Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Keynote address: Disciplines, documents and data: emerging roles for libraries in the scholarly information infrastructure
- 3 Denmark's Electronic Research Library: implementation of user-friendly integrated search systems in Denmark
- 4 An African experience in providing a digital library service: the African Virtual University (AVU) example
- 5 Project StORe: expectations, a solution and some predicted impact from opening up the research data portfolio
- 6 Publishing, policy and people: overcoming challenges facing institutional repository development
- 7 Libraries as a social space: enhancing the experience of distance learners using social software
- 8 The rise of recommendation and review: a place in online library environments?
- 9 Re-usable learning objects for information literacy: are they practical?
- 10 An introduction to the LearnHigher Centre for Teaching & Learning (CETL), with particular reference to the information literacy learning area and its work on information literacy audits at Manchester Metropolitan University
- 11 Information skills through electronic environments: considerations, pitfalls and benefits
- 12 Development of information-related competencies in European open and distance learning institutions: selected findings
- 13 Improving information retrieval with dialogue mapping and concept mapping tools
- 14 Public libraries, learning and the creative citizen: a European perspective
- 15 A user-centred approach to the evaluation of digital cultural maps: the case of the VeriaGrid system
- 16 The process of assessment of the quality, usability and impact of electronic services and resources: a Quality Attributes approach
- 17 Reaching the unreachable in India: effective information delivery service model of DELNET and the challenges ahead
- 18 Breaking through the walls: current developments in library service delivery: observations from a Sri Lankan perspective
- 19 Meeting users’ needs online in real-time: a dream of librarians in the developing world
- 20 Information Central: a service success case study
- 21 Discrete library services for international students: how can exclusivity lead to inclusivity?
- 22 Are we ethical? A workshop on the ethical challenges of providing library services to distance learners
- 23 Involving users in a technical solution to help assess the accessibility of websites
- 24 The reality of managing change: the transition to Intute
- Index
4 - An African experience in providing a digital library service: the African Virtual University (AVU) example
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Keynote address: Disciplines, documents and data: emerging roles for libraries in the scholarly information infrastructure
- 3 Denmark's Electronic Research Library: implementation of user-friendly integrated search systems in Denmark
- 4 An African experience in providing a digital library service: the African Virtual University (AVU) example
- 5 Project StORe: expectations, a solution and some predicted impact from opening up the research data portfolio
- 6 Publishing, policy and people: overcoming challenges facing institutional repository development
- 7 Libraries as a social space: enhancing the experience of distance learners using social software
- 8 The rise of recommendation and review: a place in online library environments?
- 9 Re-usable learning objects for information literacy: are they practical?
- 10 An introduction to the LearnHigher Centre for Teaching & Learning (CETL), with particular reference to the information literacy learning area and its work on information literacy audits at Manchester Metropolitan University
- 11 Information skills through electronic environments: considerations, pitfalls and benefits
- 12 Development of information-related competencies in European open and distance learning institutions: selected findings
- 13 Improving information retrieval with dialogue mapping and concept mapping tools
- 14 Public libraries, learning and the creative citizen: a European perspective
- 15 A user-centred approach to the evaluation of digital cultural maps: the case of the VeriaGrid system
- 16 The process of assessment of the quality, usability and impact of electronic services and resources: a Quality Attributes approach
- 17 Reaching the unreachable in India: effective information delivery service model of DELNET and the challenges ahead
- 18 Breaking through the walls: current developments in library service delivery: observations from a Sri Lankan perspective
- 19 Meeting users’ needs online in real-time: a dream of librarians in the developing world
- 20 Information Central: a service success case study
- 21 Discrete library services for international students: how can exclusivity lead to inclusivity?
- 22 Are we ethical? A workshop on the ethical challenges of providing library services to distance learners
- 23 Involving users in a technical solution to help assess the accessibility of websites
- 24 The reality of managing change: the transition to Intute
- Index
Summary
Introduction
This paper discusses the African Virtual University (AVU)'s experience in delivering digital learning resources to students and academics in its partner institutions across sub-Saharan Africa. Although digital resources are perceived as perfect supplementary resources to the deprived traditional libraries, the AVU has had first-hand experience in the successes and challenges of exploiting these resources in an African context. The fundamental lesson learnt is that the relatively poor technology status in Africa, including limited bandwidth and inadequate ICT infrastructure critical to successful exploitation of these digital resources, tend to reduce their benefits for African higher education. This is supported by a number of studies that have been carried out in the recent past by the AVU. The studies further show the negative impact that these low bandwidth levels have had on the overall access, utilization and usefulness of the educational digital resources to the learners and academics in African universities. In addition, this has directly impacted on the level of basic information literacy in a modern electronic environment that most of the African students encounter for the first time when they join tertiary education.
The paper presents examples of the nature of the digital resources that are used by the AVU, ranging from library resources to open educational resources (OERs). The AVU, recognizing the negative impact this technological situation has had on education, has in the past three years invested in exploring alternative creative solutions. Some of these initiatives have successfully evolved to become continent-wide projects, as will be discussed later in this paper. This includes a project to expand bandwidth through VSAT (very small aperture terminal) technology deployment in the AVU's partner institutions at an affordable cost by aggregating bandwidth demand. Other examples include the use of hard disks and local servers to store and make available digital content that would otherwise require huge bandwidth if they were to be made available online, thus making it possible to easily access targeted sets of resources in ways that are both pedagogically effective and cost-effective.
The African Virtual University is a pan-African educational network established in 1997 as a World Bank project to serve the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Libraries Without Walls 7Exploring ‘anywhere, anytime’ delivery of library services, pp. 29 - 38Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2008