Information Communication Technology Infrastructure in Sudanese Governmental Universities

Abstract

Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure is the most important aspect of educational organizations and their management systems. The administration of Sudanese Governmental Universities (SGUs) takes into account (ICT) infrastructures when making plans, policies, visions, and missions for achieving their objectives effectively. This study employed the interview technique to explore and evaluate the reality of the (ICT) infrastructures as well as obtaining useful results to guide SGUs for better application of ICT. The study is based on six elements that are considered as fundamentals of the ICT infrastructures. These elements include computers, networks, ICT technology centers, websites, ICT and Computers Centers (CC) manager’s qualifications, in addition to the vision, mission, and policy of ICT. These elements are considered in the ICT infrastructure standards decided by the Ministry of Higher education in Sudan. The study found that most of SGUs have LANS and use the fiber optics as transmission media, different network speeds, web sites, and sub web sites designed effectively. Though most of SGUs have ICT centers, only two universities have E-Learning Centers. Additionally, there is no lack in the design of web sites, construction of technology centers, qualifications of the ICT and CC managers, and the documentation of the ICT vision, mission, and policies. These elements are found to be compatible with the ICT standards for higher education institutions in Sudan. However, there are a few numbers of computers as the ratio of users per computer is (15:1). Adding to that, there are few LANs because most of the SGUs have campuses and faculties more than LANs, and some of these campuses are very wide.