Information and Communication
Technology at the Addis Ababa
University - A Case Study
Paper Presented on the Joint ITU/UNU/CERN Workshop on
AFUNET
September 25-29, 2005
Geneva
Moges Delelegn
ICT Development Officer
Addis Ababa University
September 2005
ICT AT THE AAU - A CASE STUDY 2
ICT at the Addis Ababa University - A Case Study
I. Background
Addis Ababa University, one of the oldest higher education institutes in
Africa with current enrollment of over 40,000 students in its regular and
continuing education programs. The various faculties of the University are
distributed over eight major campuses and eight minor campuses, all
within the capital, except one that is 45 km south of the capital.
Four major campuses (Main Campus, Business Campus, Technology
Campus, and Science Campus) form the core network and connected via
fiber network. The remaining campuses are connected with virtual private
network (VPN) provided by the national service provider the Ethiopian
Telecommunication Corporation (ETC).
On the application side, the University uses Student Record System, Pilot
Library Automation System, and Payroll Management System. Currently,
there is a plan to install an integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
system that covers most of the administrative and academic applications.
The university has organized an ICT Development Office, reporting to the
Office of the President, which overseas and coordinates all ICT activities
throughout the University including three ICT departments that run
undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
II. The University Network
The university network is based on a cluster of Unix and Windows servers
distributed across the eight data centers in major campuses. The server
types vary from Intel based HP DL360 and to SunFire V880. In total, there
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ICT AT THE AAU - A CASE STUDY 3
are well over 40 servers of various categories for different applications
and services.
The network uses a private IP address for internal addressing and has one
class C public IP address for external communication. The internal IP
addressing is done using DHCP servers to assign IPs automatically. The
external link is through firewall where the mail relay and the DNS servers
are in the DMZ zone. The up stream provider is Ethiopian
Telecommunication and the current bandwidth is 6Mbps. The primary
access to the telecom is through fiber connection between the premises
of Addis Ababa University and the local telecom office. There is also a
limited dial up access to the Internet for those who critically need to
connect to the network from their home.
III. ICT Services
Internet and e-mail services constitute the major part of the network
services. Both services are fully managed by the full time ICT staffs of the
university. The Internet service is rendered through a chain of eight proxy
servers that will give redundancy and ensure the availability. The
university also has a mail service for each staff or student under the fully
qualified domain name of its unit. Currently there are more than 1,000
staffs that use the e-mail services under the domain of the university
(aau.edu.et).
Managing the desktop and providing a defense against virus attacks is
also the other part of the service for the community. There is a fully
managed antivirus solution that eases the burden of updating for viruses
manually. Moreover, the ICT unit has service delivery guidelines that will
help to measure the service quality and also set a service level target. A
call management system and manual forms are also in place to track and
effectively address helpdesk problems.
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The university also has various applications that are part of the teaching
and learning system. Among which is a registrar system, which partly
address the processing of students copies and grade reports. An online
application system has been recently developed by in house programs,
and will be operational soon.
As part of the effort to strengthen and complement the teaching and
learning programs, the MIT open courseware is locally available. A
preparatory work has also been done to launch a pilot e-learning
program. In addition to the existing initiative, there is one academic,
African Virtual University and one professional, Cisco Network Academy,
program that is based on e-learning at the University.
An open source library package called KOHA has been recently
customized and now piloted at the main library of the University. The
library system, can now give an online catalog access and other library
functions. This has made the first step in strengthen and developing
localized digital content in the libraries
There is a major expansion of services and capacity upgrade.
Infrastructure upgrade and automation of the internal activities of the
university are among the few currently undertaken by the ICT unit. The
scale up of the library system and the lunching of e-learning systems are
among the priorities considering for the coming year.
IV. Challenges in ICT Management
• Technical Staff Recruitment and Retention
As in many countries, the pay in universities is too low to attract
well-experienced ICT staff and even those started to work leave the
university leave after gaining some experience.
• Lack of Awareness
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There is no clear understanding and appreciation of the role ICT
plays in the University and hence inadequate commitment of
management to support the ICT development activities.
ICT DEVELOPMENT OFFICE, ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY
