Designing with community health workers: feedback-integrated multimedia learning for rural community health

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

Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences for June to December 2015

The 33rd edition of the conference list covers selected events that primarily focus on the use of technology in educational settings and on teaching, learning, and educational administration. Only listings until December 2015 are complete as dates, locations, or Internet addresses (URLs) were not available for a number of events held from January 2016 onward. In order to protect the privacy of individuals, only URLs are used in the listing as this enables readers of the list to obtain event information without submitting their e-mail addresses to anyone. A significant challenge during the assembly of this list is incomplete or conflicting information on websites and the lack of a link between conference websites from one year to the next

A model for the alignment of ICT education with business ICT skills requirements

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills shortage is of national and international concern. Modern business practices require the implementation of new technologies supported by a workforce with current and diversified ICT skill-sets. Acquiring suitable ICT skills has become a difficult task and employers are seeing government intervention at all levels. The school system in South Africa is under increased pressure and is faced with continuously declining matriculation pass rates, specifically in subjects such as science and mathematics. Schools are experiencing a decline in the number of scholars (learners) enrolling for the Information Technology (IT) school curriculum. The IT curriculum at school level is being criticised; under-prepared teachers are blamed and lack of suitable facilities highlighted. Surveys conducted amongst grade 9 and grade 12 scholars in the Eastern Cape have shown that scholars are not considering careers in ICT. Teachers, career/guidance counsellors and parents contribute to scholars' career decisions and are not encouraging scholars to pursue careers in ICT. Tertiary institutions in South Africa and internationally, are experiencing a decline in student enrolments and in pass and throughput rates. Industry is holding tertiary institutions responsible for not providing the “correct” ICT graduate skill-sets and passing an insufficient number of quality ICT graduates desperately required by industry. The accreditation of computing degree programs, such as Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT), collectively referred to as CIT, offered by tertiary institutions is becoming an international requirement. The ICT industry is constantly changing and new job requirements and new career opportunities are frequently introduced. Graduates entering the ICT industry should have acquired knowledge about ICT career tracks in order to specialise and choose a suitable career path. Tertiary CIT degree programs should further be linked to specific career tracks and provide a multi-disciplined education to graduates. ii ICT graduates working in industry utilise skills obtained in under-graduate and post-graduate CIT degree programs. The ICT graduates have also obtained valuable skills working in industry, including business skills and soft skills. ICT skill surveys have identified the graduate skills gap, indicating ICT skills industry requires from graduates completing tertiary level qualifications. ICT graduates working in industry, for example indicated that programming in some cases is over-emphasised at school and tertiary level and that soft skills are ignored by tertiary institutions. An ICT Graduate Skills Classifications Framework is developed to address the graduate ICT skills gap and highlight important business skills, soft skills, technical skills and programming skills required by industry. In this thesis, an Industry ICT Value Chain Model is further developed that suggests a holistic approach to the problems experienced at all levels of ICT skills development, including government, industry, tertiary education institutions and at school level. Results from a number of research surveys conducted along the proposed Industry ICT Skills Value Chain Model indicated that problems exist at all stages in the value chain and that the problems can only be addressed involving government, industry and tertiary institutions collectively. A number of interventions is required and the support from industry is essential in achieving overall success in addressing the ICT skills shortage in South Africa. A proposed Industry ICT Skills Value Chain Model that can be utilised to address the ICT skills shortage in South Africa is presented

Exploration of Deaf people’s health information sources and techniques for information delivery in Cape Town: A qualitative study for the design and development of a mobile health application

