Bank. Its goal is to build capacity in the universities of sub Saharan countries to enable them 

to better meet the needs of their students and exploding enrolments. The courses are currently 

being delivered from institutions in the US, Ireland, and Canada, with plans to expand to 

French speaking countries to serve the needs of the Francophone African countries. The 

courses being delivered are primarily in the fields of mathematics, science, computers, and 

telecommunications. It is intended that after the first three years, the project will become 

wholly "Africanized" with all courses originating from African institutions. The project 

coordinator is at the University of New Mexico. 

It is planned that there will be three realizations: English, French, Portuguese. The English 

program is well developed with at least 8 African universities in a selection of countries 

receiving lectures by satellite from a number of American and European universities which 

include the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, New Jersey Institute of Technology, the 

Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of Limerick in Ireland. Much progress has 

been made in the French program planning and work is commencing on the Portuguese 

dimension. 

The project has an extensive web site at 

www.avu.org

 and uses the www in courses for library 

access, for course access, for e mail, for file sharing and for discussion groups. Experiments 

are being made with the digital downloading of satellite materials. The university model is the 

provision of live lectures by satellite with telephone interaction. 75% of the materials are live 

broadcast and 25% taped, using MPEG II compression for a one way video interaction with 

telephone return. Various providers are positioned to provide course materials on the www, 

including US private corporations and the download of materials by internet model link up to 

the satellite is being trialled. There is growing use of the web site for e mail communication, 

file sharing, and course and library access. 

The model is to use international course materials in the local setting. Various forms of 

assessment are used depending on the originating university. At present the main courses are 

on credit business training. Student costs depend on the local university structures, and the 

course schedules depend on the satellite lecture programs. 

The African Virtual University and a growing number of universities in North America and 

Europe is fast establishing itself as a major innovation and a successful contributor to African 

education. The model, trialled and perfected in English speaking African countries, is now 

being developed in French speaking African countries and being commenced in Portuguese 

speaking countries. There is a growing use of the web in student interaction and course 

delivery. 

Asia 

This analysis includes very limited information about Asian initiatives. There are obviously 

many more initiatives than the four that were found. The Asian institutions were the Open 

University of Hong Kong [28], the Indira Gandhi National Open University [42], the Gordon 

College of Education [48] in Israel, and the Japanese WIDE Project [53]. 

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