[AFRINIC-rpd] Academic IPv4 Allocation Policy Second Draft (AFPUB-2013-GEN-001-DRAFT-02)

[Guy Antony Halse]

Hi

On Fri 2013-01-25 (15:19), Badru Ntege wrote:
>    How about we focus on just the acadmical infrastructure and if we want
>    to go the the BYOD (bring your own device) just offer this to one
>    device which will hopefully be the laptop or tablet device.

The BYOD is *part* of the academic infrastructure.

My wife is an academic; she teaches undergraduate students.  

As a deliberate decision, based on the availability of connectivity in
lecture venues, she actively encourages her students to bring their
wireless-enabled phone/tablet/laptop (photabtops?) to her lectures.  She
then uses the availability of such devices to her pedagogical advantage.

I, on the other hand, work in the service division tasked with providing
this infrastructure.  We're under tremendous pressure to increase our
wireless coverage, and to support as many student devices as we possibly
can.  And this pressure isn't coming from the students; it is coming from
the academic staff who, like my wife, have discovered that the BYOD
revolution has real advantages when it comes to presenting course material.

As of this year we now consider student photabtops such a critical part of
teaching and learning that we've incorporated the costs of providing student
connectivity into our tuition fees; we no longer levy any additional charges
for network or Internet access.  This decision was passed unanimously by our
Senate, and driven by the Registrar himself through our budget committees.

Using our own infrastructure allows us to offer access to course material to
student photabtops at no additional cost; forcing students to use the
cellular networks would add cost.  This is an important consideration given
South African higher education's current (governmental) mandate to reduce the
number of "hidden" costs in attending a university.

So I think Andrew & Sunday are focusing on the academic infrastructure here. 
>From our perspective every phone, tablet, or laptop on our campus is a
potential teaching tool.

- Guy
-- 
Manager: Systems, IT Division, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Email: G.Halse at ru.ac.za   Web: http://mombe.org/   IRC: rm-rf at irc.atrum.org
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