BACKGROUND: Many cultural and linguistic Deaf people in South Africa face disparity when accessing health information because of social and language barriers. The number of certified South African Sign Language interpreters (SASLIs) is also insufficient to meet the demand of the Deaf population in the country. Our research team, in collaboration with the Deaf communities in Cape Town, devised a mobile health app called SignSupport to bridge the communication gaps in health care contexts. We consequently plan to extend our work with a Health Knowledge Transfer System (HKTS) to provide Deaf people with accessible, understandable, and accurate health information. We conducted an explorative study to prepare the groundwork for the design and development of the system. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the current modes of health information distributed to Deaf people in Cape Town, identify the health information sources Deaf people prefer and their reasons, and define effective techniques for delivering understandable information to generate the groundwork for the mobile health app development with and for Deaf people. METHODS: A qualitative methodology using semistructured interviews with sensitizing tools was used in a community-based codesign setting. Twenty-three Deaf people and 10 health professionals participated in this study. Inductive and deductive coding was used for the analysis. RESULTS: Deaf people currently have access to 4 modes of health information distribution through: Deaf and other relevant organizations, hearing health professionals, personal interactions, and the mass media. Their preferred and accessible sources are those delivering information in signed language and with communication techniques that match Deaf people’s communication needs. Accessible and accurate health information can be delivered to Deaf people by 3 effective techniques: using signed language including its dialects, through health drama with its combined techniques, and accompanying the information with pictures in combination with simple text descriptions. CONCLUSIONS: We can apply the knowledge gained from this exploration to build the groundwork of the mobile health information system. We see an opportunity to design an HKTS to assist the information delivery during the patient-health professional interactions in primary health care settings. Deaf people want to understand the information relevant to their diagnosed disease and its self-management. The 3 identified effective techniques will be applied to deliver health information through the mobile health app

Development of a land use-based spatial water requirements model for the Berg Water Management Area

This study was conducted to investigate the requirements for the spatial modelling of current and future water demand in the Berg River Water Management Area in the Western Cape of South Africa in order to produce a prototype model from which annual water requirements could be computed and spatially visualised. To accomplish this the spatial distribution of water demand within the study area was first investigated. The data required to perform spatial water demand modelling of diverse land uses and socio-economic activities were evaluated. Finally, the question of improving spatial water demand modelling at the catchment scale was considered from both a systems design and a technical perspective. The resulting model consists of two main modules; one performing a rudimentary monthly soil water balance to obtain monthly and annual irrigation requirements, and another applying preconfigured determinant layers derived from land use to town zone layers in order to determine annual urban water use intensities per areal unit. The resulting model prototype follows a sequential workflow based on a series of components that combine to produce a spatial overview of water use intensity within the study area. Water demand was found to be predominantly irrigated agriculture in the upper reaches of the Berg (mainly wine grape) and was found to be dominated by intensive industrial users in the central and lower reaches. The model was designed so that new data could be introduced in order to expand the system where required, as well as allowing for updated datasets to be incorporated as they become available. Due to the uncertainties inherent in the modelling and approximation of real world phenomena, the importance of establishing a set of structured, stable, predefined user requirements and system specifications were noted as a fundamental requirement for improving model development and design efficiency and ensuring model validity. It was further found that incorporating additional datasets, covering parameters related to the system, may serve to improve model accuracy, but could easily lead to compounded errors if not correctly parameterised or adequately validated

Understanding the factors that influence trust in e-services: a case study of a wireless mesh network implementation in Mankosi, South Africa

>Magister Scientiae - MScThis thesis deals with the design of a business model for rural telephony based on a wireless mesh network for a rural community, the Mankosi community, located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Its aim is to understand the social, economic and technical issues that are involved in the adoption of information and communication technologies for development and how they relates to trust in e-services. Externally funded projects tend to be expensive and are often unsustainable once the external funding ceases. The cost of a mesh network (once implemented) is almost negligible, apart from its maintenance. The pillars of the project are sustainability and community ownership, and the aim was to design the wireless mesh network, provide telephony service to the community and use solar power to charge mobile phones. The community leaders of Mankosi indicated that they do not want the service to be completely free, but would charge a small fee for each call in order to generate the funds needed for the maintenance of the system. In order to do so, a prototype billing system was configured and adapted to the needs and expectations of the community. The principles and steps of soft systems methodology were used to manage the research process of this case study. This methodology was a powerful tool to carry out the research and address the research problem in a participative way with the stakeholders. The participatory design process used in the design phase of the project had the added advantage that the community understood the purpose of the network, and since they contributed to its design, they felt that they owned it and could trust its billing system. A further benefit was that a core group of participants were committed to the project and felt that the overall quality of community members' lives would be improved by it and similar projects. The process contributed to the personal development of the participants by giving the community a voice and sense of power – the ability to change things – and it vastly expanded community members’ vision of what they are capable of. It was found that the current means of communication, i.e. using mobile phones, is expensive for local users in relation to their average income. The proposed billing system – designed with the help of the community – will be trusted by the community and provide Mankosi with a low-cost communication system by making use of the existing experimental mesh network. The community will be able to sustain their network with the income generated. The network will in future provide access to the Internet and will be able to handle breakout calls to external networks

