Kewl education |
| Organisation name: | University of the Western Cape |
| OSS Used: | Knowledge Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL), a learning management system developed using free programming tools; Linux; FreeBSD; PHP. |
| Reasons for using OSS | Customisable; cost; multi-platform support. |
| Benefits of using open source software | On-demand customisation; low cost barrier to entry. |
| Challenges of using open source software | - |
| Does using FOSS benefit your organisation? |
Cost benefit; easy access to the source code allows the product to be easily branded, translated and the interface fully customised. |
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| Organisation |
The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is a tertiary educational institution based in Cape Town, South Africa. It offers an extensive curriculum of undergraduate and post graduate courses.
In early 2000 the KEWL (http://kewl.uwc.ac.za) platform evolved from the coalescing of seperate programs and scripts, many of which were created by Professor Derek Keats , now the product champion and chief developer.
The broader goal for KEWL was to support the teaching and learning process by providing learning resources in a virtual space shared by teachers and learners.
Practically, the learning management system allows staff to create and manage content online, such as lecture slides, reading materials and course notes, while learners can post assignments, corrospond with staff, and participate in course-specific discussion forums.
All content, interaction, uploads and downloads take place through a standard web browser.
KEWL Next Gen, the next full product version, is a collaborative effort amongst academics and programmers from five institutions (University of Port Elizabeth, Peninsula Technikon, Universities of Nairobi, Ghana and Dar-es-Salaam) and uses open, cross-platform standards such as PHP scripting, XML and Java for maximum compatibility with Open Source and proprietary servers. It was due for release in November 2004. |
| Why does the organisation use FOSS? |
The KEWL platform needed to be highly adaptable, to be customised according to the needs of various academic depertments. Moreover the system has been made available to other learning intitutuions, many of whom have enhanced the product by translating the interface into multiple languages, making it more useful to a greater number of organisations across the continent and the world.
According to Keats the University of Iran recently compared the KEWL system with other proprietary and open source learning management systems, and found it more easily adaptable to their needs, which included tranlating the interface into Sufi.
Currently KEWL can be used in English, Xhosa, Zulu, Italian, Portuguese and many other languages, the interface translation taking just a few mouse clicks. |
| The benefits and challenges of using FOSS |
Cost benefit: The low barrier to entry presented by the KEWL system allows learning institutions to experiment with the system without paying for the privilage.
Open source benefit: Easy access to the source code allows the product to be easily branded, translated and the interface fully customised.
Infrastructure challenge: The system requires for most learners and academic staff to have ready access to computers. UWC will attempt mass roll-out next year when new computer labs have been put in place. Currently the heaviest users are faculties with their own computer labs. |
| Conclusions |
Web-based systems like KEWL encourage distance learning and academic collaboration. Using KEWL, UWC is currently running two postgraduate programmes involving students from the United States and a number of African countries.
Most recently the University of Ghana implemented the KEWL system, and trained up to 55 staff members in its usage.
The KEWL system has been downloaded and used by academic institutions around the world, from Africa to South America and Europe, making it a prime example of how Africa is contributing to the global open source community.
CONTACTS:
www.uwc.ac.za
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