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WACREN Conference 2016Monday 14 March 2016 - Friday 18 March 2016

Hotel Novotel

Book of Abstracts

Contents

Accessibility of the Root Name Servers of the West African Countries . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Advanced Services in Collaboration with Research Community: Creating Locally, ThinkingGlobally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

AfricaConnect2 – R&E networking for West and Central Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

An NREN in a national and global environment: value creation at SURFnet . . . . . . . . 3

Cloud Infrastructure, an essential component of resource sharing for African National Re-search and Education Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

DNS business and security: a role for the academia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Dynamic Spectrum and the Future of Affordable Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

E-Readiness Survey: Know Your Customer – Plan the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Enabling Virtual Research and Education in Environment monitoring - The role of researchand education networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Experiences from an Online Educational Program in Public Health: Peoples-uni . . . . . 12

From National to Global e-Infrastructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Internet Number Resources IPv4 uptake and IPv6 deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Just-in-Time-Teaching – State of the Art of a Blended Learning and Teaching Approach? 14

L’enseignement de la science ouverte dans les écoles doctorales en Afrique de l’Ouest etCentrale : potentiel et obstacles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Mapping the NREN business model using the business model canvas: the case of TENET 15

NREN survival strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

OAU-METLINK: An Online Resource for Teaching of Physical Meteorology in NigerianUniversities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

The NREN of the Future in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Towards a Regional Communication and Information Network for the West African Re-search and Education Network (WACREN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Virtual Private Clouds Performance investigation on educative network . . . . . . . . . 18

iii

World Development Report 2016 – Tech Hubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

perfsonarUI and eduGAIN federated login . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

WACREN Conference 2016 / Book of Abstracts

22

Accessibility of the Root Name Servers of theWest African Coun-triesAuthor: Frédéric OUEDRAOGO1

Co-author: Didier BASSOLE 2

1 Université de Koudougou2 Université Ouaga 1

Corresponding Author: [email protected]

The accessibility of the Web pages relies on the services of the DomainName System (DNS) through their servers around the world. The DomainName System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computersand network services. The main service of the DNS consists to translatethe domain names using by humans to the numerical ip addresses neededfor the purpose of computers and others services. The DNS play a keyrole in the control of the web users. It is often used to block the use ofa target website. For instance, Turkey has used a false resolution of theDNS queries to block the famous social networks Twitter and Facebookout of its citizens.

In this paper we evaluate the quality of the DNS service through theaccess to the root name servers of West African countries. Precisely, wemeasure the Round trip time (RTT) of icmp echo reply packets sentfrom two monitors to these servers. The RTT is the time for a packet totravel from a given source to a given destination, plus the time to backfrom the destination to the source. The RTT is an important value thattakes part in the estimation of the quality of various network systems.From the iana database, we retrieve the root name servers ipv4 ad-dresses that have authority on the country top-level domains (ccTLDs)of Burkina, Benin, Cote-d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Liberia, SénégalMali and Togo.

From monitors located in Ouagadougou and Paris, We perform peri-odically the RTT measurement by sending at each two minutes an icmpecho resquest toward each DNS server. The monitor in Burkina Fasois inside the West Africa zone and the monitor in France outsidethis zone. Obviously, having a monitor in each West African country mayprovide more information but this measurement framework is out of ourreach. We assume that the monitors from these two locations will givea representative overview of the accessibility of the concerned root nameservers.

Each country has at least four root name server, but most of them arehosted in foreign countries, precisely in other continents. For example,some countries (Liberia, Mali,…) have all their servers hosted by foreigncountries but the majority hosts one or two of their root name servers.

The mean of the RTTs of root name servers on a sample of 3 hours ofmeasurement (about one hundred rounds) shows the time to access theroot name servers hosted by their own countries is relatively high. Wemade the same observation with the two monitors, precisely this time ishigher with the monitor located in Ouagadougou (700 milliseconds on average)than the one in Paris (200 milliseconds on average). However, the access tothe root name servers hosted in foreign countries is better, 5 millisecondsfor the monitor in Paris and 400 milliseconds for the one in Ouagadougou. Theaccess to the services provided by the root name servers of West African


Countries hosted by the owner is not efficient. It is particularly worse forrequests coming from Burkina Faso.

Despite the geographical proximity, a dns request coming from Francehas better access to root name servers hosted in West Africa than a re-quest coming from inside this zone. Beyond the accessibility of these dnsservers, our observation shows how is the state of the Internet betweenWest African countries.

PLENARY SESSION II – Paper Presentations / 16

Advanced Services in Collaboration with Research Community:Creating Locally, Thinking GloballyAuthors: André Marins1 ; Iara Machado1 ; Michael Stanton1 ; Rafael Valle2

1 Brazilian Research and Education Network (RNP)2 RNP - Brazilian NREN


This paper aims to describe the results of close collaboration between the Brazilian NREN, RNP, andthe research community in Brazil, in the joint development of advanced Internet services. This collab-oration has a long history – several of the community members involved in the recent developmentactivities described here were already actively involved in the deployment of the first academic net-works in Brazil between 1988 and 1992. However, it must also be recognised that new generations ofcomputer science researchers continue to be drawn to the challenges of computer networking andits applications, and that is also the case in Brazil, where most of the proposals received by RNP fornew services now come from younger generation scientists.

The motivation for the work described here has always been to improve the service offerings pro-vided by RNP, by capitalising on the capacity of the national network and distributed systems re-search community to develop innovative solutions. Many of these have been motivated by the de-sire to interoperate with new services and models continually introduced in leading R&E networksthroughout the world, and it is a tribute to our development teams that such interoperation hasgreatly increased in recent years.

