawi) and Monash University (Johannesburg campus) have found their own means to participate. Outside of Africa, Washington State University, Colgate University and Kabul University are involved in various ways.

FOSS Application

Description

The first FOSS application that is being developed under AVOIR is KEWL.NextGen. This is a port of the original KEWL learning management system that was developed to run on the proprietary Microsoft Windows platform. KEWL.NextGen is based on a PHP framework called KINKY (a recursive acronym for KINKY Is Not KEWL Yet). KINKY is implemented using an MVC design pattern, with a front controller web implementation, and has a fully modular architecture. Where possible, it uses PHP PEAR heavily, including the database abstraction. Apart from a web platform, the application also has offline authoring and active dynamic mirroring (ADM) capabilities to allow improved wide-area collaboration activities.

Choice of FOSS

The AVOIR project is a project on capacity building and the creation of opportunities for the people of Africa through information and communications technology (ICT). The idea is to to build a sustainable software ecosystem that contributes to economic development in Africa. FOSS is used as the enabler for this to take place. As a first project, an existing application, KEWL, is implemented in the FOSS scripting language, PHP, and this is used as the basis for building an improved next-generation FOSS learning management system - KEWL.NextGen. A FOSS collaborative development model allows many institutions, organizations as well as individuals to volunteer or contribute to the project. Using FOSS and the FOSS development model and environment, AVOIR is able to bring together cutting edge educational research with cutting edge computer science to produce an advanced application development framework and a learning management system based on it. With this project, the core AVOIR team has been able to offer services on e-learning as well as the development and use of FOSS to the government, education and business sectors.

Development and Implementation

The KINKY application framework and KEWL.NextGen were developed following good design principles, resulting in a framework that will cater to the requirements of other new applications across many application domains. The application framework used is an implementation of the MVC design pattern as it is generally interpreted for web applications. This has been implemented using the Front Controller web design pattern, thus providing all modules with access to core functionality, and enabling the core framework classes to respond consistently across modules. The view part of the MVC architecture is implemented using templates. Currently only PHP templates are used, although a template engine can easily be incorporated into the architecture if it becomes necessary.

By using this architecture, a modular system is implemented, making it easy to add new modules on an ongoing basis without needing to alter any code other than that of the module being implemented. In addition, most of the key terminology used to describe functionality is abstracted. This has enabled the developers to use the framework to build applications as diverse as group-collaboration, content management systems, portal applications, clinical tracking, hospital pharmacy management, labour relations management and others by enabling specialized and unspecialized modules to be mixed in ways that would not be possible without abstraction.

KEWL.NextGen makes use of the following FOSS software: Apache web server, MySQL database, PHP with the PEAR Library and a number of PHP extensions. While the AVOIR project recommends implementing KEWL.NextGen on the GNU/Linux operating system, it is also possible to use it on Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, 2003) and Sun Solaris platforms.

A guide for planning implementation is available. For the lowest and least costly implementation, the guidelines provide for implementation using a single entry-level server capable of supporting a few hundred simultaneous users. In such a case, the database and web server are on the same machine. With a dual processor server, and a large amount of RAM, such a system can support a few thousand users, but has no redundancy at all. At the other end of the scale, KEWL.NextGen and other KINKY-based applications can scale to support even millions of users through load balancing, clustering and other techniques.

KEWL.NextGen and all KINKY applications can implement an innovative technique known as ADM. ADM allows a set of KEWL.NextGen servers to actively mirror all data and file system objects among one another in realistic time according to the limitations of available bandwidth. Servers among which such objects are mirrored are participants in an ADM virtual cluster and are known to one another. If the state of data or file system objects change on any server in the system, the changes are propagated to all other servers in the ADM virtual cluster. This means that learning content, interactive discussions, uploaded assignments, etc. are accessible across servers in the ADM virtual cluster. This should happen even in bandwidth-constrained environments to the extent possible. Advanced data compression techniques will play a role in facilitating this process.

Deployment

KEWL.NextGen has been deployed in each of the partner institutions, and many of them have established or are establishing e-learning support teams to support academics wishing to use the system. In partnership with the NetTel @ Africa  project, the system is being used to deliver e-learning for the Master’s Degree programme on ICT Policy and Regulation that is offered collaboratively by 21 universities. Outside Africa, the system is also in use at Kabul University in Afghanistan. Various other implementations are in early stages of development.

Deployments of KEWL.NextGen in projects centred at UWC include:

• Alumni Portal (keeping track of Alumni and their activities)
• Brawaamsisswam Community Outreach (mentoring system for high school children)
• Electronic Theses and Dissertations
• kPostgraduate (post-graduate mentoring system)
• Student Enrolment Management System (SEMS)
• Clinical tracking of Nurses
• HIV/AIDS training for teachers
• kGroups group-based collaboration
• Thetha community bulletin board
• The University of the Western Cape portal

There have also been deployments of KEWL.NextGen in other projects outside of UWC and these include:

• Namibian e-learning programme
• Commonwealth of learning in Namibia and SchoolNet Namibia
• National Information Society Learnership (Ecological Informatics)
• NetTom in Malawi

Impact

The AVOIR project has had a tremendous impact on UWC and most of the partner institutions. Some of this is a result of the institutionalization of KEWL.NextGen, but some of it is also a result of having developed a broad base of knowledge and skills through AVOIR and the projects with which it has synergy.

