University of Cape Coast UCC ICT Policy

iii. Provide incentives to teaching, professional and technical staff to ensure

the development of the University’s ICT sector (including software, hardware, and training) and the use and maintenance of ICT infrastructure.

iv. Develop an enabling regulatory framework for ICT related issues.

v. Establish an efficient and cost-effective ICT infrastructure that provides equitable access to local, national and international networks.

vi. Set up University databases that are reliable, secure, up-to-date and easily accessible. These would be open databases.

vii. Promote widespread use of ICT applications in faculties and departments for efficient teaching, research and learning..

The overall strategy for ICT is to provide staff and students with the appropriate facilities

necessary for teaching, research and extension. These facilities shall be easily accessible from the desktop or computer laboratory through a common user-friendly interface. Accessing a

wide variety of local, national and international networks across a high-speed communication

network shall also be made available. It is anticipated that this will take place over at least a

five- (5) year period and shall be executed in phases. Within this period:

A state of the art network infrastructure shall be provided to ensure that the

University’s network is capable of sustaining emerging new applications.

A user support facility shall be established and strengthened to ensure that the delivery of support is closely aligned to user and departmental requirement.

The University-wide computer literacy programme shall be adequately resourced to ensure its success. ICT shall be used by the University to enhance distance learning. The University shall support all national initiatives in ICT.

The University shall provide a reliable campus-wide backbone communications network

operating at the fastest speeds. Such a network shall be economically viable and capable of

providing staff and students with inter-connectivity to both national and international networks.

With the development of multimedia applications and the increase in computing power on the desk, higher networking speeds and different networking techniques may be required in future. In this direction the University shall take appropriate steps towards securing funds for direct investment in new wiring within buildings of the various faculties. The campus Wide Area Network (WAN) shall have priority at all times.

In line with its vision for ICT, the University shall build a solid foundation of ICT

infrastructure. A sound fiscal planning that will guarantee the state-of-the-art maintenance of

the infrastructure at all levels shall be put in place.

In view of the fact that the University has to

promote and nurture innovative development of

ICT, efforts shall be made to provide adequate

laboratory and office space. To develop the

required infrastructure for the furtherance of basic research, the University shall look for

resources to establish a Computer Science Complex. Such a Complex shall be equipped with

facilities for multimedia computing and video conferencing.

By making maximum use of bulk purchasing arrangements, a wide range of computers,

accessories and software at economic prices shall be made available. Pooling the needs and

requisition of all sections of the university to allow for bulk purchasing at economic rates shall

also be pursued.Adequate resources shall be made available for a regular maintenance of the ICT equipment

(computers, servers etc.). The university shall put in place an elaborate programme of refurbishment and replacement of obsolete and outdated computer laboratory equipment. The

university shall also systematically modernise her stock of computers to meet the demands of

latest software, web access, and other basic tasks of computation and communication.

A maintenance program shall be put in place to ensure that the hardware are serviced,repaired and replaced from time to time.

The provision of central servers is critical to supporting the distributed computing

environment on the University campus in a cost-effective manner. Also, the availability of

central email directory, database, backup and archive services ensures the provision of

coherent service to users on their own machines. Adequate resources shall be made available

for a considerable expansion of the servers and additional staff recruited.

In line with the vision to use ICT optimally to maximise both staff and students efforts with

the view to increasing efficiency, the University intends to provide centrally managed general-

purpose computer laboratories at key locations. This investment shall be matched by smaller

faculty/departmental funded facilities closely linked to their research and teaching goals.

One of the main inhibitors to further expansion is the lack of large unused areas to house

such facilities. The university shall put in place an elaborate programme of refurbishment and

replacement of obsolete and outdated public computer laboratory equipment.

Multimedia infrastructure must be developed such that, it is integrated into the curriculum of

the University. To enable the University achieve this goal, the necessary wherewithal shall be found to invest into multimedia equipment.

Uninterrupted power supply systems do not withstand rampant fluctuations and lightning

induced surges. There is therefore the need to protect the ICT systems from the devastating effects of lightning and larger electrical power switching transient over-voltages and surges.The University shall source for resources from stakeholders to invest in ICT system protectiondevices.

Technical development of ICT staff shall be given top priority. The University shall continue to educate and certify ICT professionals in needed functional areas of the profession.A system shall be developed to attract, retrain, motivate and retain ICT staff.

