Interview with Guilaine Thébault, PhD Student, Center for Sub-Saharan African Studies, CEAN – GDRI Netsuds

Guilaine Thébault is currently undertaking PhD fieldwork on higher education and the potential of open source and open contents in Senegal. Her aim is to meet the various actors and stakeholders associated with these programs – decision makers, tutors and students – and to observe discourses about open source and open content and how they are used in practice. For these purposes, Thébault established contact with two important e-learning providers in French-speaking Africa, the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) and the African Virtual University (AVU).

eLa: Do you think that African universities and higher education institutions are open-minded regarding open source?

Guilaine Thebault: Yes, I’m quite sure that many institutions are open-minded regarding open source. However, only a few people approach the subject strategically. Senegalese universities, for instance, do not have a real global policy regarding open source yet. Nonetheless, they are constantly looking for partnerships. In this context, Microsoft of course holds a strong position.

eLa: Are there some universities where a particular system has already gained the mastery?

GT: Well, the principal of Dakar University recently told me that his university has entered into a partnership with Microsoft that includes training as well as business training. He did not talk to me about analogous Linux activities, but this does not mean that Linux is not represented in the University at all. In fact there are some individual initiatives.

eLa: You said that the open movement could have a strong impact on developing countries such as Senegal. Could you explain this in brief?

GT: There are two points: First of all, open source enables anyone to copy, modify, and redistribute the source code. This means that universities can freely adapt software to their needs. Open source code also evolves through community cooperation and collaboration work. Therefore it is based on users’ contributions and should progress faster. This experience can be made fecund for the public as well: Higher education institutions, adapting the software to local needs, can thus address contextual development requirements. Further, as they train national human resources, the universities transmit these principles and research results to the society faster.

eLA: How far have your investigated institutions – AUF and AVU – proceeded?

GT: Both AUF and AVU do support open source. For the AUF, it is clearly a priority because this institution promotes open source actively. Many actions have been launched at a global scale by the Agency. The AUF signed an agreement with the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) and has officially become the LIP Francophonie. The main action is to build the Centres Linux et Logiciels Libres pour le développement, whose three aims are consciousness-raising, training, and open software development. As a consequence of this commitment, the AUF has installed Ubuntu and Open Office on all its computers, providing its users with Internet access.

At the AVU, these priorities are less visible. It seems that on the local scale, there is not the same degree of thought about the platform, educational goals, etc. since local staff are not those who create and distribute curricula. Local centers have not yet conceived their own programs, but there are some basic approaches.

eLA: Can you also tell us something about the status of implementing open content within these institutions?

GT: The AUF definitely promotes open content by giving access to a digital library and through the program “Run on Line”, a collection of online courses entirely designed with AUF’s support by teachers of the French-speaking countries of the South and East. Because the teachers and their universities remain owners of their programs, AUF has to acquire the rights of distribution. Regarding the AVU, there are also programs about contents production, but I am not sure they are effective as yet. To sum up, I can say that the question of open content is still far more complex than that of open source.

Dear Ms. Thébault, thank you very much for your time.

Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) and the African Virtual University (AVU)

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