Baldreck Chipangura

Design, Development and Deployment of a Mobile E-Commerce Application for Rural South Africa -A Case Study

Fort Hare University is located in the rural town of Alice in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The university runs several poverty alleviation projects in those villages to help the people. One of the prospering projects is the Lingelihle cooperative which specializes on making handmade artifacts for sale. The computer science department built an e-commerce Web site for marketing the products to the world. In this project we report on the mobile e-commerce application that we designed for this cooperative

Evaluating mobile centric information access and interaction compatibility for learning websites

Against the background of the global drive towards equal access to learning opportunities Open Distance Learning (ODL) institutions are challenged to optimize the use of technologies that provide usable, scalable and sustainable access. The remarkable mobile cellular growth together with the potential of mobile phones to be used as tools of communication, teaching and learning poses new challenges to educational institutions and specifically open-distance learning institutions. The aim of this article is to investigate the compatibility of mobile cellular phone web services that facilitate ubiquitous and sustainable information access and interaction in an open and distance learning environment in South Africa. The contribution of the paper is a proposed Mobile phone information access compatibility checklist extracted from literature and validated by its application on an ODL learning website.

Lecturer and policy readiness: A critical relationship in the provision of mobile centric services in teaching

This paper argues that successful provision of mobile centric services in teaching and learning is dependent on the readiness of lectures and the supporting institutional policies. The basis of this claim is an empirical investigation undertaken as a qualitative single case study at an ODL university in South Africa. The evidence was gathered through lecturer interviews and policy document analysis. Both lecturer interview data and policy document analysis data were qualitatively analysed. The findings of this study revealed that successful provision of mobile centric services in teaching and learning depends on the readiness of lecturers and the readiness of institutional policies in supporting the lecturers.

Support given to lecturers when providing mobile centric services in teaching and learning: A policy analysis perspective

The objective of this study is to examine the status of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) policies in supporting lecturers when providing mobile centric services to students. The research was undertaken as a single case study within the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) context in South Africa. Qualitative data was captured through policy document analysis using the Framework for Qualitative Data Analysis. The findings of the study revealed that UNISA has many policies that guide lecturers when providing mobile centric services to students. The policies cross-reference but some gaps were observed on how the institution provides lecturers with mobile technology infrastructure, technical support, emotional support and pedagogic support. Hence, this study proposes some recommendations on how the policy could support lecturers in providing mobile centric services in teaching and learning.