Rupert Ward Department of Informatics (UCO) Email: r.r.ward@hud.ac.uk

1. Measuring the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships in building IT capacity in African Universities Rupert Ward Department of Informatics (UCO) Email: r.r.ward@hud.ac.uk Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

2. Presentation Outline • Why study the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships in building IT capacity in African Universities? • Difficulties with measuring the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships in building IT capacity in African Universities. • Progress to date • Future work Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

3. Why study the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships in building IT capacity in African Universities? • Approximately 6 million university enrolments in African universities (UIS, 2005) • Universities enrolments have more than trebled every 10 years since 1965 (Sawyerr, 2002) • Government and Development funding has not matched this increase in enrolments (Roberts, 2005). • Governments are struggling to provide sufficient funding for IT within universities (Saint et al., 2004)(Dike, 2004) Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

4. African HE falls further behind Figure 1 – Regional Gross Enrolment Ratios (Bloom et al., 2005) Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

5. Difficulties with measuring the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships in building IT capacity in African Universities. • Lack of existing data • Limited large scale data sets • Limited resources to collect data • Political difficulties • Trust / openness • Hidden agendas • Fairness in measurements Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

6. Progress to date • Development of an international network involving academics from UK, US, Nigeria and Ghana. • Support from academic and professional institutions from UK, US, Nigeria and Ghana. • Initial work, focusing on an assessment of whether PPPs are well suited to IT Higher Education in Nigeria, led to a conference paper presented at the Nigeria Computer Society conference 2005 (Ariguzo et al., 2005) • Data collection of approximately 200 questionnaire responses from Nigerian public and private sector representatives are currently being analysed. • A web portal is currently being designed to assist in the development of a community of practice (Allee, 1997). Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

7. Future work • Collection of further baseline data on PPPs currently providing ICT facilities within African Higher Education, initially Nigeria & Ghana (~ 50 HEIs). Using • semi-structured interviewing • job shadowing • stakeholder feedback and other appropriate methods • to generate case studies, reports and electronic guidance materials. Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

8. Training courses and seminars to provide guidance to parties interested in developing PPPs. Results will be presented at both academic and non-academic conferences. Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

9. Future work The baseline data will identify: • the different approaches taken • the resources / facilities provided • the financial health & longevity of PPPs • their impact in raising participation & aspiration • the needs of both existing PPP participants and interested stakeholders Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

10. The baseline data will also identify: • Key barriers to more effective PPPs within HE, which may include: • Poverty • Lack of knowledge / opportunities • Socio-cultural barriers (e.g. gender, ethnicity, disability). Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

11. and Solutions, which may include: Open and Distance Learning initiatives Shared access and partnerships with local community groups etc. Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

12. Future work will also analyse the relevance of other academic research within this context e.g. the relevance of the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) and Social Network Analysis (Everard, 2002). Future work Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

13. Future work • Ongoing development of the Community of Practice through a web portal will inform stakeholders, providing: • Best practice examples, guidance and information on developing PPPs • A news aggregator with RSS feeds, including mainstream mass media website feeds, to keep stakeholders informed on developments Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

14. Directories of public and private sector organisations currently participating in PPPs or interested in developing PPPs within Nigeria and Ghana In-depth case studies of both effective and ineffective PPP implementation techniques within Nigeria and Ghana Online conferencing enabling sub-communities to be created and monitored (enabling social network analysis of the web portal to be undertaken) Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

15. Questions Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

16. References Allee, V. (1997) The Knowledge Evolution: Expanding Organizational Intelligence. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann. Ariguzo, G., Shea, T. and Ward, R. (2005) “Are Public-Private partnerships the future for IT Higher Education in Nigeria?”The Proceedings of the Nigeria Computer Society 8th International Conference: Information Technology Capacity Building, June 2005, Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Bloom, D., Canning, D. and Chan, K. (2005) “Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa” http://web.worldbank.org (Accessed 14/12/05) Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

17. References Davis, F. D. (1989) Perceived usefulness perceived ease of use and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13, 983–1003. Dike, V. (2004) “The state of education in Nigeria and the health of the nation” http://www.africaeconomicanalysis.org/articles/gen/education10204234737htm.html.(Accessed 18/04/05) Everard, A. and Henry, R. (2002) “A social network analysis of interlocked directorates in electronic commerce firms”Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 1, 2, 225-234. Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

18. References Roberts, L. (2005) African Higher Education Development and the International Community, Short Paper Series on African Higher Education Development, Policy Research Unit, Association of Commonwealth Universities. http://www.acu.ac.uk/policyandresearch/publications/externalpartnerspaper.pdf (Accessed 4/1/06) Saint, W., Teresa A. H., and Strassner, E. (2004), “Higher Education in Nigeria: A Status Report”World Education News and Reviews. http://www.wes.org/ewenr/PF/04sept/PFFeature.htm (Accessed 18/04/05) Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield

19. References Sawyerr, A. (2002) Association of African Universities, Challenges Facing African Universities Selected Issues. http://www.aau.org/english/documents/asa-challenges.pdf (Accessed 8/5/05) UIS (2005) UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Global Education Digest 2005 Comparing Education Statistics Across the World. http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/pdf/ged/2005/ged2005_en.pdf (Accessed 4/1/06) Department of Informatics, University of Huddersfield