KEWL.NextGen has been fully institutionalized at UWC. This included the development of an e-learning strategy and the creation of an e-learning support unit with proper support procedures and training. The staff at UWC have begun to use KEWL.NextGen and the older version of KEWL will be phased out soon.

UWC is currently implementing a Free Content and Free Open Courseware strategy. This strategy will require all courses to have a representation on KEWL.NextGen, and that content be made available with preference for a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. In relation to this, it is noted that while it is now possible to import all of the MIT Open Courseware into KEWL.NextGen, actual deployment is hindered by its restrictive license. Other, less restrictive alternatives to the MIT OpenCourseware, for example the Rice University Connections project, are being explored.

The impact on partner institutions is only just beginning to be explored, but for many of them, KEWL.NextGen and other KINKY applications have already become part of their institutional strategy. In addition, for some, business opportunities are being created out of the software.

Lessons Learned

• Within the AVOIR project, some key lessons have evolved that are worth reporting:
• Nodes should grow through their own processes (for example, by creating opportunities for student projects).
• Nodes should be able to replicate (for example, by providing training and support to institutions wishing to establish new nodes).
• Agility must win over politics.
• Inclusive not exclusive.
• The ecosystem as a whole should work towards sustainability beyond research funding.

Current Status of Project

The first phase of the KEWL.NextGen e-learning platform development has been completed and the software currently is in version 1.3. Apart from this, the following applications have been released as part of the AVOIR project:

• kGroups - a system for online, group-based collaboration
• kForums - a system to run the community board at UWC
• kPortal - a system to run the UWC main portal

Other applications like kClinicalTrack for tracking nursing students in clinical placements and kSurvey for running web and paper-based surveys will be released in June and July of 2006 respectively. Several other applications are also in the release stream for 2006, including version 2 of the KINKY framework with full support for services implementation.

Two developer workshops have been conducted, and developers in each of the partner institutions are now fully trained in all aspects of the methodology of the project. Several conference presentations have been made and peer-reviewed conference papers have been published. Alliances have been established between AVOIR and a number of other projects and initiatives, including the NetTel@Africa programme, Kabul University and the Afghan E-Quality Alliance, Philippines E-Quality Alliance, New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and the Department of Science and Technology (South Africa).

Benefits and Challenges

A major problem in African and other developing countries is one of access to expensive licensed propriety software. AVOIR encourages the use of FOSS and under it, projects like the KINKY framework and KEWL.NextGen, make the software and content freely available and accessible to anyone with access to a computer. Having access to the source code and given the modular nature and database abstraction, the framework and its applications move beyond a learning management system and can be applied to other areas such as business and government. The modularity of KEWL.NextGen and its underlying KINKY architecture makes it flexible and relatively easy to incorporate new features and functionalities.

The general benefits that the AVOIR KEWL.NextGen project has brought to its participants are capacity building and expertise in FOSS development work. Being based at UWC, the project has resulted in a broad knowledge of FOSS being developed at UWC. This has enabled the institution to embark on an enterprise architecture strategy that stipulates that any new technology implemented at UWC has to be done using FOSS unless it can be proven that it cannot be implemented that way. This strategy has resulted in savings for the institution where FOSS solutions are used over proprietary ones, and more importantly, it has allowed the institution to integrate systems to a level not possible with proprietary software and within its budget.

Other Information

One of the principles of AVOIR is that it should work towards sustainability. It is too early in the project to have made much progress in this matter, particularly in those institutions that are still new to the collaborative development of FOSS. However, at UWC, several options for sustainability are being explored and these can serve as models for the other AVOIR partners. In addition, the business world is exploring how to create business opportunities out of the work that was done at UWC and beginning to establish partnerships with UWC in a number of countries in Africa.

Conclusion

The AVOIR project has successfully completed the first phase of the KEWL.NextGen e-learning platform by migrating over to FOSS an earlier implementation of KEWL. As a result of this success, alliances have been established between AVOIR and initiatives for other projects utilizing FOSS. All of this will go towards helping achieve the objective of the AVOIR project in which the knowledge ecology, comprising people, processes and technology, is used to build a sustainable and expanding system of FOSS creation that contributes to economic development in Africa. In the meantime, some of the desired shorter term outcomes of the AVOIR project like the use of higher educational institutions to drive the production of innovative software and the availability of improved skills, accessibility and enhanced local support for FOSS have been realized with the KEWL.NextGen project.

Contact Information

Project: African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources (AVOIR)
Organization: AVOIR / University of the Western Cape (UWC)
Contact Persons: Paul Scott / Derek Keats
Street / Postal Address: Modderdam Road, Bellville, Western Cape, South Africa
Emails: pscott@uwc.ac.za / dkeats@uwc.ac.za
Phone: +27 21 959 3759
Fax: +27 21 959 1234

Websites

The AVOIR project website
http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/

The KEWL.NextGen project site
http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/projects/nextgen/