New PhD studentship in Mobile Learning

Mobile Learning for Development: Participatory Design of an Open Mobile Knowledge Exchange Network for the Detection, Identification and Monitoring of Infectious Disease

Mobile phones increasingly play a key role in learning. Their potential is perhaps greatest in Africa, where the mobile phone rather than the desktop computer is the dominant technology. The field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development seeks to leverage this growth, focusing on user-generated content and open educational resources (OERs).

However, while studies have investigated how motivated experts in the 'developed world' use mobile phones for learning, determining how to support African mobile learners in their own socio-cultural contexts is a significant challenge that remains under-researched.

The project will co-design and co-develop a sustainable open knowledge exchange network (OpenKXnet) with veterinarians in East Africa. Using mobile phones, vets will create, discuss and share information about infectious disease detection, identification and management (DIM) practices.

A major part of the project is to iteratively design OpenKXnet to support knowledge construction through collaboration, supporting vets in developing their own OERs based on analysis of data collected on DIM. Evaluation will focus on how OpenKXnet is appropriated by vets and on determining the factors for sustainable implementation.

Applications are invited for a Bloomsbury Colleges funded PhD Studentship to be jointly supervised between the Institute of Education (IoE) and the Royal Veterinary College (RVC). This interdisciplinary project will provide the successful applicant with experience in development education, technology enhanced learning, participatory design and disease detection, identification and management techniques.

More information about this studentship

Development Education Initiative

The RVC e-Media Unit has been collaborating with a number of partners in East Africa including the University of Nairobi Veterinary School, the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance in Tanzania and the NGO Vetaid. This initiative draws upon these existing partnerships in order to strengthen North – South linkages and help to raise awareness amongst veterinary students in both the UK and Kenya of international issues of mutual concern. The importance of this approach was highlighted by the OIE at a major conference in October 2009 entitled evolving veterinary education for a safer world.

The RVC is a partner in the 3 year DFID funded “Students as Global Citizens” project led by the Development Education Research Centre in the Institute of Education. It has recently secured funding from DFID’s Development Awareness Fund to develop and evaluate methods to embed development education principles within degree courses on pharmacy, veterinary science, and human health. The initiative described here is part of this approach which is intended to introduce a series of scenario based directed learning sessions into the Year 2 veterinary curriculum.

The project aims to enhance the appreciation of international development by exploring and contrasting issues related to livestock and health in both East Africa and the UK. This is intended to assist RVC and Kenyan veterinary students identify with their counterparts and emphasize the common professional interests and values that exist. This will be achieved through a number of steps described below which integrate some of the latest technologies such as videocasting with more traditional students exchanges.

• An initial exploratory visit by RVC recent graduate to Kenya and Tanzania in November 2009. The UK vet will work with a recent veterinary graduate from the Nairobi veterinary school to develop links with the veterinary school and Vetaid;
• In particular they will work with Vetaid vets, community animal health workers and students to record and publish a series of audio and videocasts describing issues of local and national relevance;
• Adaption of video material collected in the field to create a series of 6 directed learning sessions for the RVC Development Awareness session for second year veterinary students in 2010, drawing parallels and comparisons between veterinary practice in the UK and in the developing world;
• To provide recording equipment, training and support for Kenyan vets to record, edit and publish their own podcasts and videocasts on topics of local relevance. As part of this initiative, a Kenyan veterinary graduate will make a two week visit to the Royal Veterinary College in London, in order to develop their technical skills and record videocasts of relevant livestock health issues in the UK;
• To establish a protocol for future student educational exchanges including the potential for RVC students to undertake either preclinical or clinical Extra Mural Studies placements with Vetaid and other partners in East Africa.

The first stage of the project involve a 4 week visit by a recent RVC graduate, Beverley Panto to East Africa. You can follow her progress through her own blog at : http://www.africabev.blogspot.com/

Mobile Disease Surveillance Project

Mobile technologies are now increasingly being used across Africa for everything from phone to SMS texting. This is associated with widespread access to affordable mobile networks and handsets. In many cases, this technology has overtaken the use of landline phones, radio and internet for communication in rural communities. Innovative examples of the potential of these mobile devices include the potential to make small SMS payments, receiving text alerts of market prices or receiving medication reminders for TB treatment. Nevertheless, their use in disease surveillance is limited.

In general there are three types of mobile technology applications to disease alerts and surveillance. The first relies on either telephoning or sending of SMS messages by field operatives to a central unit. This is particularly useful for disease alerts to observations made in the field or primary health care centre. They are not particularly useful for surveillance as such messages are often not recorded in standard and verifiable formats. The second category combines the use of a digital pen to record observations on specially designed paper form and then transmitting such information via either a mobile telephone or laptop to central database on a server. This is being tested for animal health surveillance in several SADC countries including Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania. The third and emerging system is one that uses the Google-Android Open source Data Kit (ODK) mobile telephones to generate forms and transmit information to a database on a server. The second and third systems have the advantage of collecting data that can be verified and analysed by an expert at a distance. Field data can be geo-referenced and depending on the quality of the mobile telephone they can be accompanied by photographed images.

The recent development and access to second generation mobile devices, such as the ODK system, offers significant new opportunities for disease surveillance and prevention. The handsets now have accurate geo spatial sensing, which enables accurate tracking of location and linking to text, image and data. The potential to insert memory cards means that the devices can temporarily capture data off line where a network is poor. This additional memory means that the handsets can be populated with appropriate disease extensions and support material in video, audio and textual format which the operator can refer to in the field.

