UbuntuNet-Connect 2016 Conference Papers and Presentations
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Item Research and Education Networks: Putting Value into the Links(2015-11) Kunda, Douglas; Khunga, BonnyIn Zambia over the last four years we have concentrated on creating a National Research and Education Network which can connect our education and research institutions within the country, and the rest of the world. Indeed, affordable and reliable Broadband connectivity has been our cry. Not long ago, Africa was spending in excess of US$70 million per annum for capacity of less than 1Gbp. Zambia in particular, as late as 2012, bandwidth tariffs was averaging US$4,500 per 1 Mbps per month compared to under US$30 in Belgium. Under these circumstances, it was extremely uneconomical for our universities and research institutions to really engage in inter-institutional research collaboration and benefit from opportunities that the Internet had opened up in Europe, the Americas and Far East. Furthermore, the prohibitive Bandwidth costs were a sleep-hold grip to science-driven research that could have been undertaken using the few High Performance Computers on the continent. The NRENs have been a game-changer in driving the cost of connectivity downwards to now average between US$100 to US$200 per 1Mbps per month. However, low cost Bandwidth alone cannot sustain NRENs growth. There is the need for NRENs to offer other value-added ICT services to research and education institutions which cannot be commercially offered by Commercial ISPs. In this paper, the authors address some services that emerging NRENs can implement and offer to their member institutions and highlight some strategic factors that can be considered. The paper also analyses sustainability strategies that high-end NRENs in Europe have implemented in order to remain viable.Item Design of an Executable Solutions Management Platform based on Virtual Machine Snapshots(2016-11) Shoniwa, Robert; Fadaraliki, David; Catherine S, Monica; Marengereke, TendaiAnnually, dozens of software solutions are developed by students as part of the mandatory requirements for them to be awarded their respective degree qualifications. However, most of these potentially groundbreaking solutions tend to be stored away and forgotten upon completion. This then gives rise to the current predicament where universities produce multiple graduates but do not yield a proportional number of usable innovative software solutions. The aim of this paper is to design a platform that enables the storage, indexing, retrieval and execution of these developed solutions. This will be done through the design of a user-friendly interface as the front end, a database of virtual machine snapshots for each executable system running at the backend and a querying engine to interface the two. This will go far in ultimately aiding universities to become recognized hubs of innovative and marketable technologies.Item Deploying Educational Roaming (eduroam) in a Rural Research Institution in Rakai, Uganda; Challenges and Lessons Learned(2016-11) Ssentongo, Lloyd; Kimera, Rodgers; Kakeeto, Ben; Mubiru, Moses; Moyer, Brain K; Economou, Matthew; Whalen, Christopher J; Tartakovsky, MichaelThe NIAID International Center for Excellence in Research (ICER) in Uganda, RHSP (Rakai Health Sciences Program) recently deployed the eduroam service at the laboratories and offices in the village of Kalisizo and the main offices at Entebbe. Eduroam is a global framework to allow academics and researchers to have wireless access from any participating institution. An acronym for educational roaming, eduroam is a user friendly solution that provides a common WiFi network (SSID) at all participating universities and research organizations. Unlike the typical model of “guest” networks, this system provides a real identity to which network administrators and security staff can map both traffic and activity. There are clearly defined structures in place for reporting inappropriate activity to the home institution. The deployment of eduroam by the Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology at the Ugandan ICER faced challenges and taught the team a number of lessons. The implementation began May 2016 in a test environment and was one of the first organizations to do so in Uganda. We share our experience in as far as challenges and lessons learnt.Item Experiences with Global Science Communities(2016-11) Tania Altamirano L.Item Video-Conferencing for Outreach Communication Strategy to Enhance Academic Publishing and Research Communication in Africa(2016-11) Okoka, Wilson; Nagasha, Irene JudithThe paper presents the effectiveness of video-conferencing community outreach projects in enhancing research ethics communication for public awareness in Uganda. It sets out to establish how vital the practice of research ethics in cross-cultural environment was in enhancing the smooth tripartite interactions among the researchers, communities and host institutions. The objectives were to: get an overview of community outreach research ethical issues and communication strategies; establish researchers’ outreach methods (approaches); identify the ethical challenges facing inter-cultural research in the country; assess the key