Showing items 1 - 20 of 86

Your selections:

Check for updates Assessing the Impact of DNS Configuration

  • Authors: Okuthe, J A , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430917 , vital:72727 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34896-9
  • Description: Domain name system (DNS) is an essential enabler for connecting us-ers and services on the Internet. DNS translates human readable do-main names into IP addresses and precedes client connection to a server via a domain name. DNS service is therefore expected to con-sume network bandwidth even though it offers no direct benefit to the user. Having observed the large component of DNS traffic on the com-munity network local loop in our previous study, we migrated the DNS service from a server on the LAN to the gateway router and reconfig-ured the cache time-to-live. Results from the analysis of network traffic captured from the gateway router interface show a 26% decrease in the downlink bandwidth utilization and 46% decline in the uplink bandwidth utilization. The DNS component of the local loop traffic reduces from 45.28% to 4.11%. On the other hand, the Web component of the local loop traffic increases from 49.42% to 95.49%. Data collected from a mirroring port on the LAN switch indicate a decrease in the DNS portion of the internal traffic from 0.38% to 0.18%. Although the DNS reconfigu-ration helps alleviate network bandwidth constraints and reduces DNS component of the traffic, the Web portion increases. The implementa-tion of effective, efficient and sustainable Web traffic management is therefore required.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2023

Assessing the Impact of DNS Configuration on Low Bandwidth Networks

  • Authors: Okuthe, J A , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430903 , vital:72726 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34896-9_6
  • Description: Domain name system (DNS) is an essential enabler for connecting us-ers and services on the Internet. DNS translates human readable do-main names into IP addresses and precedes client connection to a server via a domain name. DNS service is therefore expected to con-sume network bandwidth even though it offers no direct benefit to the user. Having observed the large component of DNS traffic on the com-munity network local loop in our previous study, we migrated the DNS service from a server on the LAN to the gateway router and reconfig-ured the cache time-to-live. Results from the analysis of network traffic captured from the gateway router interface show a 26% decrease in the downlink bandwidth utilization and 46% decline in the uplink bandwidth utilization. The DNS component of the local loop traffic reduces from 45.28% to 4.11%. On the other hand, the Web component of the local loop traffic increases from 49.42% to 95.49%. Data collected from a mirroring port on the LAN switch indicate a decrease in the DNS portion of the internal traffic from 0.38% to 0.18%. Although the DNS reconfigu-ration helps alleviate network bandwidth constraints and reduces DNS component of the traffic, the Web portion increases. The implementa-tion of effective, efficient and sustainable Web traffic management is therefore required.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2022

An Application to Support end-users of wi-fi Hotspots in the Township of Makhanda

  • Authors: Buwa, Lubabalo , Shibeshi, Zelalem S , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2021
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/429077 , vital:72558 , https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9514200
  • Description: Having access to the Internet is a powerful resource that can change one's life, but connectivity inequality continues to be a significant issue, especially for disadvantaged communities. The usage of Wi-Fi hotspots is becoming very useful for accommodating many people living in underprivileged areas to connect to the Internet. Primarily, these hotspots get deployed in public places like hotels, restaurants, etc. This paper discusses how such a system can be made to work as a solution for disadvantaged communities considering the user base in such communities and adhering to government regulations. The research is developed in collaboration with Khula Tech Solutions ISP that provides wireless Internet services in Makhanda (formally known as Grahamstown). Khula Tech Solutions is starting an initiative of installing Wi-Fi hotspots around the township of Makhanda and needs an application that will support users of the Wi-Fi hotspots. The research's result is a proof-of-concept mobile application developed through iterative and incremental software development techniques and mobile application technologies. With this research, the hope is that it is the beginning of further work for the users to become connected citizens.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2021

Implementing a Content-Based Routing Framework for Application Integration on to Teleweaver Application Server

