Peter Micheuz
email: peter.micheuz@aau.at

Curriculum Issues, Competence Models and Informatics Education in Austrian Secondary Schools: Challenges Now and Ahead

Keywords: Informatics, curriculum, digital, competence, educational standards

whether they are published or not. The documents may come

Introduction

The Austrian school system encompasses elementary level (grades 1 to 4 from the age of 6 years on), lower secondary level (grades 5 to 8), and upper secondary level (grades 9-12/13). Lower secondary level is divided into two types of obligatory schools, namely New Middle School (NMS) and academic secondary schools (AHS), upper secondary level is divided into AHS (grades 9-12) and vocational schools (BHS, grades [START_REF] Digikomp | [END_REF][START_REF] Bifie | [END_REF][START_REF]Informatics Curriculum Upper Secondary Level Austria[END_REF][START_REF] Marzano | What works in schools? What Works in Schools: Translating Research Into Action[END_REF][START_REF] Micheuz | Selected spotlights on informatics education in Austrian schools[END_REF].

Since the late 1980s, informatics education in Austrian schools has shown an inconsistent picture especially at lower secondary level. Despite ambitious local, regional and national interventions and initiatives, it lacks still cohesion, consistency and a sequenced structure. Recently, the situation has changed insofar as a framework for digital competences and informatics education has been developed. It should serve as a quasi-educational standard. Schools and teachers are expected to achieve these standards of ICT related knowledge and skills in a cross curricular way.

Upper secondary level provides all students from grade 9 on with obligatory and elective formal IT/informatics lessons which depends on the particular type of school (AHS or BHS). Since more than 30 years nationwide IT/informatics curricula defined a defacto standard for the respective disciplines with different denotations and among other subjects. Since the last decade, a general shift to competence and outcome orientation also affected IT/informatics curricula. Based on educational standards and competence models curricula have been renewed and revised.

This paper can be seen as a mixture of a current country report underpinned with some reflections on putting curricula issues into a wider context. Obviously (real) informatics education for all starts with grade 9, resulting from a poor curricular support at lower secondary level. There are efforts to provide digital competences for all students at lower secondary, but the competence model still lacks accountability and necessary curricula for the particular grades and age-groups.

In contrast to vocational schools at upper secondary level where IT-related education is obligatory, informatics at the AHS is, from grade 10 on, an elective subject with assumed but not yet validated decreasing enrollments.

After looking at curricula in a general context, this paper outlines the current situation in Austria about ongoing curricula issues within existing frameworks and competence models in the age group 10 to 18/19 years.

Curriculum Issues in a Broader Context

A curriculum can be seen as a contract between society, politics and schools/teachers about the way of organizing and providing sequences of learning experiences aimed at producing desired learning outcomes. The curriculum reflects the kind of society to which we aspire [START_REF]UNESCO: Training Tools for Curriculum Development. A Resource Pack[END_REF]. Another definition describes the curriculum as all planned learnings for which the school is responsible and all the experiences learners have under the guidance of the school. Curriculum is the totality of learning experiences provided to students so that they can attain general skills and knowledge at a variety of learning sites [START_REF] Marsh | Curriculum: Alternative Approaches[END_REF]. Put in the simplest way, a curriculum is a course or plan for learning [START_REF] Taba | Curriculum development: Theory and practice[END_REF]. A poster of Kenya's Institute of Education, which I photographed in front of the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa during the IFIP conference "ICT and Informatics in a Globalized World of Education" in August 2011, demonstrates the importance of curricula issues especially in Kenya at that time. Moreover, it indicates that a curriculum is more than just written paper. As shown in the poster, a curriculum implies other educational areas, including the "core functions" as carrying out orientation for stakeholders, providing curriculum materials, teachers' training, media programmes and evaluation issues.

Curriculum issues and curriculum reforms cannot be judged without looking at the educational system, educational governance and the socio-cultural background, and as mirrored in the model, its range of influence.

For some years, in many countries curricula are interwoven with competence models and educational standards. Not least due to the disappointing results of international comparative studies such as TIMMS and PISA about 15 years ago, educational experts in many countries brought up the idea and concept of outcome orientation and educational standards.

Competence Models and Educational Standards

Educational standards can be regarded as precise and binding expectations in terms of competence attainment of the learners. The trigger and rationale for competence orientation not only in Austria, but in other European countries as well, was the need for comparing education systems. The EQF (European Qualification Framework [START_REF]EQF -European Qualification Framework[END_REF]), published in 2008, put this idea into a relevant and influential document. Acting as a translation device to make national qualifications more readable across Europe, it has the potential to relate different countries' national qualifications systems. Although the EQF is voluntary and the member countries are not obliged to cross reference their frameworks, Austria's vocational school system has been strongly influenced by it and adopted its ideas from its release in 2008 on.

