E learning @ Unitech

A journey into the digital abyss

Pundits have fretted for a long time about the widening digital divide between the high and low-income, or developing countries. Some have compared the introduction of internet to the revolution brought about by the invention of writing and the printing press, and are worried that a large part of the low-income countries are missing out. Internet literacy became just as important as conventional literacy.

Although the mobile technology digital divide has been closed (The Economist 2005), there is a need to close the broadband digital divide. Universal, unlimited broadband internet brings numerous direct and indirect benefits, which selectively available, pay per megabyte, slow and unreliable internet can never produce. Broadband internet has the potential to create whole new sectors in the economy (VOX 2011). In high-income countries, broadband access is available anywhere for less than $30 per month, in low-income countries similar access costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month.

Unfortunately, Papua New Guinea fell into the digital abyss several years ago, thought it seems not many have noticed or have fully realized the consequences. The failure to provide broadband internet, generates a series of problems for universities in PNG. At universities all over the world, we are teaching the so-called Millenials, a generation that grew up and comes to expect the free and universal access to information provided by broadband internet (Heskett 2010). They communicate and share their thoughts through Facebook or other social media, learn by watching Youtube videos, and expect access anywhere from their notebook, tablet or smart phone.

In PNG this generation is frustrated by the low bandwidth and unreliable connection to internet. Here students share the use of notebooks and use modems (or dongles) for connecting to the mobile network. Neither the devices they use - cellphones or notebooks - or the mobile phone network is affected by the frequent power cuts, which ensure a reliability PC's and university networks can not provide.

Their teachers, however, were never trained in using internet or computers, and were not given the opportunity to learn about tools they can use professionally for their core activities of teaching and research. As a consequence, students and Faculty hardly use the internet professionally, but mainly for entertainment purposes, and social networking.

In this day and age, and especially when educating engineers and scientist, broadband internet is essential for teaching, and research. Learning management systems (LMS) such as Blackboard or open-source Moodle, for example, have not been implemented at any university in Papua New Guinea, because with the current unreliable networks it would take too long for faculty members to upload or download the information. Hardly anybody has created a course web page for teaching. At most universities, processes such as students administration, admission, registration, evaluation, and grading are still paper-based. In the classroom, hardly anybody refers to web pages, or interacts with students electronically, not even through email. For research, you can not create new knowledge if you do not have an idea what existing knowledge is. The only way to find out is by accessing literature and research databases through the internet, which is currently severely constrained.

While in Papua New Guinea low-bandwidth connection is available almost everywhere through the Digicel mobile telephone network, and at many businesses and all universities through satellite connections, at the main state universities broadband internet is not available. All traffic has to go through Telikom - the state telecoms monopoly -, which charges a rate per Mb to all other providers and users. In February, taking a cue from our students we lobbied Digicel successfully, and in March they provided a deep cut for off-peak hours. This has helped the education sector enormously. From midnight to 7 am a large number of students and faculty members in the country now browse the internet and download files. It is no replacement, however, for true unlimited broadband internet.

In my opinion, this failure to provide broadband in the country, and the practice of charging users per Mb, has put the country backwards at least 20 years in adoption of internet based services. For more than a decade, nobody has made use of the fibre optic national network and the oceanic connections in Madang and Port Moresby with the internet backbone. Bandwidth at the best universities in the USA and Europe is now continuously 1Tb/s, while in PNG at best 2-5Mb/s is offered, which is 200.000 to 500.000 slower.

Since internet nowadays is essential for government, business, and education, the failure to provide broadband internet demands urgent attention from the country's political and business sectors. There is huge political capital to be won by giving the education and business sectors access to broadband internet, and since PNG is a democracy at some point somebody will realize this.

The double challenge

Given this reality, university administrators face a double challenge: improve the basic conditions for teaching and learning, while at the same time bring internet based tools and mobile technology into the classroom.

The first challenge is to make sure the basic conditions for teaching are there. Unreliable infrastructure in the country and challenging living conditions on campus cause a series of challenges which are seldom present in high income countries. The socio-economic background of the students, and structural underfunding of the universities and other infrastructure since independence, generate another series of issues. Power cuts several times a day make it difficult to run servers or to assure internet connection. Generator sets are available, but do not solve the problem for computer networks. Battery based power back-up systems are simply too expensive to run. A majority of the students do not own recent textbooks for their courses, or (notebook) computers. Students sometimes can not study at night, because there is no light due to power interruptions. No change in the class room can happen, if these basic conditions for operating a university are not met.

Regarding the second challenge, of how to bring internet based access to information and interaction to the classroom, here we propose a strategy that takes into account the basic constraints, but can be scaled up once broad band becomes available. Any solution must start with a realistic assessment of which hardware and support personnel, software, and the capacity to train teachers.

The massive and freely available course content from top universities in the USA such as MIT and others is possibly a game changer. Flexible, blended, and distance learning have a unique potential to expand access to higher education. The local lecturer becomes much more a guide through the existing offerings than the creator of new content. At all universities we need to take these development into account, otherwise we condemn ourselves to irrelevance.

At the Papua New Guinea University of Technology, UNITECH we developed a plan to introduce internet based tools into the classroom using simple tools for low-bandwidth environment. We set up an elearning team lead by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Academic, which is meeting regularly to facilitate this transition. The department of distance learning, IT services, the teaching methods an learning, and the audio visual units are all participating with the purpose of providing active support to the teaching departments. In 2012, at UNITECH we will experiment with two courses, and in 2013 the plan will be rolled out for selected programs. We are very excited by the prospect, and our work has encountered wide-spread support.

In short, the solution envisages the use of course specific websites and email for the static, non-interactive part of course delivery. The course syllabus is posted on a website with links to powerpoints, class notes etc. Emails lists are used for broadcasting to the students. For the dynamic, interactive part of the course, blogs, video recording of lectures and twitter will be used. Twitter can be used to update students on their mobile phones without cost to the university. Course content can be distributed on flash drives. Virus and security threat are minimized by using open-source software running on linux based operating systems.

Conclusion

In order to improve learning among our millenial generation students, teaching has to use internet and mobile technology for offering relevant content and providing feedback. Failure to do so, would acerbate a situation which is already critical, and further erode the perceived relevance and value of current university teaching practice.

We are excited to find out that using internet in the university classroom and mobile technology is possible even in a low-income country with low internet bandwidth, like Papua New Guinea. The tools that can be used are not as advanced as those implemented elsewhere, but only slightly less functional. Learning to use these takes somewhat longer, but at UNITECH the Faculty has shown willingness to put in the necessary effort.

References
- Heskett, Jim. 2010. "How Will Millennials Manage? — HBS Working Knowledge." http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5736.html.
- The Economist. 2005. "The Real Digital Divide." The Economist.
- VOX. 2011. "Service with a Smile: A New Growth Engine for Poor Countries | Vox - Research-based Policy Analysis and Commentary from Leading Economists." http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/6459.