  • Authors: Ngwenya, Sikhumbuzo , Shibeshi, Zelalem S , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2021
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430580 , vital:72701 , https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9576969
  • Description: This paper presents an architectural overview of content-based dynam-ic routing for integrating applications on to an application server named TeleWeaver, a middleware platform developed within Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL). SLL is an ICT4D project in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. TeleWeaver was created as a mediation layer between software systems developed for use by beneficiaries of the Siyakhula Living Lab. The main challenge with these disparate systems was that they had unnecessary, redundant components; TeleWeaver acts as a common platform that suits the development of many services such as eGovernment, eHealth, and eJudiciary.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2021

Quantifying the shift in network usage upon bandwidth upgrade

  • Authors: Okuthe, J A , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2021
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431003 , vital:72735 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06374-9_22
  • Description: Traffic flow classification is an important enabler in network design, ca-pacity planning, identification of user requirements and possible track-ing of user population growth based on network usage. In this paper, results from the Internet traffic flow characterization in 1 Mbps commu-nity network for a three-week snapshot representing three months of study show that during peak traffic, the network is overwhelmed and service degradation occurs. When the network is upgraded to 10 Mbps the network bandwidth utilization immediately increases dramatically to close in on the new capacity with 20% left unused during peak traffic. The situation gets worse one month later where the network utilization is only 3% away from the maximum capacity. Traffic categorization show that the applications crossing the network are legitimate and accepta-ble. Since 10 Mbps bandwidth is the capacity that is sustainable for the community and supported by existing technology, bandwidth manage-ment is essential to ensure the network remains usable and continues to provide acceptable user experience.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2021

Evolving an Efficient and Effective Off-the-Shelf Computing Infrastructure for Rural Communities of South Africa

  • Authors: Siebörger, Ingrid , Terzoli, Alfredo , Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl
  • Date: 2020
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430990 , vital:72734 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52014-4_5
  • Description: Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have diffused into al-most every area of life for citizens living in the Global North. Data is seen as a key element in the fourth industrial revolution and is the foundation of Information, Knowledge and Wisdom. Knowledge has become the new “make or break” asset and an inability to access the world’s data and technologies that facilitate access, synthesis and inter-rogation of data places one at a disadvantage. In 2013, the Department of Communications in South Africa announced a new national broad-band policy to promote the reduction of a digital divide and sup-port citi-zens and the economy in digital interactions. Implementation has thus far not been successful. Furthermore, the Broadband policy does not address how South Africans are to access the Internet once available. The Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL) provides an example of a computing infrastructure model for the introduction of ICTs into rural communities. Through the deployment of “broadband islands” and low-cost compu-ting infrastructure to promote both knowledge creation and consump-tion, access to the proposed ubiquitous Internet connectivity can be un-locked. However, the initial computing infrastructure deployed to the SLL suffers from a single point of failure. In this paper, we discuss al-ternative computing infrastructure configurations that were tested and deployed within the SLL in order to determine a more appropriate com-puting infrastructure model for the SLL and potentially other rural South African communities; such that learners, teachers and community members can be active contributors and consumers of data, infor-mation, knowledge and wisdom.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2020

Digital Inclusion: A model for e-Infrastructure and e-Services in Developing Countries

  • Authors: Terzoli, Alfredo , Siebörger, Ingrid , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Gumbo, Sibukelo
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430973 , vital:72733 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98827-6_7
  • Description: A large portion of the South African population is still not connected in a productive manner to the Internet, despite the existence of a govern-ment plan for public broadband, ‘SA Connect’. One reason for this could be the lack of an appropriate model, through which connectivity can be diffused in a meaningful way through all areas of South Africa. This paper presents the model developed over more than a decade of experimentation in real life settings in the Siyakhula Living Lab, a joint venture between the universities of Rhodes and Fort Hare, South Afri-ca. The model proposes the ‘Broadband Island’ as basic e-infrastructure unit, which clusters nearby points-of-presence hosted in schools. In each Broadband Island is located an applications integra-tion platform, TeleWeaver, which monetizes channels of access to the local community, to support the e-infrastructure while providing useful services to the population and the Government.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2018