enablers of community research ethics; and discover creative methods of infusing ethics in a cross-cultural community research. This review was conducted by sourcing documents, current literature and news bulletins, online search engines, through discussion with key informants, documents from Ugandan government specifically the ministries or national as well as international bodies, and lessons learned from research ethical practice. The findings were generally disappointing, contrary to the widely issued guidelines. There are rampant unresolved ethical issues that are worsened by communication gaps; field ethical challenges include: wrong attitudes, behaviour, methodology, perceptions, communication strategies, and cultural illiteracy; commonalities of outreach themes, agreements, modalities, methods, target communities, networks, and funding sources; many absentee field researchers and fictitious research sites; and weak ethics culture. Ethical issues are prompted by flouting guidelines, weak or lack of capacity, experience, integrity, professionalism, communication skills, or ignorance. There are multiple gaps in university coordination, concepts, methods, planning, budgeting, and implementation leading to project failures, budget overruns, conflicts, and disincentives. Community participation ensures trust, effective communication, and social acceptance. Inter-cultural community involvement promotes ethical research good practice among the researchers themselves on one hand, and the inter-cultural demographics plus the host institutions, on the other. Outreaches are critical for achieving early adoption and widespread diffusion of research ethics and culture in communities. They should be well planned, implemented, monitored, and evaluated for enhanced participation, transparency, empowerment, mutual trust, sustainability, and gender equality to achieve SDGs in Uganda.Item Responding To The Demands Of Big Data Scientific Instruments Through The Development Of An International Software Defined Exchange Point (Sdx)(2016-11) Ibarra, Julio; Bezerra, Jeronimo; Lopez, Luis Fernandez; Morgan, Heidi; Cox, DonaldScience is being conducted in an era of information abundance. The rate at which science data is generated is increasing, both in volume and variety. This phenomenon is transforming how science is thought of and practiced. This transformation is being shaped by new scientific instruments that are being designed and deployed that will dramatically increase the need for large, real-time data transfers among scientists throughout the world. One such instrument is the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) being built in South Africa that will transmit approximately 160Gbps of data from each radio dish to a central processor. This paper describes a collaborative effort to respond to the demands of big data scientific instruments through the development of an international software defined exchange point (SDX) that will meet the network provisioning needs for science applications. This paper discusses the challenges of end-to-end path provisioning across multiple research and education networks using OpenFlow/SDN technologies. Furthermore, it refers to the AtlanticWave-SDX, a project at Florida International University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), along with support from Brazil’s NREN, Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), and the Academic Network of Sao Paulo (ANSP). Future work explores the feasibility of establishing an SDX in West Africa, in collaboration with regional African RENs, based on the planned availability of submarine cable spectrum for use by research and education communities.Item A Collaborative Research Review Platform for Enhancing Project Quality in Universities in Zimbabwe(2016-11) Gotora, Tatenda T.; Nleya, Sindiso M.Software project quality in Zimbabwean universities has greatly depreciated due to exhaustion of many Information Technology (IT)- related topics and an infested reliance on the copy-paste philosophy from past researches online without acknowledgement. Over the years most graduates may possibly have been able to get away with project recycling in fulfilling their IT studies in Institutions of Higher Education. Despite the vast improvements in Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and a plethora of scholarly research material on the internet, this has had a significant impact on production of novel research by students due to skyrocketing plagiarism cases. This research seeks to analyze the current project reviewing process in universities to unearth the drawbacks and to explore other tested interactive platforms which have been used in some institutions like the ECLIPSE-based platform and CPECAEE platform. By so doing the researchers of this paper will go on to postulate the design model of a web based interactive platform which adopts social networking and virtual school framework. The platform is meant to improve project quality through cultivating a spirit of team work in carrying out research work in universities and help grow the potential for start-up initiatives while students are still at college.Item Towards Parabiotic Partnerships for Access and Discovery: Leveraging Access to E-Content Within The Framework