There are already Open Source tools available for the Android platform which can be relatively simply be engineered to enable disease data collection. Data entry can be done using a pen device, a keypad or touch screen and GPS settings are captured automatically. This data can then be transmitted through a GPRS or low bandwidth network to a central server where it can be analysed, mapped and modelled almost immediately after the data has been collected. The field worker can then be referred to information on the handset memory in the local language for example with advice on suitable biosecurity measure to adopt.

Thus the mobile technologies are serving to overcome the constraints of poor physical infrastructure in Africa and Asia by real-time transmission of clinical observations at the point of disease outbreak (be it in communities, health facilities, on farm or in wildlife) to experts at district, provincial or national headquarters and the feed back (i.e. response) from such expertise to the point of outbreak, also in near real-time. It is a technical empowerment of the primary health (human or animal) responders, who in Africa are invariably sub-professional or even auxiliary cadres. This is a clear example of technology that is fit for the purpose.

Mobiles in Zanzibar

The RVC Undergraduate Research Team has just returned from their project on East Coast Fever in the cattle of Zanzibar. This project also served as a pilot for the use of Google Android Platform devices for the collection of field data via the Google Open Data Kit. The project was a big success as over 400 animals were sampled from all parts of the main island.

The devices were also a huge hit with the team who found them very easy to use for both collecting physical exam data and updating Twitter, Facebook, and the team blog. The project hopes to provide answers to the Zanzibar Government about which vaccine strains to use as well as helping this exciting new mobile technology through its growing pains.

Handheld Learning Conference

Nick Short and Andrew Hagner gave this presentation at the Handheld Learning 2009 conference in October 2009. They described how in Tanzania, the Royal Veterinary College has been working with aid projects and government services to explore the potential of mobile devices. By using the GPS geo-spatial functionality of the newer smart phones it is now possible to accurately track the spread of diseases such as avian flu. Working with the Google Android platform, the team have now developed a set of phone based forms which can capture and transmit key disease data to a central server.

Useful Mobile Links

The following links provide some useful pointers to what is going on in the world of mobiles, health and Africa.

Android Forms - ODK is a suite of tools to help organizations collect, aggregate and visualize data

Google Earth - Track the spread of the H5N1 virus worldwide since 2003 with this award-winning animated Google Earth Mash-Up.

mHealth for Development - Looks at the opportunities provided by mobile technology for healthcare in the developing world

Wild Knowledge - Allows you to create and share interactive forms, keys, maps or images for use on handheld devices.

Open Mobile Consortium - Collaboratively developing interoperable open source mobile solutions for social development.

Frontline SMS - A free, large scale text messaging solution for NGOs

Hope Phones - Old phones save lives...

Appropriate and Practical Mobile Technologies

We are now working to take the APT project into a new context through partnerships in Africa. The idea is that the basis step by step model for implementing appropriate technology also has a relevance to projects in less developed countries. We re therefore looking to coolaborate woith communiuty based projects to explore the use of mobile phones running Android, Google forms and podcasting.

Our first initiative aims to explore the opportunities provided by mobile technologies to enhance animal disease surveillance, reporting and feedback in Africa. It will draw on the extensive experience of its partners working in the field, university based research and development expertise and the insight and experience provided by Google and other technology providers.

Development Model

The APT for Africa initiative builds on the JISC funded EMERGE programme and the Users and Innovation Development Model. This model has been adapted by the Bloomsbury Colleges to help create and implement a step based introduction to Appropriate and Practical Technology. This has been used to introduce a range of Google tools into teaching and research with significant success (www.bloomsbury.ac.uk/apt ). The intention is now to extend this approach to enable collaboration with partners in livestock and wider development arena .

Partners

The following partners are associated with this initiative:

• London International Development Centre – coordinates the development activities of all 6 Bloomsbury Colleges

• Souther African Centre for Disease Surveillance – has a remit to promote One Health including animal disease surveillance

• Bloomsbury Learning Environment – experience of working with the UIDM model in collaboration with Google

• London Knowledge Lab – extensive R and D experience in the use of mobile technologies

• Vetaid – an animal health NGO with extensive experience in East Africa

• Google.org – provided support for SACIDS and the use of mobile technologies in the field

• JISC – government agency which provides support for the UIDM

• Novoda – Android software developer

Application

Using the UIDM methodology, the partners will work with key stakeholders in animal health to identify appropriate and practical mobile innovations. In particular this could focus on the following areas:

• Use of mobile phone devices to capture GPS based disease data by field staff for surveillance purposes

• Disease, population, environment and vaccination monitoring using mobile devices

• Decision, practical and professional support for front line staff from central offices

• Access to location/context sensitive disease/treatment information in text/audio/video format

• Local language based resources to support extension, education and advisory services

• Developing new mobile communities of practice to share experience and support

• Providing cross disciplinary services as part of the One Health agenda

These approaches will be trialled in a number of settings including:

• Zanzibar – RVC student research project on East Coast Fever monitoring working with London Knowledge Lab

• Arusha – Vetaid project with Community Animal Health Workers on disease surveillance

• SACIDS – government veterinary surveillance programmes funded by Google and Rockefeller

• Nairobi Veterinary School - educational programs on ECF working with British Council

Africa Gathering presentation

Presentation we made to Africa Gathering on 25th April 2009 about mobile telephony in Africa.