Open Educational Resources on Rural Development via Mobile

Context and Objectives:

Mobile communication is gaining a consistent and growing market in rural and sub-urban areas in developing countries, where land telephone lines are difficult to set up. Mobile phones can become a tool to access relevant information to improve living conditions of disadvantaged communities.

seed wants to develop a mobile platform enabling information providers at national and international level, information broadcasters, based in local communities, and users to communicate and share information. The idea is combining in an innovative way already available technologies, such as Learning Objects (with IMS and SCORM standards) and mobile devices and services.

The idea is to develop an open source solution allowing access to audio and video educational contents; in particular this tool can help rural radios to improve their programs and services. Rural radios are local radios broadcasting in local languages on issues relevant for the development of the local community, such as health, economy, local culture, agriculture, etc. Rural radios have wide educational impact, especially in Africa. Mobile communication can be a valuable support for rural radios allowing the local community to easily retrieve programs produced at a national level or by other local radios.

The technology developed by seed has a threefold objective:

•  To facilitate the delivery of programs broadcast by rural radios and produced at national (e.g. by the National Health Department) or international (e.g. by international organizations) level, nowadays physically transported on CDs by staff driving around the country;
• To facilitate the sharing of programs produced by rural radios in the same region or in communities that share the same problems;
• To allow a more flexible access of audio content in terms of time, giving the possibility to the local community to access audio and video information, beyond the radio schedule.
• To enable two-way communication, allowing local community members to add their feedback to audio and video information access via their mobile devices.

 A Mobile Platform dedicated to Rural Development Issues in Africa:

The project aims at developing a platform to share audio and video contents on rural development issues to be accessed via web and via mobile.

The platform will be used by rural radios to

1. Download programs produced at national or international level for broadcasting, making content distribution more effective
2. Share the programs they locally produce with other rural radios, therefore creating a new feedback loop and network among rural radios.

Also, The local community will therefore be able to access the platform during regular broadcast by rural radio, but also via the web and via mobile - content will be more accessible for the end users. Also, users will be able to send their feedback via mobile phone via SMS or voicemail.

Planning:
The project duration is 3 years: the first year is dedicated to the project set up, while the second and the third year to consolidation and dissemination.

The project is planned in the following phases:

0. Information need analysis and synergies creation
(months 1-4)

Tasks and Roles:
An analysis of information needs
Possible synergies with other projects already existing in the region
A refine planning of activities

Output:
Definition of content issues to be developed in the project and of possible synergies with actors already working in the field.

1. Collecting and formatting audio and video mobile contents on water management
(months 4-8)

Tasks and Roles:
browse and select already existing programs dealing with defined issues
development of new contents eventually filling existing topics gaps.
content design and development guidelines
format already existing contents to make it usable in the new platform.

Output:
A set of 50 chunks of contents relevant to the 4 local communities involved in the project will be produced and made available for use.

2. Set up of the platform to share contents
(months 8-12)

Tasks and Roles:
Design and development of the web platform to be used by the local communities and the rural radios to exploit mobile contents, based on open source software. Requirement analysis and user testing are foreseen to make the platform as more user friendly as possible.
Uploading contents and make the application ready for the project.
Design the user interface and adapt the web service to mobile delivery.

Output:
A platform with 50 programs (information chunks) integrated ready to be used.

3. Workshop with rural radios on mobile communication benefits and on the use of the platform
(months 13-16)

Tasks and Roles:
A workshop on opportunities provided by mobile communication and on how to exploit the platform for addressing the informational and educational needs of the communities will be organized. During the workshops the staff of the participating rural radios will be trained on the use of the platform, both as tool to reach their publics and as tool to share and communicate among rural radios.

Output:
2 staff members for each rural radio (of the 4 involved in the first phase) will be trained on the use of the platform and will be able to integrate it in the daily activities of their local radio, during the first year. Every year more 4 radios will be involved in the project through workshops.

4. Awareness Raising Workshops with the local community
(months 13-16)

Tasks and Roles:
A one-day workshop will be organized in each rural radio aiming at raising awareness about the benefit of mobile communication and about the functionalities of the platform among peasant associations and the local communities in general.

Output:
The key stakeholders of the 12 local communities involved (4 each year) will be able to use the platform to acquire information on how to solve their water management problems.

5. Follow-up activities
(months 16-30)

Tasks and Roles
provide follow-up stimuli to potential users (rural radios staff and local community members) in order to maximize the use of the service and to project partner to better the service. Such activities will be both face-to-face and online, depending on the situation of users. Their goal is providing a smooth integration of the service in the daily life of its users.

Output
Improved usability of the platform
Improved use of the service over months (as measured in the evaluation activity)

6. Evaluation
(months 12-36, with constant update and a report every 6 months)

Tasks and Roles:
measurment of the impact of the introduction of mobile communication activities on three levels:

• Controlling the level of use of the service.
• Measuring impact in the rural radios daily life in terms of public reached and content sharing with other rural radios (this will be achieved via a survey and interviews)
• Measuring the impact among local farmers and communities (this will be achieved via focus groups)

Output:
An impact report giving guidelines of future steps to develop the initiative every sixth month.

Budget: 
100'000 US$