Nowadays the big challenge to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is create new services to be com-petitive at low costs in a very aggressive market. NRENs have to participate in the ISP marketplaceand must offer advanced Internet services in order to differentiate themselves from commercial ISPs.How should an NREN deal with this challenge?

The RNP Working Groups programme was launched in 2002 with the objective of developing col-laborative projects between RNP and national research groups, which demonstrate the feasibility ofusing new network protocols, services and applications. Projects are proposed by national researchgroups, in response to an open call for proposals published annually by RNP. Each group designsand develops a pilot service, which is later evaluated and, if approved, will in the end be made avail-able to RNP users. Since 2002, we have financed and accompanied the execution of about 100 oneyear projects, which have together generated 10 currently working services at RNP, in areas such asVoIP, PKI, CDN, video services, remote education support, network monitoring, as well as productsin many areas.

This concept has also been adopted at RNP for introducing new technologies into core areas such assecurity services, performance monitoring and dynamic provisioning of virtual circuit services, inorder to accompany international trends to add such advanced features to the service offerings of re-search networks. At RNP such developments contribute to the Advanced Internet programme, andhave included especially in dynamic circuit provisioning, and high-performance (4K) video stream-ing and visualisation. In these cases, the theme of the working group is decided by RNP. How-ever there are great similarities between these two manifestations of WGs. In both cases, research

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groups from the academic research community are the engines for the development of technologyfor RNP.

Some of these services and products aroused interest of NRENs and its institutions in others emerg-ing countries, especially in Latin America, but also in Africa. This interest led groups to also engagecollaborators from others countries which contribute to the internationalization of RNP solutions.RNP’s initiative of promoting local development of Internet services has value, not only for Brazil,but also for R&E networks in other countries, both in providing an example of what can be achieved,but also cooperating with such networks to contribute to their development.


AfricaConnect2 – R&E networking for West and Central Africa


PLENARY SESSION I – Paper Presentations / 13

An NREN in a national and global environment: value creationat SURFnet

Author: Bram Peeters1

1 SURFnet


1. Introduction

National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) exist in most countries. They all provide ser-vices to – minimally - the higher educational sector, some provide services well beyond that.

NRENs come in many different organisational models, from departments of a ministry to indepen-dent companies. All NRENs however are challenged to provide the right services to their con-stituency. They eventually need to do this sufficiently distinguishable (cost, quality or functionality)from services that can and will be provided by the market.

In this paper we discuss show SURFnet – the Dutch NREN – tackles these challenges, and how thiscan only be done in a global context.

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Figure 1: picture with NRENs in the world as logged by TERENA

NRENs in the world as included in TERENA compendium 2013

2. How SURFnet tackles the challenge

SURFnet is the Dutch NREN. SURFnet’s vision is that access to innovative ICT and internet servicesis necessary for advanced and innovative education and research.

Founded in the 1980s, it has been running networks ever since. In the past decade the scope haswidened from providing netwerk connectivity to related ICT services such a identity federation,eduroam, personal storage and others.

Governance model

SURFnet is a Dutch BV, a limited liability company. It is one of three daughters of SURF that itselfis a cooperation consisting of members (the individual institutions). The SURF cooperation owns allshares in SURFnet, SURFsara (the high performance computing centre) and SURFmarket (a central-ized entity purchasing licensing, cloud services and digital content).

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Figure 2: SURF governance model

All three organisations provide services to the constituency and are therefore both supplier to andowned by the major stakeholders.

This leads to feedback both through the ownership as well as the service delivery mechanism: own-ership ensures that the strategic direction fits with the strategies of the universities in the long term,whereas service delivery feedback ensures that correct quality and relevant services are deliverednow.

Funding

The funding has two different streams, one based on innovation that supports the long term projectsthat have a higher risk, and the second one the exploitation, where individual institutions contributebased on the services they receive. This is a second factor that creates a valuable tension betweeninnovation and exploitation.

Services

To retain its relevance the services SURFnet delivers should ideally be

• sufficiently distinguishable from what the market delivers, or

• delivered in a way the market is not willing or able to do.

SURFnet always strives to deliver the newest capacities and capabilities to its customers as produc-tion service early and at a reasonable price, to enable them to run and innovate their own ICT-basedactivitities. SURFnet preferably focuses on these services that have a strong communal character-istic, where the combined scale and the collaboration of the constituents make the service morerelevant.

Services: Network

SURFnet has been building networks since 1988, delivering high-quality connections to universi-ties . Every generation of the network incorporated new technologies and provided considerablebandwidth growth.

(expected: a new picture with different generations from 1Mbps to 100Gbps)

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The services on the network have evolved from standard data connections to include private, ondemand configurable networks that can be integrated in the institutions own network.

Services: Identity

SURFnet as a central entity provides the infrastructure to manage identity validation between insti-tutions and suppliers. An NREN can be a unique trusted partner, that has no other interest thanfacilitating and optimizing the capabilities.

Services such as eduroam, access to scientific libraries, access to cloud services and collaborationplatforms rely on these systems. Global interfederations are the next step.

Global collaboration

Innovation and service renewal is not a solitary process, it can only be succesful when an NREN iswell connected tot its peers, both in a very physical way as well as the human way.

Currently a number of different platforms exist, for this paper we will focus on the network anddiscuss GLIF and the CEO Forum/GNA. Both are collaboration platforms with a global scope. Theintent is to bring together resources and open these up to the community. The GNA is about defininga framework for R&E Networks and Exchange Points (GXPs) to participate in a global networkinterconnect.