An IMS subscriber location function for OpenBaton—A standards based MANO environment

  • Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Chindeka, Tapiwa C , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430567 , vital:72700 , 10.1109/AFRCON.2017.8095600
  • Description: In the past, virtualisation, and with it the move toward the cloud, has had a strong influence on the ICT (Information Communication Technology) sector, and now seems set to revolutionise the telecommunications sector as well. The virtualisation into software artefacts of functions that would usually be deployed as hardware has come to be known as Net-work Function Virtualisation (NFV), and the European Telecommunica-tions Standards Institute (ETSI) through its MANO (Management and Orchestration) framework has outlined comprehensively how such functions could be orchestrated and managed over infrastructure such as the cloud. A set of functions of particular interest are the call session control functions (CSCFs) and HSS (Home Subscriber Server) of the IP Multimedia System (IMS) which perform signalling and authentication functions for multimedia calls in contexts such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE). IMS has enjoyed significant focus in the past from the re-search community, as such an implementation of an IMS service pack-age has been provided in an open source MANO-compliant implemen-tation called OpenBaton. While the service package provides the IMS CSCFs and HSS, it does not include a Subscriber Location Function (SLF) which provides a mapping function to map a subscriber identity to a hosting HSS. The SLF is an important element for building distributed networks that partition user data into multiple databases, and as such represents a useful inclusion to the developer community. This paper describes an extension to the OpenBaton service package that in-cludes an SLF for partitioning large user populations across multiple HSSes and resolving individual addresses in real-time.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2017

Community ‘Broadband Islands’ for digital government access in rural South Africa

  • Authors: Terzoli, Alfredo , Siebörger, Ingrid , Gumbo, Sibukelo
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431248 , vital:72758 , https://www.academic-bookshop.com/ourshop/prod_6128029-ECDG-2017-PDF-Proceedings-of-the-17th-European-Conference-on-Digital-Government.html
  • Description: In the developing world, one of the main obstacles to the realization of the potential of digital government in rendering services to citizens is the lack of access infrastructure. In this paper we present a model for the diffusion of Internet connectivity and access to computing infrastructure in rural communities in South Africa, through the aggregation of inde-pendent small and micro networks. The model is based on multi-year experimentation in the Siyakhula Living Lab, a long term joint venture between the Telkom Centres of Excellence hosted at Rhodes Universi-ty and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. At the core of the model is the concept of ‘Broadband Island’, a high speed LAN realized through easy-to-deploy wireless technologies connecting groups of nearby schools. Each connected school, doubling as Digital Access Nodes for the community, hosts computing infrastructure in a serv-ers/thin clients configuration. Two schools belonging to the Broadband Island are then connected to the Internet with whatever technique makes sense within that specific geographical area: VSAT, microwave link, fibre etc. Each Broadband Island can be provisioned and support-ed by a variety of independent entities (such as Municipalities, Educa-tion Districts, NGOs, local action groups etc), possibly combined in con-sortia and in some cases using a Public Private Partnership format.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2017

E-Government as a Means to Support Communal, Large ICT Infrastructure in Poor Areas

