Undergraduate IT distance education using videoconferencing and internet technologies

Abstract

Higher educational institutions have successfully utilised videoconferencing for distance education. South African higher educational institutions are experiencing staff shortages and certain institutions do not have the lecturing staff available to teach the students enrolled for Information Communication Technology (ICT) courses. In South Africa certain universities have been classified as being "traditionally disadvantaged", due to their dispensation during the apartheid era. The student population at these institutions is mainly of African origin and has had limited exposure to the use of modern technologies to support teaching. The organisational support for teaching ICT courses at these universities is also problematic. The Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) offered a Systems Analysis and Design/Software Engineering III course via videoconferencing to the Walter Sisulu University (WSU) 3rd year students. WSU lost most of their ICT lecturing staff and NMMU was requested to assist with the lecturing of students enrolled for ICT courses. The 3rd year students, mostly from rural areas, had never experienced the use of modern technologies in a lecturing environment. The paper will address the challenges faced when offering such a practically oriented course via videoconferencing and provide guidelines that other educational institutions could follow when engaging in distance education via videoconferencing in a developing country. ©2006 IEEE.