Connecting to networks like these and participating in the organisations leads to early access toideas and concepts, but also to access to e-Infrastructure resources across the world. This is a uniqueapproach to networking that only NRENs can be expected to execute and benefit from, for the benefitof their user base.

Figure 3: GLIF connectivity Europe

GLIF Connectivity to Europe

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Figure 4: GNA Artist Impression

Artist’s impression of a Global Network Architecture Network


Cloud Infrastructure, an essential component of resource sharingfor African National Research and Education Networks.Author: Babatunde Omogbai1

1 WACREN


ABSTRACT:The world has witnessed the birth of a new era – The digital information age. This global age ofinformation technology is sweeping through the globe improving connectivity, adding intelligenceto networks and generating big data, but its impact on research and sustainable development insub-sahara Africa is minimal if not non-existent.

This paper introduces Cloud Infrastructure has an essential component of research and educationnetworks to aid collaboration and resource sharing between national research and education net-works in africa. The paper will also examine key factors in the design, implementation, security,commercial aspects and adoption of cloud computing in an NREN

This paper aim to address the following:

a. Introduce the basic concepts of Cloud infrastructure and the services to be offered by an NRENor WACREN Cloud infrastructure.b. The different Cloud provisions and platforms with the challenges of an NREN cloud infrastruc-ture.c. The paper will also examine in details the designs and integration to existing NREN’s networkswith interconnections for resource sharing and collaborations within NRENS with a roadmap forsuccessful cloud deployment.d. The paper will explore the commercial opportunities available to NREN’s based on their invest-ments in a cloud infrastructure within the framework of the NREN and her customers.

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e. Finally, the paper will present some business and use cases for cloud computing within NRENjoint infrastructure environment

POTENTIAL ATTENDEE:This paper is intended for the African National Research and Education Community, Universitiesand Research Organizations and the government.

PLENARY SESSION III – Paper Presentations / 40

DNS business and security: a role for the academiaCo-author: Pierre Dandjinou 1

1 ICANN


PLENARY SESSION IV – Paper Presentations / 39

Dynamic Spectrum and the Future of Affordable AccessCorresponding Author: [email protected]

PLENARY SESSION V – Paper Presentations / 10

E-Readiness Survey: KnowYourCustomer – Plan the FutureAuthor: Amos Nungu1

Co-author: Damas Makweba 1

1 TERNET

Corresponding Authors: [email protected], [email protected]

This e-readiness Survey is conducted by Tanzania Education and Research Network (TERNET) amongTanzanian higher learning institutions to establish the preparedness of those institutions in the useof Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The survey focuses in achieving the actualcapability of each and every individual institutions readiness in the use ICT in education.

The E-readiness survey is being carried out among 60 institution in Tanzania. It was scheduled forthree months between October to December 2014, hence, it is in its final stages.

The survey is grouped into four categories related to network access, networked learning, networkedsociety, and policy. The categories were further broken down into nine indicators: communicationinfrastructures, Internet availability, Internet affordability, network speed, enhancing education withICT, developing the ICT workforce, people and organizations online, locally relevant contents, andICT in everyday life.

Through the collected data, we observe that

Institutions outside the Dar Es Salaam city has major challenges in terms of Internet availability,affordability and speed.Most of smaller institutions or campuses outside Dar Es Salaam have budgetary challenges as well

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lack of qualified ICT technical staff.ICT policy and strategic plan is missing in most institutions

INTRODUCTION:

Tanzania Education and Research Network (TERNET) is a network for Tanzanian higher learningand research institutions aiming at providing platform for enabling the sharing of education andresearch resources.

TERNET as an organization decided to conduct an e-readiness survey aiming at establishing ICTstatus for each member institution in the country.e-readiness is defined by the Center for International Development at Harvard University) as “thedegree to which a community is prepared to participate in the Networked World. It is gauged byassessing a community’s relative advancement in the areas that are most critical for ICT adoptionand the most important applications of ICTs. When considered together in the context of a strategicplanning dialogue, anassessment based on these elements provides a robust portrayal of a community’s Readiness. Thevalue to acommunity of assessing its Readiness lies in evaluating its unique opportunities and challenges.”

The findings in this study are expected to guide TERNET to better serve her members; knowing thestatus on the ground will provide opportunity to provide strategic solutions.

This E-readiness survey is sponsored by International Network for the Availability of scientific Pub-lications (INASP) to be performed in three months from October to December 2014.

METHODOLOGY

The survey is carried out using a questionnaire which is designed in three sections related to:

Establishing awareness – questions leading to understanding how much the institutions know aboutTERNET.Management part – collecting information about the institutions (CEO, IT Manager, Finance, con-tact person, etc)Technical part – this relates to the four categories and the various groups.

TERNET staff visits each institution, have a general discussion with the top management, later havea one to one discussion with the technical staff to complete the questionnaire. Few institutions haverequested that us to leave the questionnaire to be filled in later.

CONCLUSION:

TERNET has started a service her members known as “Direct Engineering Assistant (DEA)” wherewe do help member institutions to restructure their networks. The e-readiness Survey helps TERNETto determine which institutions require a quick DEA support.

The results will help TERNET or any other NREN to strategically plan and deliver and deliver solu-tions which are relevant to the intended communities.


