Alex Little

Last Wednesday, Roman, Jaime and Mike all arrived from various parts of the world to run the first training week for the Digital Campus project and to get the servers and labs labs set up.

Everything for the rest of the week was rather stressful as we were chasing up where equipment was and arranging to get it moved into the right place. The bureaucracy of getting all the items logged into the store, plus the lack of communication or any sense of urgency has been quite astounding. To get the items into the labs, they first must be moved into the main store, I then write a letter confirming that the items match the specification, then they are registered with the main university store manager, only then can the equipment be signed out and transferred to the college, which then has the responsibility of moving the items from the main store into the lab. With many different items, arriving at different times, to different university sites, then being distributed to two different labs, for different colleges creates rather a huge scope for mistakes, inaction and buck passing.

One reason we were given that the monitors hadn’t been moved into the labs was that the terminals hadn’t been moved and there was no point moving the monitors until the terminals were in place. Sure, the monitors are quite useless without terminals, but vice versa is also true, leading to a ridiculous catch-22 situation.

On Saturday, we went up to Wukro for a bit of what should have been relaxation. The tables for the labs are being built by the agricultural and we’ve been waiting a little while for these to be completed and delivered. When we called in the morning to ask about the tables, we were told, rather ominously, ‘you’d better come and see them’. We arrived at about 6pm to be told that the tables had just left on a truck bound for Mekelle Uni. As it was highly unlikely that any of the University store managers would at work at 7pm on Saturday evening, Father Angelo set off in his truck to catch up with them to stop them but they’d had too much of a head start. I’m unsure where the tables spent the night, but I was then called at 7am Sunday morning to say they were at the University, is someone around to receive them? I was still in Wukro and again, unlikely that anyone else would be available at the Uni at that time on a Sunday. after a few phone calls back and forth, the guards at the Uni allowed the tables to let left there for us to collect, check and sign for on Monday. The tables were actually finally located on Wednesday morning.

On top of all this we also had the training course and associated arrangements to finish off ready for the 5 day training course to start tomorrow (Monday). The following Tuesday the Spanish Ambassador is due to visit the project. As the Spanish Cooperation (AECID) organisation is funding the project, it’s important we have something to show in terms of labs/servers etc – so keeping many fingers crossed that next week is less stressful than the last, though I have major doubts about this!

We did manage to fit in a little relaxation by visiting a rock church near Wurko on the Sunday morning. We were accompanied by two researchers who have already written a couple of books about Tigrayan rock churches, who were also allowed to take photos of every page of the churches old prayer book.

On Friday, I finally rebuilt our Moodle server, following the power supply failure of the old server. The site is now running on the same server as the main Mekelle University website and so can be accessed off campus (another big achievement) at:

http://www.mu.edu.et/elearning

Initially, we’ll use this Moodle installation as the place where the Engineering and Health Sciences tutors can upload their courses for the Digital Campus pilot project, but any other college or department is welcome to use this server for hosting their courses.

The building of the labs for the Digital Campus project is all coming together at once, the servers and terminals are on their way up from Addis as I write, the tables are almost completed and will be delivered by the end of the week, plus the other networking and electrical work is almost finished. All of this is on top of organising the training week (16th to 20th November) for tutors, followed by week of training for th ICT staff. This training is being run by the Digital Campus project team, with the others arriving from around the world during this week.

Given how busy I’ll be over the coming 2-3 weeks, I’m unlikely to be checking email much or updating my blog, so be prepared for a long catch up post in a month

Last week, I was asked to go and visit the Mums for Mums centre to help them to help them out with the redevelopment of their website. Mums for Mums is a local NGO which helps women into work by giving them training and childcare, plus much more. They’ve recently won a grant of 100,000 USD from the Stars foundation to expand their activities. This is a huge amount of money for a relatively small NGO in Ethiopia.

They’d like to revamp their existing website so they can better advertise the work and projects they’re able to undertake with the new funds. The current site was built by a VSO volunteer when she was working in Mekelle a few years ago – she worked at the Computer Science department at the University and started the elearning project that I worked on last year. As she has now left Ethiopia, I feel it would be more appropriate if the office staff could keep the site up to date themselves, rather than depending on someone abroad to do this for them.

My first task in this work is to write a proposal they can send to Stars, so at least they can show they’ve started thinking and planning how their website will be renovated.

Updating the site to use a content management system (not sure which one we’ll use yet) and training the staff will be straightforward enough. The more complex facility that they’d like is the ability for people to donate money online, as they receive many offers of donations, often from people in the UK. Currently there are two ways in which money can be donated. Either by transferring money directly into the Mums for Mums bank account in Mekelle, or by donating through a partner charity (Friends of Ethiopian Children in Need – FECIN) in the UK.

Neither of these methods are ideal, transferring money directly by international transfer is expensive (approx 40 GBP per transfer) and so is only appropriate for very large donations. Using a partner charity in the UK means they are dependent on this other charity.

