11 January 2006

Wednesday was our first opportunity to get into the server room at UNZA. We arrived at UNZA around 11:30 AM and had lunch in the canteen at a great price (K10,000 [$3] for soda and t-bone/sausage with rice). After lunch we headed to the server room to set up the servers. We felt that John Chunda, the network manager, was a little leery of our being in the server room, probably because he assigned a poor fellow to watch us while we were in there. We say “poor fellow” because he basically got to sit and watch us check email for 5 hours.

The iLab Service Broker was easily setup and placed online. After testing we realized there was a problem when we were unable to access devices to use in the microelectronics lab. Luckily, Kimberly DeLong (Kirky), our MIT iLab contact, was online and received our email relaying our semi-success. Within a couple of hours she was able to find and fix the problem, allowing us to complete the setup of the iLab Service Broker.

The OCW server setup was not completed. Perhaps the external hard drive just hates us, but today it refused to turn on. Whenever we plugged it in and activated the power switch, the light on the power supply would blink. According to Maxtor’s website, this is a problem with the external enclosure. Hopefully the data remains in tact and we can try to obtain a new enclosure tomorrow.

Besides the aforementioned happenings, our time at UNZA was chilling (thanks to the air conditioner in the server room) but uneventful. Perhaps the strangest occurrence on Wednesday was to walk out of the KEPA compound that morning and see that all the taxis were gone. The security guard at the compound explained that our taxis were not licensed and were currently being chased down the street by the police. We couldn’t believe it. A few minutes later a car comes screaming around the corner, nearly hits 3 folks standing a little too close to the street and stops in front of the compound. Sure enough it’s our taxi so we hop in. (Illegal taxi, or not, it’s our only way to UNZA and quite cheap at K20,000 [$6].) All the while driving, our driver is looking behind him to make sure no police are behind him. What a ride this was!

The day’s activities ended with dinner at the Lusaka Club. Shigeru was paying so we made sure to get the most expensive entrees they offered (Just kidding!). I [Clinton] had the prawns butter garlic, which was simply excellent. I love shrimp and this was by far the best I have had. Marta had the sweet and sour chicken which was “the best thing [she’s] had had here so far, except for the food at Raja’s house.” It seems that our meals, at least dinner, get better each day, so we’re happy we aren’t stuck with the expensive and un-tasty fast food near the guest house.

Over dinner we discussed our thoughts on the OpenZambia project. Our biggest concern was that we would get things up and running and either the servers would not be maintained (not really a tough job, but someone has to do it), or the professors would be hesitant to incorporate iLab and OCW into their courses. One professor might have a problem with OCW. The head of the Physics department regularly downloads Physics Electricity & Magnetism (8.02 at MIT) tests, changes them a bit, and gives them to his students (Poor kids, having to take MIT tests!). Obviously if the students catch on to this after using OCW at UNZA, he will have to come up with new tests since the solutions will be available to them.

Our greatest concern with iLab is that the professors will not use it because of its limited uses. When we met with professors in the Engineering and Physics departments, they were quite excited at the prospects of being able to complete resource-intensive digital micro processing labs online. We had to stress to them that the microelectronics web lab is not that complex. We feel this is going to be a point that needs to be stressed in our presentations next week, so that they aren’t disappointed when they get the opportunity to use iLab for themselves.

Shigeru did point out that this is a pilot program and our goal should not be to change the entire university so that OCW and iLab are incorporated into every course. Rather, our goal right now should be to get OCW and iLab in a few courses and over time learn how it is used, what is liked or disliked. This way we can incorporate the feedback into the systems at UNZA and other locations. While we certainly would like to see OCW and iLab incorporated university-wide, we agree that we cannot change the entire university in 2 weeks. At this point we are just worried that the project will not be used at all; however, we hope to incite some enthusiasm in our presentations next week.

So, all things considered, Wednesday was a good, productive day. Tomorrow we’ll book tickets for our trips to Victoria Falls and Kenya, search for another hard drive enclosure, and, hopefully, have the OCW server up and ready.