Enabling Virtual Research and Education in Environment moni-toring - The role of research and education networksAuthor: Björn Pehrson1

1 KTH


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1. Motivations and awareness about the need for environment monitoring:We present ongoing research and education in environment monitoring targeting several Africancountries and discuss how RENs could support the emerging virtual research and education commu-nities involved in environment oriented research with large socio-econoic impact.The need for environment monitoring is well documented in International, regional and nationalstrategies and implementation plans including several of the UN Goals for Sustainable Development.Stakeholders in environment information can be found in all sectors of society. Examples of applica-tions include weather research and forecasting, climate research, adaptation and mitigation, farmers’decision-making in agriculture, monitoring of drinking water quality, pollution of air, water or land,all sorts of early warnings, environment impact assessment, etc.Most African countries have considerably more sparse observation networks than other parts of theworld. The key challenges include access to affordable and robust observation stations and commu-nication links to transport data from remote observation stations to central repositories and humanvandalism.These facts are known by decision makers and funds are increasingly allocated to act upon thisawareness.

2. Ongoing research exploring new technologies for environment monitoring:There are emerging technologies under the Internet of Things umbrella that promise to make mas-sive monitoring affordable. There are projects in progress that explore their potential.One such project is WIMEA-ICT, a NORAD funded project aiming at capacity building at someEast African Universities while improving the accuracy of and access to weather information by thecommunities in the East African region through suitable ICTs for increased productivity and safety(http://www.cis.mak.ac.ug/wimea/). The project is organized in four research components (RC1-4):The design and deployment of an affordable and dependable weather station (RC3), Secure and inte-grated storage of the weather data (RC2), Analyses and forecasting based on the collected data (RC1),Dissemination of weather data adapted to end-user needs (RC4).A first generation prototype developed by WIMEA-ICT RC3 has been under field test since earlyMarch 2015 (http://wimea-ict.gfi.uib.no/). Three copies of a 2nd generation prototype will be de-ployed in Uganda, Tanzania and South Sudan over the next few months.The architecture of the prototypes replaces the traditional centralized architecture of environmentmonitoring station with a distributed system consisting of local wireless sensor networks having afew sensor motes reporting readings from connected sensors to a sink mote connected to a gatewaywith buffer storage and uplinks to Internet. This distributed model facilitates putting sensor nodes atappropriate locations within an observation station without wiring problems. The distributed modelalso facilitates having redundant nodes reporting the most essential parameters independently, somedistance apart, to improve data quality and dependability.The stakeholders in the WIMEA-ICT project form a research community that has been adopted asa Community of Practice supported by the EU Sci-GaIA project developing components enhancingthe e-infrastructure of Africa in close cooperation with AfricaConnect and the regional academicnetworks, Ubuntunet and WACREN.Researchers in other countries than those targeted by NORAD have expressed an interest in theWIMEA-ICT project, currently including Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Somalia, who also signedan MoU as a research partner with both Sci-GaIA and WIMEA-ICT. Discussions are under way tofund extra stations to be deployed in these countries. There is reason to believe that researchersin other countries would also be interested if informatin about the project is disseminated morewidely.

3. The role of RENs and what they can contribute to enironment monitoringThe mission of Research and Education Networks is to support research and higher education in allacademic areas.One of the main challenges in the automation and densification of the environment observationnetworks in African countries is affordable and dependable communications between the sensornetworks and the data reception centers is an absolute necessity for sustainable operations.What RENs can contribute is- Facilitating the deployment of access points wherever they can be deployed to which remote wire-less sensor network gateways can connect.- Host scieence gateways, repositories and other e-infrastructure components serving the communi-ties of practice involved in envronment oriented research and education.How to organise this will be elaborated in the full paper.Plans in this directions are already discussed with TERNET, RENU, the emerging NREN of SouthSudan, SomaliREN and ngREN. Examples of similar agreements in Europe and North America will

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be described.

Summary:

1. Motivations and awareness about the need for environment monitoring:We present ongoing research and education in environment monitoring targeting several African coun-tries and discuss how RENs could support the emerging virtual research and education communitiesinvolved in environment oriented research with large socio-econoic impact.The need for environment monitoring is well documented in International, regional and national strate-gies and implementation plans including several of the UN Goals for Sustainable Development. Stake-holders in environment information can be found in all sectors of society. Examples of applicationsinclude weather research and forecasting, climate research, adaptation and mitigation, farmers’ decision-making in agriculture, monitoring of drinking water quality, pollution of air, water or land, all sorts ofearly warnings, environment impact assessment, etc.Most African countries have considerably more sparse observation networks than other parts of theworld. The key challenges include access to affordable and robust observation stations and commu-nication links to transport data from remote observation stations to central repositories and humanvandalism.These facts are known by decision makers and funds are increasingly allocated to act upon this aware-ness.

2. Ongoing research exploring new technologies for environment monitoring:There are emerging technologies under the Internet of Things umbrella that promise to make massivemonitoring affordable. There are projects in progress that explore their potential.One such project is WIMEA-ICT, a NORAD funded project aiming at capacity building at some EastAfrican Universities while improving the accuracy of and access to weather information by the commu-nities in the East African region through suitable ICTs for increased productivity and safety (http://www.cis.mak.ac.ug/wimea/).The project is organized in four research components (RC1-4): The design and deployment of an afford-able and dependable weather station (RC3), Secure and integrated storage of the weather data (RC2),Analyses and forecasting based on the collected data (RC1), Dissemination of weather data adapted toend-user needs (RC4).A first generation prototype developed by WIMEA-ICT RC3 has been under field test since early March2015 (http://wimea-ict.gfi.uib.no/). Three copies of a 2nd generation prototype will be deployed inUganda, Tanzania and South Sudan over the next few months.The architecture of the prototypes replaces the traditional centralized architecture of environment moni-toring station with a distributed system consisting of local wireless sensor networks having a few sensormotes reporting readings from connected sensors to a sink mote connected to a gateway with bufferstorage and uplinks to Internet. This distributed model facilitates putting sensor nodes at appropriatelocations within an observation station without wiring problems. The distributed model also facilitateshaving redundant nodes reporting the most essential parameters independently, some distance apart,to improve data quality and dependability.The stakeholders in the WIMEA-ICT project form a research community that has been adopted as aCommunity of Practice supported by the EU Sci-GaIA project developing components enhancing thee-infrastructure of Africa in close cooperation with AfricaConnect and the regional academic networks,Ubuntunet and WACREN.Researchers in other countries than those targeted by NORAD have expressed an interest in the WIMEA-ICT project, currently including Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Somalia, who also signed an MoU as aresearch partner with both Sci-GaIA and WIMEA-ICT. Discussions are under way to fund extra stationsto be deployed in these countries. There is reason to believe that researchers in other countries wouldalso be interested if informatin about the project is disseminated more widely.

3. The role of RENs and what they can contribute to enironment monitoringThe mission of Research and Education Networks is to support research and higher education in allacademic areas.One of the main challenges in the automation and densification of the environment observation net-works in African countries is affordable and dependable communications between the sensor networksand the data reception centers is an absolute necessity for sustainable operations.What RENs can contribute is- Facilitating the deployment of access points wherever they can be deployed to which remote wirelesssensor network gateways can connect.- Host scieence gateways, repositories and other e-infrastructure components serving the communitiesof practice involved in envronment oriented research and education.

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How to organise this will be elaborated in the full paper.Plans in this directions are already discussed with TERNET, RENU, the emerging NREN of South Sudan,SomaliREN and ngREN. Examples of similar agreements in Europe and North America will be described.


Experiences fromanOnline Educational Program inPublicHealth:Peoples-uniAuthor: Sophia Osawe1

Co-authors: Amos Nungu 2 ; Omo Oaiya 3

1 People’s Open Access Education Initiative, Peoples-uni, UK, Institute of Human Virology, Abuja, Nigeria2 Tanzanian Research and Education Network (TERNET), Tanzania3 People’s Open Access Education Initiative, Peoples-uni, UK


Background

Public Health deals with combined efforts to promote a healthy population, prolong life and preventa population from diseases. People’s Open Access Education Initiative: Peoples-uni (Pu) was estab-lished to build capacity in public health in low-income and middle-income countries. Being a fullonline program, it gives students around the world the opportunity to study and attain postgradu-ate qualifications in public health. Providing this capacity, can lead to improvements in the healthsector of these countries.

Methodology

Pu offers courses in “Foundation Sciences of Public Health” and “Public health Problems” and givesstudents the opportunity to enroll twice a year. The courses are designed to run through 5 topics in10-12 weeks. Tutors are volunteers and Pu alumni, frequently volunteers are with full time teachingpositions in different international institutions. The learning environment is built around Moodleand other open source tools for student administration. I have been an alumnus for almost 3 yearsnow and volunteer as a tutor and student support officer. The online forum makes learning flexibleand gave me personally the chance to work and school simultaneously.

Experiences

Pu has kept interactions with students that have graduated using an online alumni group; an inter-active forum used to share information on further studies, collaborations and other opportunities. Iwas given the opportunity to volunteer as a tutor being the first set of graduates of the MPH pro-gram, collaboration between Pu and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). I have learnt howto effectively interact with students and make discussion forums more interactive. It was importantto keep in mind that there are students from different countries and languages and learn at differentpaces. Being an online course, support for students was also very important; Pu introduced StudentSupport Officer (SSO) in 2013. As a SSO I have supported students through their studies, guidingthem to useful materials and observing their progress. Students have always provided positive feed-backs in terms of the reading materials, interactions and coordination during the modules. Successstories have been in the areas of collaborative studies and publications by tutors and alumni.

The Role for NREN

The National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) can do more to support the community todeliver sustainable capacity building frameworks.The Tanzania Education and Research Network (TERNET) is driving a collaboration with Pu andother stakeholders to facilitate mass training and this is expected to make an impact on public health

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capacity in Tanzania, especially with the emphasis on critical thinking and on an evidence based ap-proach. The central idea is working with Pu tutors to accredit the programme through partnershipwith the local health science training university. This proposal will be sent to the Human Develop-ment Innovation Fund, a UK-Aid funded project in Tanzania.

Conclusion

Pu has created an excellent platform for learning and capacity building. I have had the opportunityto interact with other tutors and students and learn from their experiences in the public healthfield. There are many ideas that can be shared in this forum and opportunities for multi countrycollaborations. The world is growing through technology and the Internet has given us many waysto pass information faster and efficiently.

Summary:

The abstract submitted describes experiences from a public health online educational platform thatreaches out to students all over the world who are interested in public health.


From National to Global e-Infrastructures

Author: Ognjen Prnjat1

1 GRNET

Contemporary research relies on the ability to communicate efficiently and share storage and com-putational resources, as well as algorithms and data, between research groups on national, regionaland global levels.

The presentation will discuss e-Infrastructure development aspects at different organizational levels.Coherent development of national-level e-Infrastructures in terms of networking and computing canpave the way for wider regional, continental and global e-Infrastructure integrations.

The study will start with GRNET, the Greek NREN, focusing on advanced computational servicesincluding Grid, Cloud and High-Performance Computing. Further it will show how these computingmodels evolve on regional - South-East European - level, where 14 countries collaborated during thepast decade, via multiple high-end technology projects, in sharing resources and jointly operatingthe computing infrastructures for a spectrum of scientific fields.

This regional work culminates with the current VI-SEEM project, where an integrated Virtual Re-search Environment is provided to the large regional user communities in Climate modeling, Life Sci-ences and Digital Cultural Heritage. Finally continental (European) and global scale (via the MAGICproject) models will be presented. Western African NRENs could benefit from such a developmentapproach individually, but even more importantly together on a regional level as WACREN.


