You will take part in the congress section "Empowering Traditional Universities with ICT". Please describe the ICT situation at the University of Namibia.

Maggy Beukes-Amiss: The University of Namibia is on the verge of introducing new ways of teaching and learning to be able to complement existing ways of teaching and learning through eLearning.

Namibia as a country is also proud of the establishment of an eLearning Centre (eLC) that is a multi-stakeholder centre. Its role is to host the e-activities of all educational institutions in Namibia on one common Learning Management System (LMS) called Kewl.NextGen.

How many students and which programs of study are touched?

Maggy Beukes-Amiss: At Unam, lecturers from various divisions are part of the pilot group developing online courses, and student numbers vary accordingly.

For the country as a whole, through the eLC we have ten pilot courses that are currently under development. The range includes Induction courses, Poetry, Factorisation in Maths, Academic Writing, Use of the WWW by College Lecturers, Basic Computer Literacy, ICT for Distance Education, etc.

What has been the most important experience so far?

Maggy Beukes-Amiss: In-depth online training in Instructional Design, Content Development, eTutoring, and eLearning Management within the University of Namibia, and for all eLC educational stakeholders. We have also had storyboard workshops and production workshops.

The notion here in Namibia is that starting from a blended approach - in other words both face-to-face and online instruction - will work best.

Which aims does the Multi-Stakeholder eLearning Center have for the near future?

Maggy Beukes-Amiss: To invest in all educational stakeholders by means of training provided by the eLC of Namibia with support from several cooperation partners like the German organization InWEnt and the Commonwealth of Learning. We also plan to host all e-activities of all educational stakeholders in Namibia.