By Mercy Wambui, 8 May 2006

The Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA) convened a validation workshop on the development of an Inter-University Information System platform from 3-4 May 2006 at Makere University, in Kampala, Uganda. This activity falls within the framework of the ECA VarsityNet programme that provides IUCEA with support to enhance R&D capacity on information society issues in African higher education institutions.

The project has been implemented in 2 phases. The first, which focused on developing an e-government platform using open source software was jointly implemented by the Universities of Nairobi and the Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology (Kenya); Makerere University (Uganda) and the University of Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania). The second phase is currently scaling up R&D activities to manage students’ academic records.

“One of the key pillars of any university system is to undertake research, which should be focussed on creating benefits to society”. Said Professor Chacha Nyagotti-Chacha, Executive Secretary of IUCEA in his opening statement, adding, “The current project assists universities to build capacity in undertaking research to develop relevant software, harnessing the potential of OSS, that would be used in addressing the challenge of maintaining proper records pertaining to one of the most important aspects of university administration: students.”

In order to sustain the research activities, participants agreed on the following:

- Establishing a community of virtual developers and a feedback database mechanism to enhance and sustain the platform;
- Introduction of OSS in students curriculum;
- Undertaking a research study for physical interconnection of member universities, taking into account, the need of broad-bandwidth for research and education, and the establishment of an e-learning platform, regional incubation Center; and
- Participating in the East Africa Community (EAC) e-government programme and more involvement in ongoing National ICT policy and strategy processes.

Twelve representatives from various universities attended the workshop. The research activities are supported by ECA and the Ford Foundation.