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AgShare
is an 18-month planning and piloting project in which
Michigan State University (MSU) and Saide's OER Africa
Initiative are working with a range of African anchor
partners to build the foundation of the AgShare Open
Educational Resources (OER) collaboration. Brenda Mallinson
provides more detail on the project and reports on some
of the initial engagements with Haramaya University.
The vision of AgShare is to become a catalyst for collaboration
and alignment among existing African OER and agricultural
organizations to strengthen MSc agriculture curricula.
The leadership and organizational structure of the collaboration
will be finalized by the end of the pilot to ensure
that AgShare is run by Africans and for Africans. MSU
is facilitating the process which includes three types
of partners: universities, community-wide partners (NGO,
extension and stakeholders in agricultural value chains),
and content providers. The external project team comprises
Michigan State University (MSU), Saide, through its
OER Africa initiative, FLOSS4EDU,
RUFORUM and ccLEARN.
The four partner Higher Education institutions (HEIs)
selected for the pilots were Makerere University (Uganda),
Haramaya University (Ethiopia), United States International
University (USIU) and Moi University, both situated
in Kenya. Each of the four pilots uses a different focus
which allows the core team to pilot test different approaches
to fulfilling the overall project goals.
- Makerere University is focused on improving dairy
production while integrating graduate students to
work with farmers. Science-based OER will provided
which can be used in MSc course modules in both the
veterinary school and the agriculture school. Students
will be directly involved in the research process,
capturing the work with and for farmers, and will
provide replicable model for many other important
commodities.
- Haramaya University is developing a master’s
level course that directly impacts on Agricultural
Extension. It is a course in the RUFORUM Agriculture
Information Communication Management (AICM) MSc program
and has potential for network-wide localization and
replication, as well as serving as a model for subsequent
courses.
- USIU is developing OER that utilizes a practical
case method and active learning while building an
AgShare Fellows program that will embed expertise
within the faculty and students to create and use
OER. These OER are aimed at assisting farmers in transforming
their traditional practice of farming as a livelihood
to farming as a business enterprise. The collaborative
content generation is through partnerships between
USIU business school, agriculture universities and
community-wide partners.
- The Collaborative MSc in Agricultural and Applied
Economics (CMAAE) relies on two universities, Haramaya
and Moi, to build commodity-focused case studies.
Cases will focus on the Economic Role of Prices and
Approaches to the Study of Agricultural Market Organization
for Coffee in Ethiopia and Maize in Kenya. Students
will be involved in creating the cases and community-wide
partners will be involved as subjects in the cases
and also in the review of the materials. This collaborative
approach to the creation of case studies can be a
potentially cost-effective model replicated throughout
CMAAE and other universities.
Haramaya Visits – August and October
2010
The external team members assembled at Addis Ababa and
early the following morning flew into Dire Dawa, a town
approximately 350 kms east of Addis Ababa, where we
were met by local pilot project leader Amare Adhena
who warmly welcomed us and had organised a vehicle for
the hour long trip into the highlands where the expansive
Haramaya University campus lies at 3000m above sea level
within farmland and adjacent to a lake.
This first support visit comprised an initial day of
planning with the visiting team, project leader and
project leaders for the AICM and CMAAE pilots. The intention
of the workshop was to support the local team members
involved in the pilot activities by:
- Facilitating their interaction with the textual
and audio-visual materials collected via Internet-related
searches, field projects by undergraduate students,
and supervised extension projects;
- Introduce them to the concepts of strong curriculum
design and the role therein of textual and audio-visual
materials and Learning Management Systems; and
- Provide hands-on experience of how to integrate
digital materials into a well designed agricultural
curriculum.
This was followed by related workshop support activities
with a larger group of about 16 participants. The workshop
took place in the College of Agriculture computer laboratory
and the Postgraduate Library computer laboratory, which,
while both are well-furnished with up-to-date desktop
PCs, did not have access to the campus Intranet or outside
Internet at this time.
We were fortunate to be given the opportunity to meet
with the President of Haramaya University, Professor
Belay Kassa, who is also an agricultural economist and
very supportive of the AgShare pilots. Issues discussed
included the two AgShare pilots and related matters
such as the use of ICTs at Haramaya University (HU),
quality assurance for online courses, distance education
programmes at HU, and the current Higher Education landscape
in Ethiopia. The evident support for these pilot projects
by the top University management and on the ground by
the support services such as IT and the Library auger
well for the success of the pilots. As the University
had its origins in an Agricultural College, there is
a deep rooted understanding of the context of the AgShare
pilots.
Challenges to the success of the HU pilots were identified
as:
- Time management: all those participating in the
projects are also busy with their regular full-time
work at the University, as well as summer schools,
night classes and distance education programmes.
- Field work: the nature of the agriculture pilot
projects adds to the complexity and variety of the
project tasks that need to be supported.
- Campus location: the remote campus also inhibits
on-site interaction with project support teams. The
flights from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa do not operate
consistently, and the alternative is a seven hour
car journey between the University and the capital.
- Unreliable connectivity: the current state of flux
in availability of the networking (both Intranet and
Internet) on the HU campus makes life extremely difficult
for those wishing to engage in online teaching and
learning, support workshops, utilizing electronic
library resources, or indeed any form of Internet
research.
As initial site contact is important for a project
of this nature, we were now positioned to undertake
further and more specific interventions as and when
required. We are continuing to build an understanding
of the environment within which the pilot projects are
taking place.
The second support visit took place two months later
and focussed on ascertaining the progress of each pilot
and specific video production support. This trip included
a video editor, whose task was to build capacity for
the production of videos for both pilots.
The purpose of the two video resources is as follows:
the AICM OER video is to display the link between the
farmers and what the students are doing i.e. the link
between HU and the farming community (a core objective
of the AgShare project); the CMAAE Coffee informational
video is to focus on the marketing of coffee and feature
the entire process of marketing coffee, from the producer
through to the exporter, the functions and channels.
The intention is to integrate each video into a multimedia
package containing text, video and still photography,
and case studies reports.
These two pilot projects are now both at a crucial
stage where resources need to be integrated and the
promised outputs produced within the next two months.
Detailed timelines and redefined objectives have been
set up for the remainder of the pilots’ time spans.
A further support may be necessary in order to ensure
the successful outcome of the pilot projects.
A
selection of photographs from the visit are attached.
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