Alex Little

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.

On Wednesday we will be holding the orientation workshop for the Digital Campus project, so there is much to be getting on with in preparation for this. The workshop is just to introduce the selected teachers to the training course, answer their queries and, most importantly, arrange the schedule for the training over the coming semester.

All seems to be progressing well, with a few minor hiccups. We had some banner made and put up around the campuses to promote the workshop (see photo). I also wanted to get the syllabus/brochure colour copied, but then I found out how much this was going to cost – 25 copies of 12 page brochure at 5 birr per page – makes 1500 birr (approx 150 USD), so not exactly good use of money.

Speaking of money, a transfer arrived into my bank from Alcala Uni, so I’m now able to purchase the monitors, keyboards etc and also pay the first installment for the tables we’re having made. Understandably, the university was a little wary about transferring money into a personal bank account of some random person in Africa – I’ve been told they thought the money may end up with Somalian pirates!

The networking of the lab is almost complete, we just need the electrical work completed so the switches etc can be tested properly. We also need to find someone who can sign for the switches from the store and take ongoing responsibility for them – this isn’t as easy as it may first sound. ICT think the colleges should sign and take responsibility, then the colleges think it should be ICT’s job – bit of a catch 22.

We did have a minor disaster this week with one of the servers – a power supply failure. On Wednesday morning it looked as if ETC had completed the work on the DNS server, to make our elearning server available off campus using the domain name. But just as i was checking this, there was a power fluctuation and although the server is plugged into a UPS, the server power supply failed. I was a little unsure that the power supply was the only problem, until we tested with the supply from another (identical) server. It will now be out of action for a long time, until new one can be purchased (imported) – no 24/7 callout cover contracts here. So I’m now in the process of moving the site over to another server so it’s available until the server is fixed.

Fingers crossed that all will go well at the orientation workshop.

Tomorrow (11th September) is the first day in 2002 in the Ethiopian Calendar. Just in time for the new, we have now launched our project website: http://digital-campus.org, designed to give an insight into the work that we’re doing, providing details of the course “Certificate in Online Education” which we’re writing and delivering to staff in Health Sciences and Engineering Colleges. The website also provides technical information regarding the new labs that we are building, the servers, terminals, software etc. We’d be very grateful for any feedback about the site, especially if there’s anything you’d like to know about the project that’s missing.

Also just in time for the New Year, I have a new office. My computer and desk were finally moved yesterday to the main University campus. My desk is temporarily located in the ICT department and I’ll move back to Computer Science once the network is installed and the building is connected to the rest of the University network.