e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture

The Federal College of Agriculture, Ibadan, established in 1921, is the oldest tertiary institution in Nigeria. Being a Federally-mandated agricultural educational institution, it awards Higher National Diplomas (HNDs) in the fields of Agricultural engineering, Crop production technology, Postharvest technology, and Horticulture, among others. It has a student population of about 1,000 at any given time, an academic staff population of about 50, many having PhDs in their fields of specialization and multifarious support staff of about 150. Over its period of existence and just like many academic institutions in Nigeria, its academic curricula have been traditionally fashioned after the British pattern of education. Recent global trends have compelled the gradual introduction and adoption of the E-learning concept and ICT in teaching, research, library, administration and other aspects of the total education process in the college in the last 5 years. This paper considers the various aspects of this introduction and adoption process, namely the installation of a campus-wide wireless internet access, building of an ICT centre, acquisition of access to globally renowned research websites, purchase of excellent global agricultural databases, sponsoring staff to attend software and internet training short courses, creating college websites and email addresses, improving the campus electrical power situation and so forth. As reported in this paper, some significant degrees of success have been recorded in the whole process and crucial improvements have been obtained in the teaching, research and administrative activities of the academic staff, students and non-academic support staff in the college. Adoption of ICT particularly has tremendously improved the overall productive efficiency of our activities, time schedules are much more quickly met, the majority of our academic goals are achieved within reasonable time, there is a ready access to cutting edge research on the global platform, the quality of research and publications of academic staff has been significantly enhanced, our graduates are sought after in the market place, and learning is enjoyed in a more conducive environment. This paper concludes that knowledge of the wide-ranging experience at the Federal College of Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria will certainly be of benefit to similar colleges in the developing world and particularly in Africa which are in the process of integrating E-learning and ICT into their operations. Foreign academic staff and consultants who also have work to do in academic institutions located in African countries will also benefit from this uniquely Nigerian experience.