 All students shall be expected to acquire basic ICT skills in their own right rather than as adjunct to some other courses.Successful implementation of the “Computer Literacy for everyone” programme for the

University community shall require significant backing and additional resources provided at all levels of the University. The success of the programme shall lead to an expansion of the use of ICT for a significantly large group of new users and change the working ethos of the existing users.

User support shall be provided in the form of informed help on academic and administrative

computing and information to all categories of staff and students.

Computing services shall continue to be provided with strong user support to ensure

integrated access to the new information service. The challenge shall be the provision of

support for undergraduates to ensure a successful “computer literacy for everyone” programme.

The level and type of support shall be reviewed continually to allow for the introduction of new activities. These activities shall properly reflect the changing needs of the University.Appropriate incentives and support packages shall be made available to faculty and staff as encouragement in the creative use and application of ICT for teaching, research, and service.

Pooling the needs and requisition of all sections of the university to allow for bulk purchasing

of software at economic rates shall be vigorously pursued.The University shall engage in software development projects. These projects shall enable the University to produce application software for industries and also educational and multimedia software for educational institutions. The project shall generate income for the University.

The University’s stock of computers shall be systematically modernized to meet the demands

of latest software, web access, and other basic tasks of computing and communication.

A maintenance program shall be put in place to ensure that the hardware are serviced,repaired and replaced from time to time.

Administrative computing shall support the corporate University through the provision of

reliable management and administrative computing applications. It shall provide support for

integrated databases whose relevant information shall be easily available to academic and

administrative staff.A set of core administrative applications to facilitate co-operation between the Universities

shall also be provided to meet their present and future needs.

Library business through the provision of advanced library computing systems and easy

access to library catalogues, databases and other library information available locally,

nationally, and internationally shall be encouraged. Information held on CDROM and other

electronic media for users to access shall also be encouraged.Digital library infrastructure needed to support research, teaching and learning shall be developed and an ‘electronic reserve’ service developed. The ‘electronic reserve’ service shall make available content in all media and formats.

The University shall establish, improve and support the smooth flow of information,

particularly electronically, throughout the University to enable both staff and students

manage their workloads effectively.

The University shall provide infrastructure to support specialised computer schedules. The

infrastructure shall include the provision of specialised computing services such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and desktop publishing.

The University shall support local communities in the area of ICT. Computer Literacy

programmes, distance learning and other specialised programmes shall be organised for the

general public.The University shall also develop a program of digital library research, and engage in national

initiatives, to address the issues of innovative user services, creation and management of

digital collections, the federation of distributed digital libraries, and the design of digital library systems.

The success of a programme for the integration of ICT into the University depends on the

establishment of appropriate arrangements for managing ICT development and delivery systems.

It is important that all units of the University realise the importance of ICT and provide adequate resources to support ICT activities. To ensure the availability of funds, the University shall build life-cycle replacement funding into its planning at every level of investment in ICT.The University shall have an annual budget to

support life-cycle replacement of faculty and staff desktop computers.

The success of this policy hinges on the enabling environment to pursue the vision and

mission statements enshrined in this document. Sustaining ICT requires the support,leadership and commitment from top-level University authorities to champion this high profile policy document.Structures must be put in place to complement each other in the areas of infrastructure development, generation of adequate funding and relevant investments to augment the financial base. This must be done with the appropriate fiscal and regulatory incentives for innovations, human resource development, and maintenance management systems.

This demands optimum transparency and accountability from policy decision-makers and ICT

professionals. An adoption of a well-scheduled step-by-step approach with specific achievable

indicators during the plan development process is a necessary prerequisite.

Finally, plans to ensure that this policy is sustainable would be vigorously pursued through the following measures:

Identifying sources of funding for acquisition and maintenance of equipment, and training ICT persons

Regularly updating of computers and related equipment according to their life cycle

Networking to be a continuous process as new building facilities for academic and administrative purposes spring up

Acquiring ICT hardware and software from a common source to reduce cost and enable easy maintenance Training periodically of ICT technical staff to up-grade their knowledge in modern trends Setting up a maintenance workshop

The ICT policy of the University of Cape Coast aims at making ICT accessible from the

desktop or computer laboratory through a common user-friendly interface. This will enable

the university access a wide variety of local, national and international networks across

communication network operating at the fastest speed locally available. It is envisaged that

this will take place over at least a five- (5) year period and shall be executed in three (3)

phases as outlined below.