Building a bespoke learning system in Port Harcourt, Nigeria to serve public health students across Africa
Dr Daniel Ekpah is an academic and also a computing, electronics and software engineer who teaches information and communication technology, database management and python programming courses at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
He also provides support to the World Bank-funded initiative, African Centre of Excellence for Public Health and Toxicological Research (ACE-PUTOR). The Centre runs PhD and master’s programmes in different health specialities for students across Africa. Dr Ekpah is also a certified consultant and academic instructor for Cisco.
At the height of the pandemic, Dr Ekpah and his colleagues were faced with the challenge of providing a remote learning environment for the students of ACE-PUTOR who are located in various countries across Africa.
He developed a hybrid learning system by combining three free or open-source software applications: Moodle, Cisco Webex and Google Classroom to develop a unique learning environment. Zoom and plagiarism detection software were also integrated into the system, creating a customised tool that made the most of each application’s strength, but which overcame the limitations of each.
Instead of using Zoom for video collaboration, for example, Dr Ekpah introduced the more economical Webex application using the API which was generously provided by Cisco. Moodle with its discussion forum and content management served as the centre of the system. He also created a security script to protect the system from hacking and other cyber-attacks.
The learning system created by Dr Ekpah includes a forum which allows students to discuss issues and to generate knowledge together, bringing together viewpoints from across Africa. These discussions are accessible through search engines and present a good example of co-construction of knowledge and a student-centred and interaction-rich learning environment.
For Dr Ekpah, innovation is about solving societal problems and easing challenges. The learning system has provided cost-effective remote learning support. By using open-source software, cost was not a major barrier to the development of the tool.
The system has an unlimited capacity and as many classes as needed can be created within the system at the same time. Dr Ekpah is already supporting other institutions, the state universal basic education system and some centres within in the university to create their own customized and integrated learning systems.
Bandwidth was a challenge, both for hosting the material on the client- server, and for users accessing the resources at home. To overcome this, Dr Ekpah integrated a codec which compressed the video and voice aspects and made it easier to stream. He also increased the memory and capacity of the software by using a cluster storage system that uses multiple servers.
The software was also designed to have some functionality offline to help users manage the data utilization challenge likely to be encountered by the user. Thus, the students are able to engage in some activities such as browsing the content and responding to downloaded quizzes offline, and then synchronizing with the server whenever they come online.
While the learning system comes at no costs to the institution, students encounter significant challenges in the cost of data and access to the right kind of devices. Dr Ekpah is in discussions with the telecommunication vendors to encourage them to subsidise the cost of data usage for users of the system.
While his work has been successful, if an innovator wanted to scale up an initiative, he can imagine encountering some university politics.
Interview conducted by Oluchi Okere, Federal University of Technology, Akure.
