Unisa (University of South Africa)

Unisa is a mega-university with over 200,000 active distance students enrolled on the online myUnisa platform. (Moller, 2009) The university's primary delivery mechanism is still printed materials, since every student lives within a reasonable distance from a Post Office, but not all students have easy access to the Internet.

However, in the regular (three-yearly) revision of programmes, there is a gradual move towards including more technology components, with some programmes moving towards fully online delivery. (Kinuthia & Dagada, 2008)

Unisa recently switched from their own, custom-built Learning Management System to a free, open source platform, Sakai and found they were better able to create a system that met their particular needs with the help of the open source development community. (Moller, 2009).

This move towards increasing the role of technology is often driven by demand from the students, who see their peers studying in computer laboratories at some of South Africa's large face-to-face universities, and do not want to be left behind. (Kinuthia & Dagada, 2008).

In addition, Unisa uses mobile phones for communication with students, for example, in communicating examination results. (Kinuthia & Dagada, 2008) 

University of Pretoria

The University of Pretoria has over 48,000 campus-based students and over 24,000 off-campus, part-time and distance students. They have established a 'Department of Telematic Learning and Education Innovation' to assist the academic staff in learning design activities. All courses include at least some component online, delivered through the WebCT Learning Management System. (Kinuthia & Dagada, 2008)

University of Johannesburg

The University of Johannesburg is an amalgamation between the old Rand Afrikaanse Universiteit, Vista University and Technikon Witwatersrand. It has over 45,000 students spread across seven campuses, in full-time or part-time, face-to-face tuition. Like the University of Pretoria, UJ offers its staff support in learning design, and uses a commercial Learning Management System to suppplement the delivery of the courses, placing special emphasis on the extra support that can be provided to students in large classes through the provision of online materials and questions. (Kinuthia & Dagada, 2008)

Reflection

  1. What kind of institution do you work for? Is yours a web-supplemented, web-dependent or fully online programme? Do you know what support is available to you from the institution, for example, help with learning design, support in using the LMS, etc?
  2. Explore some online resources (e.g. blogs, discussion forums, communities) for online educators, and if you see any that look interesting or helpful, join or subscribe to them. (You will find links to many such resources in the section on Support for tutors. )

References

  • Kinuthia, Wanjira; Dagada,Rabelani. 2008. E-Learning Incorporation: An Exploratory Study of Three South African Higher Education Institutions. International Journal on ELearning, October 1, 2008.
  • This article reports on the findings of a research study that was conducted to explore the types of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in use in higher education in South Africa. Specifically, the goal of the study was to explore how e-learning is being used for teaching and learning purposes.
  • Moller, J., 2009. Benefits for DACEL in the lessons learnt during the deployment of a learning management system at Unisa. Conference paper for DACEL in Stellenbosch, South Africa.