of Library Consortia In Zimbabwe(2016-11) Chisita, Collence Tangaingenhamo; Rusero, Alexander MadanhaThe age of intelligence presents library consortia in Zimbabwe with an opportunity to innovate, reinvent and re-profile in order to effectively disseminate research and scholarly communication as well as keep abreast of current technological development in ICTs. The survival of the library consortia is hinged upon renewal and reinvention through innovation and creativity and collaboration with National Research Networks to facilitate access to research and scholarly communication. This paper seeks to investigate the extent to which library consortia as part of the technological infrastructure can leverage strategic partnerships with NRENS for enhanced access and knowledge discovery. The paper will examine how partnerships with research networks and other key stakeholders can benefit resource sharing initiatives. It will explore the extent to which library consortia in Zimbabwe can use strategic partnerships to facilitate access to research and scholarly communication. The paper will find out the strategies that are in place to promote resource sharing, for example, collaboration between NRENS and library consortia and open access initiatives. The treatise will also seek to find out how library consortia can work with NRENS to enhance resource sharing and e-content licensing. The paper will examine how library consortia can utilize research networks to support self-determined learning (heutagogical) through provision for wider access to scholarly communication.Item Grid Computing, Compute and Data Storage Services(2016-11) Nicholars, Jude Iyke; Namukangula, JudeThe development of grid computing is a cutting-edge technology that brings a number of benefits for many Universities and Research Institutions around the world. Grid computing enables Universities and Research Institutions manage Information Technology resources in a centralized multi-core architecture, irrespective of their location in the world. It enables them to solve their ever increasing computing and storage problems. Universities and Research Institutions would undoubtedly enhance the quality of their output, while reducing costs by sharing resources through Grid technology. A number of Universities and Research Institutions believe that grid computing has the capacity to improve research work and other University operations, especially among the growing Institutions in Africa. Nevertheless, many African Universities and Research institutions have not yet embraced and adopted the use of Grid Computing Technology. Accordingly, there is a need for an extensive study in the adoption methods of this technology, especially among NREN member institutions in Sub- Saharan Africa. Study on such Information Technology solutions are needed to align academic processes to improve the utilization of grid computing and reduce the cost of computer hardware and increase in computing power. To examine this, the researchers will adopt a comparative research design to evaluate several related cases and NRENs operations within the region and Uganda in particular. These cases will provide the researchers with a clear difference, the benefits, the implementation method and the challenges of adopting grid computing technology. Subsequently, the NRENs would make use of these results to adopt such technologies.Item Securing Campus Wireless LANs(2016-11) Masai, Joan; Wanja, MaureenItem Experiences with Global Science Communities(2016-11) Altamirano-Lopez, TaniaItem Using Trust Federations For Virtual Research Organizations At Research Centers In Mali And Uganda(2016-11) Whalen, ChristopherItem Leveraging Inter-Institutional Connectivity to Facilitate Weather Data Transmission from Automatic Weather Stations in Uganda(2016-11) Byamukama, Maximus; Nsabagwa, Mary; Sansa-Otim, JulianneThe use of Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) for Environment monitoring by the Uganda National Meteorological Authority has increased massively over the past 15 years. This increase is mainly due to the savings in time, energy and money that are usually accompanied by the use of Information Technology to replace manual organizational processes. These stations collect various weather data and automatically transmit this data to a central repository, usually a physical server in a relatively remote location. The transmission of this data, in Uganda, is achieved primary by GSM/GPRS over the backbone of one of the national service provider. While GPRS speeds are probably sufficient for the small amounts of data from these AWS, the consequence of this is a regular cost to the authority, not only in financial terms but also poor connectivity in remote areas, downtime and high power consumption. Since universities in Uganda are spread across the country with considerable spatial separation, it is possible that the UNMA (Uganda National Meteorological Authority) could place a number of AWSs at these campuses and still cover many climatological zones and, equally importantly, benefit from transmitting the AWS data through the networks at these universities that have been set-up by the national NREN, RENU. Because this data volume is very low, the cost of such transmission would be almost zero