We had a discussion about how we can find a solution for this, but is difficult as Mums for Mums is not a registered charity in the UK and so can’t use (for example) the JustGiving website. Registering as a UK charity may be a solution, but they’ll need representation in the UK, plus all the associated paperwork.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how we could find a good solution to this problem would be gratefully received. There must be many other NGOs around the world who receive donations from the UK without being registered as a UK charity, so we’d be interested to hear any possible solutions. Please either leave a comment below or email me directly (alex@alexlittle.net)

On Thursday, rather than celebrating bonfire night – the meaning of which would have been a little lost on most people here, we celebrated Martin’s birthday. Over the week we’d had several other VSO volunteers coming to Mekelle, so the promise of a good meal out and some birthday cake was enough to convince them the stay on an extra day or so. Mike, an IT volunteer from Maychew technical college came up on Tuesday to look at the IT infrastructure at the University and also for me to show him the main computer suppliers in Mekelle. Cathy and Peter came over from Axum, I’d visited them the previous week, to see the English Language Improvement Centre (ELIC) and the Academic Development Resource Centre (ADRC). Marcel also returned to Mekelle after an extended back in Australia.

For Martin’s birthday meal we went to the Boston cafe, one of the main ferenji restaurants in town. We had a great turn out, with about 25 people coming along, so was lucky that accidentally 2 cakes had been ordered.

With being based in the Computer Science dept, it’s quite rare for me to have to travel for work, other than just across to the other side of town to visit a different campus. This week however I was invited to attend a training workshop over at Axum University to find out about some English language training software that has been donated to the University there, and has also been made freely available for Mekelle Uni to install too. The training had been arranged by the previous VSO English Language Improvement Coordinator (ELIC) at Axum, and has been taken over by the new VSO volunteers who arrived a few weeks ago, so was also a good opportunity to get to meet the new volunteers.

Four of us from the Uni (plus driver) set off on Sunday morning. What I thought was a very optimistic start time (7:15am) for a Sunday, turned out to be only 15 mins short of our actual departure – very unusual for such good timekeeping here.

The ELIC centre at Axum looked very well organised, with a computer lab set up and a very clean (dust free) room. The software used for the training was from a company based in Hong Kong, Clarity English and one of their directors, Andrew, had come over to do the training and has donated the software to both Axum and Mekelle Universities. There are a range of different programs for different aspects of learning English and all seem very easy to use, though staff and students would need little introduction in how they can use the software and get the most out of it.

Out of the 8 programs (CDs), two were of particular interest to me. Firstly was a training for the IELTS certification. I’ve been asked by the Computer Science department here to help set up an IELTS certification centre, as an income generation scheme for the department. So will be good to be able to offer students facilities to train and test themselves before taking the exam. Secondly, there was some test/quiz authoring software. Although this had fewer options than the quiz module in Moodle, it had a much clearer and cleaner interface in terms of authoring, so would be much easier to get teachers trained up in how to create their own quizzes than it would be with Moodle.

The software looks good and will be great if we can find some computer labs where it can be installed for students access, all need to ensure is that the labs have headphones with mics available to get the most out of the software.

Whilst in Axum we also had chance to visit a few of the historical sites too, though most I had visited on my previous visit last year. Our route back to Mekelle took us via Adigrat – I’ve never taken this route back before, having always gone through Abi Adi. The Axum – Adigrat – Mekelle road is well paved almost the entire way, so although further than via Abi Adi, it’s quicker and more comfortable.

We stopped off at the Yeha Temple, which, according to our guide, at 2500 years old is the oldest building in Africa, and was the centre of the Yeha empire (before the Axumite empire). We were told that ibexes were then common in the area and can now only be found in the Simien mountains. I’m sure this will be related to that fact that as they held some religious significance, ibexes were sacrificed in the temple (although obviously I could be wrong!) – we were shown the area in the temple where it’s believed the sacrifices took place.

In a small museum next to the temple we were shown some carved rocks and pottery that had been found in the surrounding area by farmers, although a problem is that when farmers find historical items, they are often sold on to collectors.

On Wednesday last week (21st Oct) we held the introductory workshop for the Digital Campus elearning project (project website). All seemed to go well, but we still have some difficulties with the schedule and tutor selection. The problem is that we’re looking for staff who will be available to train fellow staff next year (i.e. they won’t be leaving for masters at the end of this year) and these tend to be more senior staff who already have high workloads. Those staff who do have the time (generally the new staff who graduated with their first degree last year) are highly likely to leave at the end of this academic year. Bit of a catch-22 in knowing what to do for the best. The amount of training required for the certification is also going to be difficult to fit into the coming semester. Approximately 20 days will be needed which, ideally, needs to be completed by the end of the first semester, less than 3 months away and unsurprisingly the teachers will be spending much of their time teaching.

As I’m sure many of you will be aware, it is 25 years since the reports of famine in Ethiopia appeared on the BBC. But a quarter of a century later (and who knows how many millions in aid) there are new reports about potential famine in these same areas affected all those years ago. The BBC has recently broadcast from Mekelle about the situation (here and here), and Oxfam are again raising money to try to prevent famine occurring again across east Africa. There’s also a report on the Guardian website about the impact of the images sent back from Ethiopia 25 years ago.

