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1. UNISA & VIRTUAL UNIVERSITIES

 The talk focused on the UNISA Students-Online programme, and how UNISA is

moving towards becoming a virtual university. The premise from which the

speaker moved was that higher education is under worldwide pressure to

achieve academic excellence with eve

r shrinking resources. Furthermore, as a consequence of globalisation,

barriers to communication are breaking down. Universities cannot meet their

core objectives without alliances and partnerships. There are also growing

demands from students for a flex

ible learning environment, which would facilitate lifelong learning, as well

as technologically supported learning. Access to education is another

critical issue that universities have to address. There are also great

strides being made towards establish

ing virtual universities.

--- What is a Virtual University?

The term has become one that is used rather loosely. Some traditional

universities and distance education institutions have so called virtual

campuses, which is in effect not real, because they only have online

cataloguing of courses, but the courses are

not online. Corporate training institutions and publishing companies call

themselves virtual universities because they use the Internet for course

delivery. The consensus however is that virtual universities should provide

and facilitate flexible learni

ng opportunities for the student.

--- Some Initiatives

The presenter continued to provide some examples of existing initiatives of

virtual universities. Most of these initiatives are in their infancy phases

and are still sorting out some teething problems. For example: The African

Virtual University is a Wor

ld Bank project, which uses digital video broadcasting relies heavily on

synchronous communication, which can create problems. The Europace 2000

Virtual University has major problems with language.

--- Teaching Delivery Systems

UNISA is still exploring various systems to assess which one is best.

--- Current Phase of SOL

The Students-Online (SOL) system gives access to registered students to all

the functions they would normally do telephonically with the institution.

The system is being expanded at a rather slow rate. Approximately 8000

students are utilising SOL, most

of them from Gauteng, Cape Town and KwaZulu Natal.

SOL also allows students to do their multiple-choice assignments on the

service, but does not have a capacity for on-line marking. Most of the

courses have their study material online, as well as electronic study

guides. Some courses also have discussion

forums.

In conclusion, the presenter stated that virtual universities are fast

becoming a reality, and that universities, especially distance education

institutions should take up this challenge. He also asserted that teaching

delivery systems are maturing for e

xample SOL, which in itself has a long way to go! He concluded with a

question, asking whether it is not the right time to create a virtual

university for South Africa.

Q: Within the present day context of competition amongst universities,

should or could there be one virtual university in SA?

A: There will always be competition for learning opportunities between the

public and private sector. Competition can bring improvement. For example,

the California University alliance and the Western Governors Union are

working together but students sho

uld be free to assess which institutions offer the best and perhaps the

cheaper courses. Another major issue would be accreditation. It would

however be important for a South African Virtual University - which could

either be national or made up of each

traditional university having a virtual arm - to determine whom exactly the

competition is. Competition might facilitate improvement, but it does not

presuppose quality. This is a particular concern for South Africa because

not all clients can determine

or distinguish between good and bad as it relates to education.

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2. ROSSLYN PROJECT

 The premise from which this project moved from is that most IT projects

involve leapfrogging and rely on collaboration. Collaboration and

consultation is extremely time-consuming. This project took two years to

achieve effective collaboration. Another co

mmon problem is the funding of IT projects, so this project therefore

specifically looked at how to involve companies. The emphasis was to show

the private sector why IT is cost-effective as well as why it provides

opportunities for leapfrogging into the

future. In most instances when companies are approached, the IT converts are

preaching to the converted in companies who do not really have effective

power. The Rosslyn Project tries drawing in other players (communities,

unions, etc) who have a vital c

oncern with education and training, as well as the Rosslyn employers.

The project materialised from the recognition that the private sector and

the labour movement are in fact dealing at one level with the same issue.

That issue being dealing with the backlog created by apartheid. It seemed

therefore only logical to share

generic training required at an organisational level therefore making the

whole process far more cost effective. Another objective was to link areas

through technology, i.e. linking the Rosslyn industrial area with the

township areas where development is

most needed.

The Rosslyn Project is structured around four learning centres, one based in

the surrounding black township. The training is done via extranet, and

distance and time are therefore removed as obstacles to mass training. The

community, on the other hand, g

ets the vital developmental training it needs and has access to the latest

technology.

