Browsing by Department "Faculty Science: ICTC4D"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Design of a mobile support and content authoring tool to support deaf adults training in computer literacy skills
    (2016) Ng'ethe, George Gitau; Blake, Edwin H
    This dissertation investigates the challenges that Deaf adults encounter at the task of learning computer literacy skills. Deaf adults who communicate using South African Sign Language (SASL) come from poor socio-economic backgrounds are not familiar with the written form of English. They rely on interpreters and Deaf teachers to translate written text into SASL for them to learn computer literacy skill. We present our theme of support, in which Deaf people learn via an intermediary, a teacher or facilitator, in intermediated supported learning. We propose a shift from intermediated supported learning to multimedia supported learning which is most appropriate for the context. Using Community-based co-design we implement two systems: an authoring tool to support lesson content creation by the teacher and a mobile prototype that uses sign language videos to provide computer literacy instruction. We evaluate the two systems to evaluate if they support multimedia-supported learning. The authoring tool allowed the facilitator to create tailored lessons for the Deaf learners using pre-recorded SASL videos and images. The Deaf learners demonstrated ability to do self-paced learning while using the mobile system, better suited to Deaf learners with basic exposure to computer literacy skills.
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    Designing Umeli: A Case for Medsersiated Design, a participatory approach to designing interactive systems for semi-literate users
    (2012-10) Gitau, Shuko; Marsden, Gary
    This dissertation documents a journey into the design of Ummeli with a community of semi-­‐literate job seekers in Khayelitsha, Cape Town whose primary access to the internet was through their mobile phones. Working closely with this community over many months, we developed Ummeli, a suite of tools that allow the user to build their CVs; browse and apply for employment and training opportunities; recommend and post jobs; get employment tips and connect to other job seekers. To design Ummeli, Ethnographic Action Research (EAR) was embraced, not as a methodology, but as a research approach, a foundation from which to incorporate participatory approaches to designing Information communication technologies for development (ICT4D). User Centered Design (UCD) was incorporated as a design approach. Ummeli was built by a combination of insights drawn from a lived-­‐in experience, and employing UCD informed methods of participatory design (PD). Here we employed Human Access Point (HAP) a form of PD that allows for a member of the community to be a proxy for the design process. Learn to Earn, an NGO based in Khayelitsha became the HAP, and took the critical role in that they, highlighted, translated, evaluated and represented what was most crucial for the community; their input allowed Ummeli to match the community’s need. In the process, we came across concepts such as Umqweno, which represents yearnings and desires, replacing our own perception systems requirements. Siyazenzela, representing a communal participatory approach to doing life; and Ubuntu, which captures the spirit behind Africa’s communal identity, which were all adopted into the original EAR framework. In this document we set out to demonstrate what it means to be a “reflective practitioner” as we adopted appropriated and reconfigured aspects of participatory UCD methods to fit culturally relevant contexts. The process allowed for constant reflections leading to “aha” moments. In the end, we had created Ummeli, with over 80,000 users, and developed Mediated Design, a culturally indoctrinated xii participatory approach to designing interactive system with and for semi-­‐literate people.
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    Designing with community health workers: feedback-integrated multimedia learning for rural community health
    (2018) Molapo, Maletsabisa; Densmore, Melissa
    Community Health Workers (CHWs) are an integral part of the rural health system, and it is imperative that their voices are accommodated in digital health projects. In the mobile health education project discussed in this thesis (The Bophelo Haeso project), we sought to find ways to amplify CHWs' voices, enabling them to directly influence design and research processes as well as technological outcomes. The Bophelo Haeso (BH) project equips CHWs with health videos on their mobile phones to use for educating and counselling the rural public. We investigated how to best co-design, with CHWs, a feedback mechanism atop the basic BH health education model, thus enabling their voices in the design process and in the process of community education. This thesis chronicles this inclusive design and research process - a 30-month process that spanned three sub-studies: an 18-month process to co-design the feedback mechanism with CHWs, a 12-month deployment study of the feedback mechanism and, overlapping with the feedback deployment study, a 17-month study looking at the consumption patterns of the BH educational videos. This work contributes to the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) in three distinct ways. First, it contributes to the growing knowledge of co-design practice with participants of limited digital experience by introducing a concept we termed co-design readiness. We designed and deployed explorative artefacts and found that by giving CHWs increased technical, contextual, and linguistic capacity to contribute to the design process, they were empowered to unleash their innate creativity, which in turn led to more appropriate and highly-adopted solutions. Secondly, we demonstrate the efficacy of incorporating an effective village-to-clinic feedback mechanism in digital health education programs. We employed two approaches to feedback - asynchronous voice and roleplaying techniques. Both approaches illustrate the combined benefits of implementing creative methods for effective human-to-technology and human-tohuman communication in ways that enable new forms of expression. Finally, based on our longitudinal study of video consumption, we provide empirical evidence of offline video consumption trends in health education settings. We present qualitative and quantitative analyses of video-use patterns as influenced by the CHWs' ways of being and working. Through these analyses, we describe CHWs and their work practices in depth. In addition to the three main contributions, this thesis concludes with critical reflections from the lessons and experiences of the 30-month study. We discuss the introduction of smartphones in rural villages, especially among elderly, low-literate, and non-English-speaking users, and present guidelines for designing relevant and usable smartphones for these populations. The author also reflects on her position as an African-born qualitative researcher in Africa, and how her positionality affected the outcomes of this research.