and other advantages would be manifested, such as the very limited involvement in communication channel maintenance and a higher availability of power. In this paper, we investigate the practical consequences that leveraging inter-institutional NREN connectivity would bring to a government authority like UNMA. We analyze the impact that this would have on the cost, operation and reliability of the whole AWS.Item Knowledge Intermediation Strategies: Novel Evidence from Canada(2016-11) Traoré, Namatié; Amara, NabilThis study investigates i) difference in knowledge intermediation strategies among knowledge and technology transfer organizations (KTTOs) and ii) the factors that explain such differences. It uses data from 212 Canadian KTTOs. When knowledge delivery and integration capabilities dimensions of knowledge intermediation are simultaneously accounted for, four categories of KTTOs emerge, namely, 1) knowledge stores; 2) knowledge match providers; 3) knowledge integrators and; 4) knowledge brokers. This heterogeneity results in a differentiation in KTTOs' service delivery strategies. A high absorptive capacity and an effective customer knowledge management strategy are conducive to richer service content and custom-made solutions. Larger knowledge intermediaries suffer from internal organizational stickiness that prevents them from delivering custom-made services. KTTOs with a low degree of formalization and centralization in decision-making are likely to adopt intermediation strategies aimed at reaching the largest possible number of users. Some managerial and public policy implications are drawn.Item Videoconferencing-as-a-Service for African NRENs(2016-11) Bristow, RobItem EOSC and the Free Riders(2016-11) Gfrerer, Margareth; Mogus, SolomonBig Data, Open Science and Technology are the topics on the agenda of the European Commission (EC) on one side and on the other side, ministries, research funding organizations, universities and public research institutions together with university libraries are bringing complaints about the access to scientific publications and research data also to the EC. Against these facts the EC has taken on the responsibility to realize the idea of Open Science and to favour the implementation of an European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), which “aims to develop a trusted, open environment for the scientific community for storing, sharing and reusing scientific data and results” (COM 2016). A High Level Expert Group (2016) has worked on the definition, the key trends in Open Science and the answer, how EOSC will be realized for the target group of European researchers and professionals in science and technology. The EOSC is an EU Member State Project. Non-European researchers can join the EOSC as free riders. Based on the findings of the HLEG this research will explore the question: What is the advantage for a research community from an emerging country to get a free rider position on the EOSC? This research is primarily a literature review. Discussions with international researchers and Ethiopian university management presents insights about the advantages of a free ride position on the EOSC. An overview between the free rider problem as discussed in economic literature and the invitation to free ride on WIKIPEDIA and EOSC will conclude this research.Item Africa IETF Initiative: The Role for NRENs(2016-11) Chege, KevinItem Mobile Gateway for Open Education Resources (Oer): A Case with University Of Swaziland Libraries(2016-11) Anbu, John Paul; Furvin, JessieOpen educational resources (OER) are free and openly licensed educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes. Around the globe there are a number of initiatives which are being experimented in the development of OER. This paper is a case study of the development of a gateway application for the OER material to enhance the teaching and research capability of the University of Swaziland. The development of the desktop OER gateway and the conversion of such a gateway into mobile application gateway are discussed in this paper.Item Low Altitude Remote Sensing and its Application in Precision Agriculture: A Case of Nzathu Farm in Traditional Authority Somba in Blantyre District, Malawi(2016-11) Chilonga, Donnex; Kiswisch, ManuelThe practical application of Low Altitude Remote Sensing (LARS) in Precision Agriculture (PA) has tremendously gained ground recently. This is despite concerns about the viability of such systems for farmers related to the costs of both the system and the image processing software, technical expertise to operate the LARS and processing of the imagery itself, and timely delivery of information which is greatly compromised by not only the unstable and expensive internet facility but also local weather conditions such as wind and clouds. Using image analysis, this study illustrates the utilization of self-build unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in monitoring crop conditions in farmers’ fields in the area of Traditional Authority Somba in Blantyre district of Southern Malawi. It demonstrates that both optical and near-infrared imageries obtained from LARS can be used to monitor fertilizer trials, conduct crop investigation and mapping of field surface drainage.