  • Authors: Gumbo, Sibukelo , Terzoli, Alfredo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa
  • Date: 2016
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431287 , vital:72761 , https://www.academic-bookshop.com/ourshop/prod_5067238-ECEG-2016-Proceedings-of-the-16th-European-Conference-on-eGovernment.html
  • Description: Citizen-facing e-Government appears inevitable given current technol-ogy trends, and certainly has many advantages. One overlooked bene-fit, in our opinion, is its potential to make financially viable communal “large ICT” installations, which would diffuse ICT in poor communities where ICT is currently absent.(By “large ICT” we refer to end-user equipment such as desktops or laptops, on which would be possible to produce content, including software. The presence of “large ICT” in a community is critical in our opinion for the empowerment of the commu-nity, especially its younger component.) This paper explores this poten-tial in e-Government, describing a model conceptualized in the Siyakhu-la Living Lab in South Africa and partially implemented, through an inte-gration platform named “TeleWeaver”. The model behind TeleWeaver is an adaptation of the classic Internet business model-whereby users of services do not directly pay for the services they use. This model is especially relevant currently in South Africa, because of the an-nouncement by the government to pilot connecting to the internet gov-ernment facilities, including schools, in eight poor district municipalities.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2016

HealthMessenger: an e-Health service to support ICT deployments in poor areas

  • Authors: Gremu, Chikumbutso , Terzoli, Alfredo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa
  • Date: 2016
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430609 , vital:72703 , 10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2016.7530632
  • Description: Development and implementation of appropriate e-services as well as revenue generation are key to deploying and sustaining ICT installa-tions in poor areas in developing countries. The area of e-Health is a promising area for e-Services that are important to populations in poor areas and health service organisations that are already spending mon-ey on different health initiatives in these areas. This paper discusses an e-Health service that facilitates dissemination of health information to people living in poor areas and that is subsequently used to generate revenue to support deployment and development of ICT in the areas. The tool was developed within the context of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), a multi-stakeholder operation that promotes ICT for Development in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Creation of health con-tent for the e-health service and its subsequent consumption happen in two different environments from a technological and social point of view. To enable this to happen, the e-service comprises two component applications that run in a peer-to-peer fashion. The component that is used to disseminate content for end-user consumption is called the HealthMessenger. The HealthMessenger is hosted on an environment called TeleWeaver, an application integration platform developed within the SLL to host software applications targeting people living in poor ar-eas. The platform is customised to support services with a revenue generation component.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2016

TeleWeaver: an architectural overview of a customised application server for rurality

  • Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Gumbo, Sibukelo
  • Date: 2016
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430624 , vital:72704 , 10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2016.7530616
  • Description: The Siyakhula Living Lab in the rural Eastern Cape province of South Africa has been in existence for over a decade now. In this time, sever-al software artefacts have been developed by students and partners with the aim of providing contextually-relevant services to the rural community. However, reliance on different platforms and paradigms has meant that the deployment of such services would be difficult to implement and maintain reliably in actual practice. What is required is a single software platform that can act as a docking station for multiple applications, as well as a routing substrate for applications living inside and outside the platform. A candidate platform to enable this is currently being integrated under the codename Teleweaver and is built from a free, open source J2EE application server and integrates with other software components. This paper provides an architectural overview of the platform and demonstrates how it provides a sustainable context for application development going forward.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2016

The network society: A model for computing infrastructure in South African schools

  • Authors: Siebörger, Ingrid , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2016
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430651 , vital:72706 , 10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2016.7530673
  • Description: Worldwide computers are being used in schools for, amongst other things, developing the knowledge and skills required for citizens to be able to operate within the 21st Century Information Age. Realising the potential of technology in uplifting the lives of its citizens the South Afri-can government has proposed the National Broadband Plan (SA Con-nect). However, unfortunately this plan only addresses the networking aspect of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). In this pa-per we investigate appropriate Information Technologies for schools in the light of SA Connect, and propose a model for the computing infra-structure required in South African schools in order to support access to and adoption of technology and networks. This model is based on our multi-year experimentation in the Siyakhula Living Lab.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2016

A Comparison of Four End-User Devices as Thin Clients for Public Access to the Internet in Poor Communities

