Categorizing the provision of mobile centric information access and interaction for higher educational institutions

• Authors: Baldreck Chipangura
• Venue: Proceedings of the South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists Conference
• Year: 2013

Over the past ten years mobile phone technology have been adopted and become integrated into the daily lives of the larger South African population especially students at higher educational institutions (HEIs). Given the realities of South Africa, as a developing country where public information access can be unreliable or even non-existing in some areas, mobile phone access has become the preferred communication channel and most students have become mobile-centric. In contrast, the public provision of administrative and academic information by universities is mostly pc-centric. Against the background of the global drive towards equal access to learning opportunities, institutions in developing countries are challenged to provide access through technologies that are accessible, usable, scalable and sustainable. Therefore, there is a need at institutional level to develop strategies for providing mobile cellular technology access to services, content and interaction. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate the critical categories and their characteristics for providing content and services for facilitating students' private access and interaction through mobile cellular phone technology at HEIs. Literature analysis was used as the research strategy to propose a conceptual framework for categorising the provision of mobile centric information access and interaction at HEIs. The framework could be a useful tool for informing HEIs' ICT strategy when rolling out mobile phone information access and structuring policies.