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    Improving Pan-African research and education networks through traffic engineering: A LISP/SDN approach
    (2017) Chavula, Josiah; Suleman, Hussein; Densmore, Melissa
    The UbuntuNet Alliance, a consortium of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) runs an exclusive data network for education and research in east and southern Africa. Despite a high degree of route redundancy in the Alliance's topology, a large portion of Internet traffic between the NRENs is circuitously routed through Europe. This thesis proposes a performance-based strategy for dynamic ranking of inter-NREN paths to reduce latencies. The thesis makes two contributions: firstly, mapping Africa's inter-NREN topology and quantifying the extent and impact of circuitous routing; and, secondly, a dynamic traffic engineering scheme based on Software Defined Networking (SDN), Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP) and Reinforcement Learning. To quantify the extent and impact of circuitous routing among Africa's NRENs, active topology discovery was conducted. Traceroute results showed that up to 75% of traffic from African sources to African NRENs went through inter-continental routes and experienced much higher latencies than that of traffic routed within Africa. An efficient mechanism for topology discovery was implemented by incorporating prior knowledge of overlapping paths to minimize redundancy during measurements. Evaluation of the network probing mechanism showed a 47% reduction in packets required to complete measurements. An interactive geospatial topology visualization tool was designed to evaluate how NREN stakeholders could identify routes between NRENs. Usability evaluation showed that users were able to identify routes with an accuracy level of 68%. NRENs are faced with at least three problems to optimize traffic engineering, namely: how to discover alternate end-to-end paths; how to measure and monitor performance of different paths; and how to reconfigure alternate end-to-end paths. This work designed and evaluated a traffic engineering mechanism for dynamic discovery and configuration of alternate inter-NREN paths using SDN, LISP and Reinforcement Learning. A LISP/SDN based traffic engineering mechanism was designed to enable NRENs to dynamically rank alternate gateways. Emulation-based evaluation of the mechanism showed that dynamic path ranking was able to achieve 20% lower latencies compared to the default static path selection. SDN and Reinforcement Learning were used to enable dynamic packet forwarding in a multipath environment, through hop-by-hop ranking of alternate links based on latency and available bandwidth. The solution achieved minimum latencies with significant increases in aggregate throughput compared to static single path packet forwarding. Overall, this thesis provides evidence that integration of LISP, SDN and Reinforcement Learning, as well as ranking and dynamic configuration of paths could help Africa's NRENs to minimise latencies and to achieve better throughputs.
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    Software Support for Podcasting Mobile Lecture Content for Education in Sub-Sahara African Universities
    (2013-11) Mugwanya, Raymond; Marsden, Gary; Traxler, John
    Podcasting is fast gaining traction in developing regions as a means to augment classroom instruction. Commercial podcasting tools such as Apple’s Leopard Server, Tele-task and OpenEya, despite being successfully used in the developed world (where Internet connections are fast and students have powerful multimedia devices) may not be directly transferable to the developing world due to social, economic, technical, political and cultural differences. Thus, we need to gain an understanding of podcasting in developing world Higher Education Institutions in order to develop appropriate tools. Moreover, past podcasting research shows that there is an acute lack of theoretical models, conceptual frameworks as well as evaluation models. Consequently, this thesis employs User Centered Design techniques to offer guidance for contextual podcasting design. In particular, Participatory Action Research was used to gain a deep knowledge of developing world academics’ work context and needs, identify specific requirements, develop a novel podcasting application (called MLCAT – Mobile Learning Content Authoring Tool) and ensure that they accept and use the technology. The final stage of this research was an eight week prototype evaluation aimed at evaluating MLCAT. The main contributions of this thesis are: the identification of design opportunities for podcasting tools (using Participatory Action Research) to support faculty in developing HEIs; a podcasting information ecology model; an adaptation of podcasting to developing country HEIs and a series of design and methodological contributions relating to the design of podcasting tools and other information systems. Findings suggest that academics and students alike valued the need for a seamless podcast production process – one that does not require expensive and sophisticated infrastructure; the ability to author short podcasts or package them into small chunks; the use of Bluetooth for access and sharing podcasts as well as building on tools already in their possession as opposed to completely new ones. This research is one of the few works that relate to podcasting in developing world Higher Education Institutions. It has implications for the design of podcasting applications through an appreciation of the usefulness of research and practice in Human-Computer Interaction for development and how easily this can be adapted to understand and improve mobile learning development practice.