Q: How are the Learning Centres managed?

A: The learning centre is managed by the company and has facilitators

present at each session.

Q: How is the course content determined?

A: At present the project is collaborating with UNISA and the University of

Pretoria. A concern was raised that it would be critical for the project to

also focus on course material design and development, which would be very

expensive. It was asserted t

hat it is critical to distinguish between fixed and variable cost, because,

if the project is to be sustainable, the private sector has to invest in

materials development.

Q: Why is there a preoccupation with immediacy of communication in the

education components of the project?

A: The perception amongst human resource practitioners at the moment is that

live interaction is very important. The concern is that static information

needs to be made more interactive. It is however important to get flexible

systems which cater for bot

h types of communication.

Q: Does government play any role in this project?

A: Government has been very supportive thus far and is watching the

developments closely.

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 3. SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS DIRECTORY (SASD)

 There are 28 schools that are currently part of the directory, with 20

schools which have put their education information on the website. The SASD

is also part of the National Youth Commission's infoservice. The overarching

objective is to work towards r

eviving education and making it fun for learners by using IT as a

developmental tool.

PURPOSE

The SASD helps schools to publish their information therefore serving as a

database, with a specific focus on empowering rural schools. It has

individual website presences for all schools. It provides an outlet for

school creativity, as well as encouragi

ng reconstruction and development thus encouraging alumni to adopt their

schools. The SASD also serves as a research tool.

FEATURES

The SASD aims to provide free e-mail addresses for life to students and

educators. It is also trying to contribute to enhancing the Culture of

Learning and Teaching Services Campaign by linking all institutions with

career centres. Another aspect is to t

ry to encourage the use of IT in rural areas. Moreover it is trying to

assist schools with developing an alumni directory.

TARGET MARKET

The SASD is targeting educators, schools and students, career centres,

library and information departments, and government.

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 4. Cyber Connection

 The Confederation of Open Learning Institutions of South Africa (COLISA) is

a coalition of the three major higher education distance institutions in

South Africa; namely UNISA, VISTA and TSA. The coalition does not however

exist as a legal entity. The in

tention is to eventually broaden this coalition to include more interested

parties.

Cyber Connection received a grant from the German government for a project,

which involves four institutions - UNISA, TSA, VISTA, and Technikon

Witwatersrand. Cyber Connection will sponsor for the next five years the

infrastructure to assist the students

of these institutions with connectivity to the Internet. Another aim is to

further enhance the institutions' capacity for proper online teaching. In

return, Cyber Connection gets access to the student database for advertising

purposes, which does not in

terfere with the study process.

The first pilot project is being launched at the Roodepoort Station Centre

with 50 terminals. Cyber Connection's partner in the pilot phase of this

project is TELKOM. In the next two years the project aims to launch 70

centres with at least 10 000 termin

als. This is important given the projection that higher education student

enrolment will increase from 800 000 to 1,5 million by the year 2003.

Technologically supported education will thus become critical in making

education accessible on a mass level.

Each centre will have between 50 and 250 terminals, which will be linked to

the Internet, and connected via local or wide area networks.

Cyber Connection's main concern is with infrastructure, and partner

institutions will have to provide the content. The software will be

flexible, catering for any type of content to be delivered. Interactive

television broadcasting will also be made poss

ible.

The European Union has launched a project called digital content for

culture, involving R3 billion. The aim of the project is to try to share or

at least return digital images of the cultural artefacts, which many

European countries have taken from their

former colonies. Cyber Connections is the South African representative for

this project, and would like to liase with any network member that is

interested in content packing around this project.

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 5. TOOLBOOK AND NET-IT NOW

TOOLBOOK II ASSISTANT 6.0 from Asymetrix

Asymetrix ToolBook II Assistant lets you quickly create effective training

and educational courseware without programming, scripting, or the help of a

developer. With Assistant, you can easily distribute these applications over

the most popular delivery

mediums - even over the Internet. With Assistant's intuitive interface, it's

as simple as point-and-click, drag-and-drop. So Assistant is useful for

trainers, ducators, human resource managers, marketing managers and other

pofessionals who need to provid

e training and share knowledge through interactive learning applications -

but don't have the time or inclination to master the complex programming

required by typical authoring tools.