Software Support for Creating Digital Health Training Materials in the Field

In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and deployment of a tool developed to help rural health trainers to create digital training content for low-literate Community Health Workers (CHWs) in Lesotho, the digital content being mobile videos created from combining images, voice over, and/or video clips. Our results show that when health professionals who are based in rural areas were empowered by the tool to create their own content, they were able to supplement nationally and globally produced health training materials with more locally relevant content that addresses unique information needs within their communities. We discuss other lessons learned from an eight-months deployment of this tool in Lesotho, and conclude with recommendations on how a similar project can be implemented in other developing regions

A framework for providing mobile centric services to students at higher education institutions : the case of open distance learning

In developing countries, the mobile phone market has matured in terms of subscription, penetration and mobile centric1 services. In turn, people have integrated mobile phones into their daily lives. The interaction opportunities that have evolved in business and social life have given students at Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) grounds to anticipate similar opportunities within their learning environments. In the context of developing countries, students primarily access information through mobile phones and there seems to be a disconnection between how HEI provide informational services and how students want to access the services. Therefore, HEIs are challenged with shifting from their traditional information distribution practices into integrating mobile centric services. Literature describes several models of providing mobile centric services in learning settings but there is a paucity of research that address the disconnection between students’ mobile centric needs and expectations against the HEIs’ provision of such services. Therefore, this study proposes a Framework for providing mobile centric services to students at HEIs in Open Distance e-Learning (ODeL) context in South Africa. The potential contribution of the framework is that it can facilitate strategic planning and implementation of mobile centric services whilst ensuring the needed synergies with students and academics. The research is grounded in interpretive philosophy and was undertaken as a single case study. The case study employed mixed method design for data collection. The advantage of mixed method design is that it enables both qualitative and quantitative data to be collected from a variety of sources and triangulation of results to get a complete picture of the phenomenon under study. The research was undertaken in four phases. Phase 1 of the study was a literature analysis carried out to identify the components for providing mobile centric services that facilitate students with information access and interaction. The objective was to provide a conceptual framework that would direct the search for evidence and organise the results. Phase 2 of the study employed the conceptual framework developed in Phase 1 to identify the units of analysis and to design the data collection instruments. Phase 3 of the study focused on collecting data within a single case study with embedded units of analysis. Data collection included Policy document analysis, Tool observation analysis, Student surveys and Lecturer interviews. The data collected from the case study was analysed with the view of enhancing the components of the conceptual framework developed in Phase 1. The enhancement of the components of the conceptual framework carried out in Phase 3 directed the development of the Framework for providing mobile centric services to students at HEIs in ODeL context in South Africa as presented in Phase 4. This adds new knowledge in addressing the literature gap between the mobile centric needs and expectations of students and the provision of mobile centric services at HEIs. The framework has practical value in that its components can guide HEIs in determining the mobile centric readiness of their institutions, the needs of the stakeholders, the context of use, the identification of mobile centric resources and the managing of constraints. Mobile centric refers to the preference of accessing and interacting with information services through a mobile device such as a mobile phone.ComputingPh. D. (Information Systems

The characterisation and automatic classification of transmission line faults

Includes bibliographical references.A country's ability to sustain and grow its industrial and commercial activities is highly dependent on a reliable electricity supply. Electrical faults on transmission lines are a cause of both interruptions to supply and voltage dips. These are the most common events impacting electricity users and also have the largest financial impact on them. This research focuses on understanding the causes of transmission line faults and developing methods to automatically identify these causes. Records of faults occurring on the South African power transmission system over a 16-year period have been collected and analysed to find statistical relationships between local climate, key design parameters of the overhead lines and the main causes of power system faults. The results characterize the performance of the South African transmission system on a probabilistic basis and illustrate differences in fault cause statistics for the summer and winter rainfall areas of South Africa and for different times of the year and day. This analysis lays a foundation for reliability analysis and fault pattern recognition taking environmental features such as local geography, climate and power system parameters into account. A key aspect of using pattern recognition techniques is selecting appropriate classifying features. Transmission line fault waveforms are characterised by instantaneous symmetrical component analysis to describe the transient and steady state fault conditions. The waveform and environmental features are used to develop single nearest neighbour classifiers to identify the underlying cause of transmission line faults. A classification accuracy of 86% is achieved using a single nearest neighbour classifier. This classification performance is found to be superior to that of decision tree, artificial neural network and naïve Bayes classifiers. The results achieved demonstrate that transmission line faults can be automatically classified according to cause