Title

A Case Study of Virtual partnerships for capacity building in emerging institutions

Authors

T.K. Mufeti Greg Forster Alfredo Terzoli

University of Namibia, Namibia Rhodes University, RSA Rhodes University, RSA

Content

A very crucial role that ICTs can play in education is that of building capacity in departments of
developing tertiary institutions (in this paper referred to as “emerging departments”). Of particular
interest to this research is the potential that ICT presents when emerging departments partner
virtually with departments of developed tertiary institutions (in this paper referred to as “well-
established departments”). Virtual partnerships between well-established and emerging departments
can be potentially leveraged to develop teaching capacity in emerging departments as well as to
create an environment for research cooperation. Despite ample evidence showing the benefits
accrued from virtual partnerships and an increase in the adoption thereof (Corley, Boardman &
Bozeman, 2006; Grodzinsky & Jefferies, 2007; Koppelman & Vranken, 2008; Plane & Venter,
2008), there is a lack of models that guide the implementation of virtual partnerships to bridge the
divide between well-established and emerging departments. Hence an understanding of how inter-
institutional virtual partnerships between well-established and emerging departments can be
fostered to build capacity in developing tertiary educational institutions is critical.

This paper is part of a PhD research that aims to identify the best methods for building virtual
partnerships between well-established and emerging institutions. In addition, the research also aims
to answer the following questions:

• What is the best medium for virtual partnerships in the context of a partnership between
well-established and emerging institutions?
• How should the virtual environment be organized to best facilitate virtual collaborations?
• How can the progress of a partnership be observed at the different stages of implementation?

The idea for this research has its origin in a South Africa Norway Tertiary Education Programme
(SANTED)-funded project, the Virtual Classroom Project. The Virtual Classroom Project is a
partnership of the Computer Science Departments of Rhodes University (RU) and the University of
Namibia (UNAM). The Computer Science Department at UNAM introduced a new curriculum in
2008, but did not have the required capacity to implement it fully. The Computer Science
Department at UNAM was established in 1995 and is “emerging” in terms of size, staff complement
and resources, and it struggled to attract qualified lecturers in the past few years. The Computer
Science Department at RU, on the other hand, is well-established in terms of resources and staff
complement, and has been in existence since 1981. In the Virtual Classroom Project, the two
departments are collaborating in the delivery of training programs, staff development and
undertaking of joint research. As a primary objective, the project aspires to build teaching and
research capacity in the Computer Science Department at UNAM. In the long run, the two
departments plan to continue using the virtual partnership to cooperate in sharing of information in
areas of expertise, joint marketing and delivery of professional training programmes and short
courses, as well as the development and undertaking of joint research projects. There was no
framework available to guide the implementation of this partnership, and hence, the need for this
research.

The paper reports on the experiences from the first year of the implementation of the project,
drawing from the approach of implementation and achievements of the project. It highlights the
steps taken in the initial stages of the implementation of the project and describes what has been
achieved to date. More importantly, it presents the initial findings from the first phase of the
implementation of the project.

The initial findings suggests that prioritizing ownership of the project by both institutions as well
as creating an affordable and flexible collaborative environment are crucial in virtual collaboration
initiatives. Though the partnership being studied involves Computer Science departments only,
lessons learned can inform hopefully other attempts to build partnerships between other
departments with different resources, by leveraging ICTs to reduce the problem of distance. This is
naturally just a hypothesis that will need testing.