An automated way to create high-impact learning applications.

You can choose from several different template types, drag and drop from a

catalog of previously assembled content and add your own unique information,

including text, graphics, audio and video. Once finished, you can distribute

your applications over th

e Internet, intranets, local area networks or CD-ROMs.

Internet and intranet support:

Assistant speaks the native language of the Internet, letting you create

applications based on the Internet standards HTML, Microsoft, ActiveX r and

Java OE - without requiring any programming knowledge. Now anyone with a Web

browser can access your cour

seware, whether they're in another building on the corporate campus, or on

the other side of the world. And because Assistant supports these standards,

your applications can also benefit from multimedia data types now supported

on the Internet, including

streaming audio and video.

Integration with a complete online learning system:

ToolBook II Assistant integrates seamlessly with ToolBook II Instructor and

Asymetrix Librarian. Using Instructor, experienced developers can extend an

Assistant-created application by adding new content or even by customizing

how it works. And applicati

ons created with Assistant can be managed with Librarian, an Internet-based

learning management system designed to provide centralized, flexible control

and easy administration of online learning applications.

TOOLBOOK II LIBRARIAN 6.0

Centralized, Flexible Control Over Your Online Learning Applications

!Asymetrix Librarian is an advanced learning management system for centrally

controlling all your learning activities, including course delivery, learner

access, collaboration and perfo

rmance tracking. Because Librarian is built on an open architecture, it can

manage a variety of learning materials, including online learning courses,

traditional CBT titles, customized training - even offline content, such as

instructor-led classes or b

ook assignments. Asymetrix Librarian is server-based software that runs in

combination with Web and database servers. It is available for both Windows

NT and UNIX, and can easily scale from departmental to enterprise-wide use.

Built with the powerful Java programming language, Librarian is designed to

manage the complete process for delivering training and education over the

Internet, including:

-- Managing organizations and members.

-- Designing and developing lessons, and managing content.

-- Managing student access to lessons.

-- Monitoring student progress and tracking scores.

-- Enabling a collaborative learning environment.

-- Generating management reports to track learning effectiveness.

How Asymetrix Librarian Works:

Users interact with Librarian using a Web browser. Once logged in, a student

can search, view, take or resume lessons, join organizations, view and

modify personal information, view and print reports, open assigned

collaborations, and send e-mail. Librar

ian records student activity in a database. Administrators, once logged in,

are able to setup and manage members and organizations; create and manage

content; create dynamic lessons that respond to student progress; review

lesson activity; create collabo

rations; search for members, organizations and lessons; and generate

reports. Librarian uses authentication, data encryption and access

privileges to secure confidential student and

course information.

NET-IT CENTRAL

DOCUMENT SHARING FOR THE INTRANET.

This system automatically converts documents created in any Windows program

to HTML and JAVA for deployment on your intranet. View and print these

documents from any JAVA enabled browser in your organisation or across the

Internet.

Better Business Decisions:

Net-It Central seamlessly integrates the intranet into your current business

processes, allowing anyone in your organization to contribute and access

document-based knowledge using the tools they already know. Documents can be

shared in any standard brow

ser and look exactly like the originals, no matter how they are formatted,

from presentations, spreadsheets, and database reports to technical

drawings, HTML, and PDF files. With Net-It Central, all of your documents

can be shared on the intranet, not ju

st those specially designed for the Web. Net-It Central automatically

maintains a dynamic knowledge base on your intranet for instant access to

documents using any standard browser without special client software. Net-It

Central automatically collects, p

ublishes, and maintains hyperlinked collections of documents on your

intranet, with instant delivery to the right people across your entire

organization, your business partners, and your customers.

Hands-Free Intranets:

Net-It Central automatically maintains dynamic collections of documents

without the constant attention of a web master. As documents are changed,

added, or deleted from your corporate knowledge base, Net-It Central

automatically updates your intranet sit

es and push channels. Whether documents are created "as needed" or published

regularly as part of a corporate reporting solution, Net-It Central makes

sure the latest information is always available.