From my point of view, working at the Uni in a well-off regional capital, I see little or no sign of the food shortages which are being reported back in the UK. I’m certainly not saying that problems don’t exist, I know that I’m in a privileged position, given my location, job and income – but for me, it’s hard to know how bad the situation is, or is becoming. It’s also likely to be affecting more remote rural areas far worse than where I’m based. There are no reports in the local media about the situation (in either the local language or English language newspapers), so my main sources of information about the problems are from outside Ethiopia, usually BBC & UK newspaper websites or from those I know who work with medical organisations/NGOs and spend more time out in the rural areas. As far as I’m aware the situation at the moment is certainly just about potential famine, and the number of people needing extra food aid (on top of the food aid normally given out) is 6.2 million – which is actually the same as last year.

Since coming to Ethiopia last year, I’ve always been wary about bringing up the subject of the 1984/85 famine. Most people I meet or work with are under 30 and so either weren’t born or were extremely young at the time. Also, those Ethiopians who have been abroad say that all anybody else in the world seems to know about Ethiopia is famine and long distance running and I don’t want to perpetuate the feeling that that’s all anyone knows or cares about Ethiopia.

Yesterday, Martin and I met up with Mike Wooldridge, the BBC journalist who has been sending back the recent reports, but was also one of the reporters here in Ethiopia reporting on the 1984/85 famine. He’s an ex VSO volunteer and his daughter was a VSO volunteer at the Teacher Training College here in Mekelle a few years ago. It was really interesting getting the chance to meet Mike, finding out about the changes that have taken place in Mekelle and Ethiopia generally over the last 25 years and also being able to show him around the University to demonstrate the work that VSO is currently doing.

Yesterday the monitors, keyboards and mice I’d ordered last week arrived. In order to get them accepted by the store, all the items needed to be checked that they met the specification and also that they work. The items have just spent 2 days in the back of a truck from Addis, so there was a chance that some had broken route.

Checking the monitors worked was quite a time consuming affair, especially after the store manager told me that the electricity was ‘slow today’. I soon found out what she actually meant – that the electricity wasn’t running at the normal voltage. I returned later in the afternoon to find the electricity had resumed it’s normal speed.

Fortunately the only problem was that the monitors were supplied with a 3 round pin plug, rather than two pin – the shop which supplied them happily took them back and exchanged them, although I had to get a gate pass – signed and stamped by both my line manager and the stores manager to be allowed to take the incorrect items off the campus and return with the correct ones – all of which is quite time consuming.

Now I’m waiting to get a ‘receiving voucher’ from the store to prove that the equipment really was delivered – especially important for Alcala Uni who are providing the funding and I’m sure will want to know that their money hasn’t just disappeared!

What I did find a little odd was that in the store was a small boat and Yamaha outboard motor, given there are few streams, let alone rivers or lakes around here, I’m not sure exactly what this is for. I later found out that it’s for the agriculture dept – although I’m still unclear in which body of water it ever gets used.

A few months ago (March 09) I surveyed all the computer science students to find out about their access to computers, how much they used the University computers, whether they had access to a computer outside those provided by the department, their skills in completing basic computing tasks and whether they felt elearning/online activities would be helpful in their studies.

After a delay of far too long, I’ve finally now had chance to write up the results – I can already think of ways that the survey could have been improved – re-wording of questions etc – so it may not be wonderfully scientific, but it does give an indication of the some of the issues involved. The full report (pdf) can be downloaded, but while you’re waiting for that to download here is the summary (all comments/feedback welcome):

In March 2009 all of the students in the computer science department were asked to complete a survey
relating to their access to computers, basic computing skills and attitudes towards elearning and online
activities. 64% of students (227) responded to the survey.
The key findings from the survey were:

• 19% have access to a computer outside the computer science department
• 21% never access the internet
• 52% found access to a computer was a major problem or not possible at all
• The main access difficulties expressed include: lack of computers, computer labs not open
  often enough and lack of or slow internet connection
• Low levels of basic computing skills
• 84% feel that online activities would be quite or very useful additions to their studies

From these key findings a number of recommendations can be made to improve the computing
facilities for students:

1. Review of the computer lab set­up and configuration
2. Increase in lab opening times
3. Increase number of computers available
4. Increase internet capacity
5. Basic computer skills training
6. Require courses to use the elearning system

The results from this survey can be used as a baseline for future surveys to measure the impact of
initiatives to improve student computer access (such as replacement or new computers and labs) and
whether the recommendations have had the desired effect.

It should be noted that since some of these recommendations were written (back in April), work has already begun in ordering new computers for the student computer labs and in requesting increased bandwidth from ETC.

As well as the power supply failing on our server last week, we also had a power supply failure with our kettle at home. The smell of melting plastic and sparks gave us a clue all wasn’t well.