  • Authors: Duff, Kevin , Siebörger, Ingrid , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430892 , vital:72725 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16886-9_24
  • Description: In poor areas, where ICT infrastructure is being deployed with devel-opmental aims, there is a need to provide appropriate, sustainable technologies that meet the needs of the local community. Current trends for ICT interventions favour the use of mobile user equipment, such as tablets and cellphones, but we think that they are inappropriate to allow production as opposed to mainly consumption of digital con-tent, at least for the foreseeable future. Thus our objective is to reduce the cost of deployment of traditional communal Internet Access Points using PCs. In this paper we compare four candidate computers to be used as thin clients in such settings, according to seven different cate-gories. Our study identifies the strengths, weaknesses and problems of each device, and concludes with recommendations for anybody wish-ing to deploy such devices as Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) thin clients in a public Internet Access Point.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2015

Enhancing cloud connectivity among NRENs in the SADC region through a novel institution cloud infrastructure framework

  • Authors: Suresh, Nalina , Mbale, Jameson , Terzoli, Alfredo , Mufeti, Tulimevava K
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430592 , vital:72702 , 10.1109/ETNCC.2015.7184830
  • Description: It is increasingly being recognized that faster socioeconomic develop-ment in Africa is dependent upon the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure for the dissemination of data and educational services. The scalability and flexibility provided by Cloud services in terms of resource management, service provisioning and virtualization makes it an attractive system for use with educational and ICT services. The flexibility of pay-as-you-go models combined with the ability to scale computing, storage and/or networking resources makes Cloud computing an ideal candidate for use with education, re-search and scientific infrastructures. Notwithstanding its benefits, transi-tioning from a traditional IT infrastructure to a Cloud computing para-digm raises security concerns with respect to data storage, data trans-mission and user privacy. This paper presents on-going research for the development of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) infra-structure for the distribution of Information Communication technologies (ICT) services in the African context. The Inter-Cloud Infrastructure Framework (ICIF) proposed, is conceived as a Cloud computing framework suitable for use with National Research and Education Net-works (NRENs) in the SADC region. The ICIF system is used to create an Inter-Cloud infrastructure, and helps NRENs transition from tradi-tional IT infrastructure systems to the Cloud computing paradigm. It also provides new functional/operational components and Cloud services to support the interconnection and/or interoperability among SADC NRENs through the ICIF infrastructure.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2015

The development of an e-Health system for health awareness campaigns in poor areas

  • Authors: Gremu, Chikumbutso , Terzoli, Alfredo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430638 , vital:72705 , 10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2015.7190527
  • Description: This paper discusses work to develop an e-Health system called HealthAware to assist health service organisations to carry out targeted health awareness campaigns in poor areas. The system comprises two components called the Dashboard and the Health Messenger, which are web-based, Java applications that run in a peer-to-peer fashion. The Dashboard is used to create, manage, and publish awareness campaigns. The HealthMessenger facilitates end-users' access to the relevant awareness campaigns. A targeted communication strategy which splits the target population into subgroups based on their demo-graphic characteristics and geographic locations is used to determine relevant campaigns for a user. The HealthMessenger is hosted on an application service integration platform called TeleWeaver, while the Dashboard is hosted independently of TeleWeaver. Message queuing is used to ensure reliable communication between the Dashboard and the HealthMessenger. The implementation of HealthAware contributes knowledge on developing a system that ensures that users access only the information that is relevant to them. This addresses the challenge of sifting through potentially irrelevant information before arriving at the important information which is posed by generic materials.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2015