Internet Number Resources IPv4 uptake and IPv6 deployment

Author: MAdhvi GOKOOL1

1 AFRINIC Ltd

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Abstract – WACREN meetingThe purpose of this presentation is manyfold :-a) Give a brief overview of Internet Number Resources(INR) and AFRINIC’s role in its managementb) status of resource pool -IPv4c) Is there a need for IPv6 and whyd) NRENs - AFRINIC resource members?e) Describe membership process for NRENsf) Discounts offered by AFRINICg) Overview of some AFRINIC services


Just-in-Time-Teaching – State of the Art of a Blended Learningand Teaching Approach?

Author: Margareth Gfrerer1

1 Ethiopia


Generations of lecturers have been bothered by the perpetual question: “What should my studentslearn for being best prepared for their future?” – Lecturers with different backgrounds will givedifferent answers. Fact is, all lecturers have the objective to prepare their students in the best possibleway to find suitable work after graduation.

This discussion raises the general question about the institutional accountability and the responsi-bilities of both lecturers and students. Curricula and syllabi set the formal frame, which indicateswhat could be expected in and from a study programme. They can be considered as being the stan-dard operating procedure of teaching and learning to achieve the goals set. Most responsibilities aredefined among all the parties involved in the higher education sector. But not all responsibilities areframed within contracts, regulations and laws. Generally, education experts understand the term ofresponsibility as referring to the duty of introducing students to contemporary (latest) knowledgeand skills. On one side students should be prepared with the most suitable methodologies for theirchallenges ahead. On the other side there is the emphasis on duties by public servants or employeesin general, which implicates not to step away from the path set but to act upon laws and regulations.For lecturers these paths are written down in curricula and syllabi. Changes in the way duties are tobe fulfilled normally require changes in curricula and syllabi. A strict focus on the perseverance ofduties give lecturers the confidence to be in line with the requirements set by rules and regulationsbut can lead to disappointments at the students’ side.

Students eye on the demand from employers’ side and evaluate the applied their curricula, syllabiand the methodologies based on that understanding.

Would lecturers stroll away from the path indicated by curricula and syllabi, they can be hold toaccount why they are not compliant with the norms set in curricula and syllabi. Rather than offeringoff-curriculum and off-syllabus contents, not documented in lecture books but elaborated on anindividual basis by the respective lecturers, it is easier for many lecturers to stay on the set path ofthe existing curricula and syllabi.

Lecturers, who dare to stroll away from the set path get deprived of the safety net but offer theirstudents insights into the latest development in practice, science and research. The key performanceindicator on employability of graduates applied for in higher education statistics and higher educa-tion information management systems requests exactly this data. - Higher education institutions aswell as the ministries for higher education face the dilemma between (public) administration andpro-active (market or entrepreneurial) approaches.

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The objective of this research is to elaborate a way out of that dilemma by exploring the strengthsand weaknesses of the just-in-time-teaching approach. The latter uses e-learning in the same wayas classroom teaching with blended learning and teaching approaches. In a focus group discussionwith Ethiopian lecturers the just-in-time-teaching approach will be discussed and analysed. Couldit be considered as suitable for selected courses or study programmes in order to up-date the lecturecontent as well as the teaching methodology without interfering into the curricula and syllabi setby the higher education authorities? The result of this focus group discussion will be complementedby the researcher’s own experiences in applying the instruments of just-in-time teaching for manyyears.

This research is structured into the six chapters. In the first chapter presents an introduction isgiven into the dilemma that public higher education institutions are facing in accepting state of theart education approaches vis-à-vis to the standard operating procedure approaches of lecturers. Thesecond chapter will define the term just-in-time-teaching based on the literature available. The thirdchapter will present in brief the methodology for this research. The fourth chapter introduces theinstruments of e-learning and classroom teaching as the core instruments for a just-in-time-teachingapproach. The prerequisites, requirements and preparation for the implementation of a just-in-time-teaching will be accommodated within this chapter. Chapter five will focus on the justification,the benefits and the effects of just-in-time-teaching. The final chapter will draw the conclusion ofthe just-in-time-teaching approach in regard to verifiable indicators for the stakeholders on highereducation outputs.

Summary:

Use of e-learning tools for the just-in-time-teaching approach.

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L’enseignement de la science ouverte dans les écoles doctoralesen Afrique de l’Ouest et Centrale : potentiel et obstaclesAuthor: Diéyi DIOUF1

Co-authors: Florence Piron 2 ; Liliane Mbazogue Owono 3

1 Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar2 Université Laval (Canada)3 École normale supérieure de Libreville


Une communication en français.


Mapping theNREN businessmodel using the businessmodel can-vas: the case of TENETAuthor: Tiwonge Banda1

1 Ubuntunet Alliance


For several years the subject of business models for national research and education networks (NRENs)has been at the center of discussions in the NREN community. Research and many business leaders

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agree that business models offer a better way of predicting business success rather than industryclassifications. A business model describes the logic of how a firm creates values for its clients andfor itself. It is easy to assume that NRENs, being not-for-profit in nature and whose market is givendoes not need to have a clearly articulated business model. However, with competition from ag-gressive commercial operators, NRENs are increasingly finding themselves in situations where theyhave to rethink their business logic.

Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET), the NREN of South Africa is oneof the oldest NRENs in Africa. Established in the year 2000, the NREN is now almost 15 years and isthe biggest NREN in Africa in terms of network coverage, volume of bandwidth and assets. Over theyears, TENET has established itself as a not-for-profit business entity in South Africa with the pur-pose of securing, for the benefit of South African universities, technikons and associated research andsupport institutions, Internet and Information Technology services. This involves entering into andmanaging contracts with service providers and institutional users, carrying out ancillary operationalfunctions in support of service delivery and providing other value-added services as may from timeto time be needed in support of the higher educational and research sector in South Africa.

Using the Business Model Canvas developed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, this papermaps TENET’s business model. The Business Model Canvas is one of the many business model gen-eration tools that entrepreneurs use. It is a strategic tool for developing new or documenting existingbusiness models of an organisation. It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm’s customers,offer, infrastructure, and financial viability. From these four pillars come nine elements of a busi-ness model: Customer Segments, Value Proposition, Distribution Channels, Customer Relationships,Revenue Streams, Key Resources, Key Activities, Key Partnerships, and Cost Structure.

This paper presents the results of the study carried out in September 2013 mapping the businessmoney of TENET following the above mentioned nine elements. The paper will demonstrate thata clearly defined/articulated business model for an NREN will give it a competitive edge on themarket. Using limited examples of NRENs in the region, the paper will stimulate discussion onpossible business models for emerging NRENs.


NREN survival strategies

Author: Robert Janz1

1 Project manager


NRENs not only serve closed user groups on a not-for-profit base, but also on a not-for-loss basis.The primary customer base of NRENs consists of research and higher education institutions and theNREN often have to compete for the provision of Internet services with large monopolists or (evenlarger) commercial companies. Emerging NRENs more than often face challenges to convince gov-ernment and other potential donors that they are more than a commercial Internet Service providerand need extra support to survive. In order to survive there are several strategies that other NRENshave deployed and can be used as examples by emerging NRENs.

First, the classical approach, is to bind Higher Education and Research by providing additional ser-vices that are not provided by standard ISP’s. Examples of such services are Federative IdentityManagement, access to on line educational content, access to shared facilities such as High Perfor-mance Computing and massive storage.

A second approach can be to broaden the primary customer base to other related customer groups,such as libraries, hospitals and NGO’s. The national regulator might object to this approach, but ex-amples of successful expansion of the user groups are known and the expanded user group providesa more solid base of the business model.

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A third approach is to broaden the profile of the impact of the NRENs in the area of the public good.The most used argument of the added value of NRENs is that ICT in Higher Education is necessaryto boost the economy of a country as they will pave the way to an ICT oriented service economy.There are however examples of areas where a sustainable NREN has added value for the country asa whole, such as health care, rural area development, millennium goals and even tourism.

No NREN, existing or emerging, is the same, neither are the national setting circumstances the same.There is there no one size fits all solution, but by giving an overview of existing strategies emergingNRENs can pick the most most suitable tactics as part of their own strategy.


OAU-METLINK: An Online Resource for Teaching of PhysicalMeteorology in Nigerian UniversitiesAuthor: Oluwagbemiga Jegede1

Co-authors: Adewale Ajao 2 ; Lukman Sunmonu 2 ; Muritala Ayoola 2

1 OAU, Ile-Ife2 Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife

Corresponding Authors: [email protected], [email protected]

Atmospheric processes largely are described by the laws of physics and chemistry, which can bedemonstrated by well-tested models. The quest for improved delivery in teaching of University-levelcourses in physical meteorology (atmospheric thermodynamics, radiation and optics, cloud physicsand chemistry), has brought to fore demands for the introduction of such experimental models asinstructional aids to supplement classroom lectures.

Due to prohibitive costs of setting up of meteorology laboratory in the Nigerian Universities, ex-perimental facilities are grossly lacking. To overcome the challenges, an online teaching facility,OAU-METLINK, is being developed by Atmospheric Physics Research Group (APRG) at the Depart-ment of Physics and Engineering Physcs, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A suiteof computer programs downloadable through weblink from http://www.meteorology.oauife.edu.ngare customized for hands-on exercises using databases of meteorological parameters, instructionalvideos and Java Applets (as plug-ins).

A meteorological pre-processor is integrated to determine the characteristic atmospheric parameterssuch as, stability index, mixing height, sensible heat flux, friction velocity, Monin-Obukhov length,precipitable water content, clearness index, lifting condensation level (LCL), etc., from the routinelymeasured variables like air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and global radiation.

The present initiative is aimed at acquiring relevant computer models and using such to run simu-lations to gain better understanding of the phenomena occurring in the atmosphere. It is intendedthat the online resource is used solely for teaching of courses in physical meteorology at ObafemiAwolowo University, and extended later to other universities in Nigeria.


The NREN of the Future in Africa


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Towards a Regional Communication and Information Networkfor theWestAfricanResearch andEducationNetwork (WACREN)

Author: Donna Oti1

1 CEI Consulting Firm


Several regional scholars recognize the potential Research and Education Networks (RENs) holdto transform the ways researchers connect, communicate and collaborate – essential enabling con-ditions to build world class research institutions, solve regional problems, and ultimately impactnational economies (Taylor and Abbott, 2015). The expectations for the West and Central African Re-search and Education Network (WACREN) are no exception. Currently the discussion of WACRENpredominantly lies among technical professionals who are involved in building and maintaining in-frastructure. This is appropriate at this stage since it would be impossible to realize the promise ofREN without a solid ICT infrastructure in place and the technical competencies to maintain it (Khan,2006). However, a significant and growing number of end users will be university staff from alldisciplines, new generation research students, and other participants based on the composition ofeach REN. Therefore a challenge at this juncture may be developing strategies to enable WACRENto engage potential stakeholders beyond its primary technical base. A challenge at a later stagewill be the race for content – creating and storing digital content from all disciplines and in variedcontexts.