Targeted Communications:

Net-It Central automatically delivers critical documents to the right people

throughout your organization. New DocucastOE technology creates and

maintains Netscape Netcaster and Microsoft CDF channels for targeted

notification and delivery of documents w

henever new information becomes available. By automatically maintaining

personalized collections of documents on each desktop, Net-It Central

ensures universal access to documents that essentially manage themselves.

Open Design:

Organize documents by department, by project, by product - however works

best for your organization. Create custom site templates to match the look

and feel of your intranet. Integrate related intranet content, forms, and

applications as links in your do

cument sites. You can even integrate Net-It Central into groupware, document

management, corporate reporting, and other custom solutions using the Net-It

Central API.

Intranet document solutions from Net-It Software leverage the company's core

jDoc technology. Net-It Software's jDoc technology creates compact,

cross-platform, high-fidelity replicas of desktop documents that can be

viewed immediately in any standard br

owser without plug-ins. jDoc provides a "document delivery container" that

allows instant access to desktop documents. Powered By _ jDocOE Technology

FEATURES

Summary:

* Publish hyperlinked collections of documents that look exactly like the

originals and can be accessed in any standard browser without plug-in

software.

* Collect practically any Windows 95 or NT documents created anywhere in

your organization by any number of different authors.

* Update any web server automatically whenever documents are changed, added,

or deleted.

* Navigate document collections using interactive document views in any

browser.

* Search across document collections using any standard search engine.

* Automatically deliver documents to the right people using Netcaster and

CDF channels.

* Create custom intranet publishing solutions using the Net-It Central API.

Document Access

View exact replicas of desktop documents in any standard browser without

plug-in software.

* Find documents using an interactive "table of contents" that organizes

documents into folders based on your specifications.

* Use searching at any time to find a specific phrase across a collection of

documents using Microsoft IIS or Netscape Catalog Server, or easily

integrate any other search engine.

* Navigate within documents, zoom pages, copy text, and bookmark any

document through the Document Toolbar.

* Print the current page of a document, a selected range of pages, or the

entire document.

* Download the original document on demand to re-purpose information on the

desktop.

* Maximize network performance using automatic page-on-demand document

streaming.

Document Submittal

* Publish documents created with practically any Windows 95 or Windows NT

application, such as Microsoft Office, Lotus SmartSuite, Crystal Reports,

PDF, and HTML.

* Simply copy documents to folders you set up on your file server or web

server to share document-based knowledge on the intranet.

* Organize documents in the most meaningful way for your organization by

simply organizing the folders on your file server.

* Give end-users permission to change, add, delete, and move documents

shared on the intranet by setting permissions on your file server.

* Define "read-only" documents to prevent unwanted printing, copying, and

electronic distribution.

* Use DocucastOE to automatically create Netcaster and CDF push channels for

any folder in your document collection.

* Create separate collections of documents and publish

each as its own area on your intranet.

Document Maintenance

* Automatically update your intranet as needed on the schedule you define.

* Automatically recognize documents that have been added, changed, or

deleted from the collection, and only process those files.

* Automatically organize and maintain hyperlinks between documents for easy

navigation.

* Automatically mark documents that have changed or been added as "Updated

or "New."

*. Automatically notify users of new and updated documents through Netcaster

and CDF channels. .Automatically update personalized collections of

documents on each end-user's desktop through Netcaster and CDF channels.

* Automaticallyupload document sites to the correct location on any web

server on any platform.

* Automatically maintain separate document sites at the same time.

Customization

* Select from a set of document site templates to create the best navigation

for your intranet document collection.

* Instantly add aheader, footer, and logo to customize the document site for

your intranet.

* Completely customize any site template or create your own using any HTML

editor.

* Select from a variety of menu styles for navigation between pages in a

document.

* Integrate with groupware,document management, decision support, and

corporate reporting solutions using the Net-It Central API. * Extend the

capabilities of Net-It Central at any time by adding the CentralToolsOE

modules you need.

Contact Gordon Allen at Square One Interactive on 011 - 444 7716 or

082 659 3089 or on e-mail: gordona@sqm.sq1.co.za

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Telematics for African Development Consortium
P.O. Box 31822
Braamfontein
2017
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel: +27 +11 403-2813
Fax: +27 +11 403-2814
neilshel@icon.co.za