Breaking paths together for the Public Health higher education information services in Africa and Europe

Abstract

The HEI-ICI project is now in its fourth year and involves cooperation between the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) and three African partners. The main aim of the project has been to develop education in health sciences. The target group is the junior faculty from the Public Health departments, library and IT centers in the partner universities. Special emphasis has been placed on developing sustainable models in the information and knowledge management systems for education and research in all these institutions. Not only have we have utilized open-source systems and software as well as open science ideology but the project has also encouraged the partners’ junior professionals to actively to instigate changes in the way that their own institutions provide library and IT services e.g. implementing up-to-date technologies and workflows. This novel approach to learning and teaching is based on the concept of co-operation, collaboration and trust between all of the participating partners, its core philosophy is the full ownership by the less developed southern partner institutions. This paper and presentation describes in detail the work done in the CUHAS (the Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences), Mwanza, Tanzania. The introduction of e-learning and its implementation in teaching and learning in the higher institutions and research centers will exert a major impact on knowledge management and dissemination and development of information systems. Currently, Public Health teachers and students at CUHAS are using the Moodle e-learning platform. The HEI-ICI project has also created new services as well as improving existing ones, particularly to adapt to the changing habits and reading styles of our patrons e.g. the adoption of e-resources; the introduction of the KOHA integrated library system, the exploitation of social media in learning and teaching. In addition, we will describe the whole project and its results in the other participating institutions.