This paper advocates a customized communication strategy for WACREN, which addresses the needto target key audiences as well as create and store content. It would be a mistake to replicate commu-nication strategies from other RENs and adopt them in the West African context. Equally important,this paper proposes the establishment of a regional news and information network to serve thecommunication and information needs of key stakeholders in a timely, efficient and effective way.The proposed network could also serve as a teaching and learning platform for university studentsfrom various disciplines. Communication professionals – with their focus on content – are valuableassets in numerous ways. The storage capacity of RENs and the possibilities of supporting videoconferencing, streaming, and mobile services creates the potential for the growth of large reposito-ries of regional knowledge. Mass communication and strategic communication professional couldplay critical roles in developing and maintaining communication channels customized to target keystakeholders and chronicling the evolution of REN for the digital archives.

In sum, this paper proposes a three phase strategy to 1) customize a communication strategy to meetthe needs of the WACREN community; 2) develop a communication campaign to engage currentstakeholders and build wider constituencies; and 3) develop a news and information network tosustain WACREN goals for communication. The author envisions these activities being supported bya wider teaching and learning initiative for the academic staff and students in mass communication,digital content development, computer science and related disciplines. Interest in NRENs have beenheightened primarily among academic audiences by public relation and social media campaigns(GEANT 2015, Taylor and Abbott, 2015). Still the need exists, particularly in the early stages ofWACREN, to build constituencies beyond the core technical audiences.

Summary:

This paper proposes a three phase strategy to 1) customize a communication strategy to meet the needsof the WACREN community; 2) develop a communication campaign to engage current stakeholders andbuild wider constituencies; and 3) develop a news and information network to sustain WACREN’s goalsfor communication.


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Virtual Private Clouds Performance investigation on educativenetworkAuthor: Issa TRAORE1

Co-authors: Brou Medard KOUASSI 1 ; Tiémoman KONE 1

1 RITER / Côte d’Ivoire


The platform of the VPC (Virtual Private Clouds) is a protected general-purpose access by meansof the VPN-IPSec tunnels. It gives to the education systems the opportunity to mutualize data, re-sources, services and information. The mobile stations in the VPC brings a great flexibility regardingthe present needs of mobility for users. However, the development of the mobile terminals in theVPC generates many problems: data security, wireless accesses and the impact of the simple addi-tion to Web access in basic solution of VPN-IPSec for users. In our study we propose an architectureof Cloud Computing which uses VPN infrastructure for the fixed or mobile users. We present ananalysis of the impact of connecting a large number of mobile stations on traffic, based on a randomconnection model-VPN IPSec mobile user in the VPC.


World Development Report 2016 – Tech HubsCorresponding Author: [email protected]


perfsonarUI and eduGAIN federated loginAuthor: Antoine Delvaux1

1 PSNC/GÉANT

Networks are vital to research disciplines. Collaboration and data mobility rely heavily on networkinfrastructure and almost always cross administrative domains. Ensuring that things are operatingwell, on an end-to-end basis, is critical. Monitoring within a single domain is a common and acceptedpractice ; cross-domain performance monitoring is difficult to do with traditional tools.

perfSONAR is a widely-deployed test and measurement infrastructure that is used by science net-works and facilities around the world to monitor and ensure network performance. It provides easy,transparent end-to-end monitoring, giving access to network measurement data from multiple net-work domains. It can operate at local level or around the globe and is scalable to provide at-a-glanceinformation about multiple network paths simultaneously. With around 1,500 measurement pointsacross the globe, it is easy for NRENs and research teams to accurately measure network perfor-mance and ensure it meets their research needs.

The perfsonarUI (psUI) web application enables users to visualize measurement results from perf-SONAR services. It can provide insight into historical measurements stored in a perfSONAR Mea-surement Archive (MA), or request an on-demand measurement to be performed by a perfSONARMeasurement Point (MP). The psUI gives the network operators the possibility to troubleshoot per-formance problems on their network but also through and up to other connected networks.

This multi-domain view on end-to-end performance is equally interesting to campus operators ver-ifying their local and upstream connectivity, as well as to researchers needing to transfer large

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amount of data and that are dependant on reliable connectivity. To make the perfSONAR mea-surements available to all interested, it was logical to authenticate users through federated login.And, as a truly multi-domain tool, the ideal federated configuration is through eduGAIN.

eduGAIN interconnects research and education identity federations around the world. It enables thetrustworthy exchange of information between service providers and research and education institu-tions or other identity providers. This means simpler access to a wider range of online content, ser-vices and other resources that benefit collaboration in the research and education community.

To avoid overloading networks with perfSONAR measurements, consumption of network resourcescan be controlled at each MP by local administrators through the definition of appropriate policies.On top of that, the psUI administrator can grant different authorisation levels to each federated user.With this two levels of control, federated access to performance measurements stays within definedbounds.

During this presentation, we will demo the psUI with eduGAIN federated login and show you theperformance verification features it provides to a wide user audience while still assuring the networkoperators that their network is not overloaded.

The development of perfSONAR is the result of the combined work of GÉANT, Internet2, ESnet andIndiana University. eduGAIN support, development and promotion in Europe is provided throughthe GÉANT Project. The MAGIC and TANDEM projects are helping to promote eduGAIN uptake inother world regions.

Summary:

This presentation will demonstrate how an eduGAIN federated perfSONAR UI provides network opera-tors and researchers the possibility to troubleshoot performance problems, end-to-end, through an easyaccessible and usable user interface. All this while maintaining the confidence that network resourcesare under control.

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http://www.perfsonar.net

http://www.edugain.org

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