E-Literacy training in deep rural areas: The Siyakhula Living Lab experience

  • Authors: Gumbo, Sibukelo , Ntšekhe, Mathe , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2014
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431411 , vital:72772 , http://proceedings.e-skillsconference.org/2014/e-skills141-154Gumbo824.pdf
  • Description: Within the discourse of broadband deployment in poor areas (particular-ly rural), very little attention is generally put on the critical enabler repre-sented by e-literacy training that empowers people to use ICT systems, especially in the form of full-fledged machines such as fixed, tower and laptop computers (These machines are still more preferable for growing a generation of ‘producers’ as opposed to ‘consumers’ in the ICT space.) This paper reports on the experience in running e-literacy in a deep rural area, as part of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), whose end goal is to diffuse production oriented ICTs in poor areas of South Africa and Africa. In particular it will expand on the feedback given by the par-ticipants to the last edition of the e-literacy course, run in the first se-mester of 2014. The lessons learned from this experience include: the need for linguistic localization of the learning material or at least part of its presentation; the importance of teaching and learning that facilitates (easy) transfer of knowledge gained to other ICT settings (such as mo-biles; or uses to support business); and the importance of face-to-face courses to allow real interaction with the people living in the targeted areas, partly as a strategic means to forging relations towards the reali-zation of the Living Lab vision (co-creation of solutions with empowered users). Altogether, e-literacy courses have proved to be critical to the broad aim of SLL of ‘activating’the segment of society living in poor ar-eas towards self-determination. A small but telling indicator is the trans-formation in the view people have of themselves once certified as e-literate.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2014

Towards building an indigenous knowledge platform to enable culturally-sensitive education underpinned by technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK)

  • Authors: Ntšekhe, Mathe , Terzoli, Alfredo , Thinyane, Mamello
  • Date: 2014
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431424 , vital:72773 , http://proceedings.e-skillsconference.org/2014/e-skills275-284Ntsekhe821.pdf
  • Description: The everyday use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is ingrained to the fabric of today’s society. A question open for debate is whether this use is or can be optimized to engender authentic solutions, which are aligned to the natural environment of the people? In this paper, we examine at the question from the vantage point of ed-ucating the rural African child. We engage with the sub-question: can ICTs facilitate education grounded in people's own realities, especially those of the marginalized rural poor? We believe this is possible under specific conditions, which include making Indigenous Knowledge (IK) readily available. We propose building an ICT platform that allows injec-tion of IK into the education process: develop a solution that valorizes IK, but also supports efforts to use ICTs in education driven by Tech-nology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The main goal of this framework is to facilitate effective teaching with tech-nology. TPACK partially embeds IK within pedagogical knowledge and ‘contexts’ of learning; we argue for explicit inclusion of IK within the framework to complement the other knowledges.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2014

Customising a BBVC for Asterisk VoIP Services

  • Authors: Oyedele, Y , Terzoli, Alfredo , Mufeti, K
  • Date: 2013
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430942 , vital:72730 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3558-7_62
  • Description: Browser-based Voice over Internet Protocol Clients (BBVC) are used to access pre-determined VoIP services from VoIP service providers through Internet connections. For nomadic users within an organisa-tion’s Intranet, connections are made to the Internet to utilise these BBVC. An Intranet with an Asterisk Private Branch Exchange (PBX) as a VoIP provider however can be linked with any form of VoIP client to improve service accessibility for its users. This study aims to find a BBVC that can be customised to provide such accessibility within an Intranet. The study revealed that three BBVC are compatible. One of three BBVC was selected for customisation to provide nomadic acces-sibility to Asterisk. The functionality of the customised BBVC depended on the web technologies used and the available VoIP services.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2013

E-skills training on communal, fixed infrastructure as an activator of personal use of mobile internet

  • Authors: Gumbo, Sibukelo , Terzoli, Alfredo
  • Date: 2013
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430716 , vital:72710 , https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6701781
  • Description: In the second semester of 2012, training in computer literacy was of-fered in the Dwesa area, in deep rural South Africa, within the footprint of the Siyakhula Living Lab. Training of this nature is essential to make ICT access meaningful in such areas, and avoid wasteful `box drop-ping', unfortunately not uncommon. The training was done using com-munal fixed infrastructure located in schools but, interestingly, activated or deepened the use of mobile intemet among the people that attended the training. This paper contributes on the ongoing debate on whether mobile devices are the one and only solution to ICT access in rural (and peri-urban) poor settings in Africa.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2013
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy
  • Copyright
  • Contact