In 2011 the Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture released competence models and defined educational standards for all subjects. Exemplarily, the competence model for Applied Informatics in the BHS is shown in Table 2.

Table 1. Competence model for Applied Informatics for vocational schools

Based on this competence model, new curricula have been developed. They represent more or less educational standards which consist of detailed descriptors as chunks of learning objectives. Each of these descriptors is assigned to one blank cell in Table 1. These new curricula are formulated with strict competence orientation [START_REF] Brunner | Competence Orientation in Vocational Schools -The Case of Industrial Information Technology in Austria[END_REF]. Additionally, the syllabi (list of descriptors) from grade 10 onwards are split into modules for every semester. Accordingly, assessment takes place on a semester basis. Students get semester reports with qualifications and rights which were previously reserved to year-end reports [START_REF]Adult Education and School Sports: VET schools and colleges in Austria[END_REF].

Due to an Austrian common agreement on competence orientation among education experts, not only vocational schools had to switch from input-oriented educational plans to an outcome-oriented approach, but also lower secondary and upper non-vocational education as provided by NMS and AHS. As a consequence, two competence models have been developed.

Table 2. Competence Models for General Secondary Education (grades 5-12)

Finally, the framework for Digital Competence and Basic Informatics Education (left table in Table 2) for lower secondary level has been published in 2011 [START_REF] Micheuz | A Competence-Oriented Approach to Basic Informatics Education in Austria[END_REF]. It consists of four main categories and four content areas and 70 "I can …" descriptors. Many sample tasks have been developed to illustrate and concretize the expected objectives and competencies within the Austrian project "DIGIKOMP" and the campaign "No child without digital competence" [START_REF] Micheuz | Towards a competence model for ICT and Informatics in general education at secondary level[END_REF][START_REF] Digikomp | [END_REF]. It is worth mentioning that this competence model for lower secondary education, in contrast to other traditional subjects, has been developed without referring to an existing respective national core curriculum.

One function of this model is to provide schools with guidance for implementing educational objectives. These can serve as a road map for policy makers, teachers, pupils and parents as well. A second is to form a basis for assessing educational outcomes in terms of widely accepted objectives [START_REF] Digikomp | [END_REF], [START_REF] Micheuz | Selected spotlights on informatics education in Austrian schools[END_REF]. The competence model and its objectives can also provide an orientation for individual diagnosis and supplementary support measures.

Although there has been a broad agreement and commitment for "No child without digital competences" among many stakeholders, the challenge still remains to turn these designed ideas in the form of a competence model into a set of teaching practices. This will require much effort in terms of pre-and in-service training and the readiness of schools and teachers to achieve this goal.

One current approach, especially in the NMS, is a planning grid where teachers in all disciplines are invited to carry out selected and prepared tasks. By now, more than 200 sample tasks and assignments have been developed by teachers. They are published under a CC license on an official website [START_REF] Digikomp | [END_REF]. Each task provides a range of variable learning objectives of the competence model. It is up to the teachers to find good progression pathways to cover as many learning objectives as possible.

Among many experts in Austria there is a concern that this cross curricular approach without a sequenced curriculum for the grades 5-8 and without a respective subject in its own right cannot be successful. A commissioned evaluation conducted by the Austrian educational institute BIFIE [START_REF] Bifie | [END_REF] could give an answer.

In the past and currently, still many schools in Austria offer formal IT and informatics lessons on an elective level and based on autonomous curricula. Together with a half-hearted implementation of DIGIKOMP (for lower secondary education) this leads necessarily to an undesirable patchwork and thus to an institutionalized digital gap between schools and pupils at an age of 14 years.

One key challenge in Austria's educational system is definitely to be clear about the necessity of a systematic and curricular-based implementation of digital competence for all pupils at lower secondary level.

Curricula for Upper (General) Secondary Education

Curriculum for the Obligatory Subject Informatics in the 9 th Grade

Secondary academic schools (AHS, Gymnasium) provide a broad general secondary education at pre-university level for grades 5-12. Since the late 1980s, informatics has been compulsory in grade 9 and elective in the grades 10-12. Due to a major reform of the school leaving certification process (Matura) in 2015, there is a need for new competence oriented curricula, based on the existing competence model for upper secondary level (right grid in Table 1). Its similarity with the competence model for lower secondary level is obvious and intended. There are only a few changes in denotations which indicate the shift from digital competence (IT literacy) and ICT at lower secondary level to informatics at secondary level. This model consists of four categories, each further divided into four independent areas. Eighty descriptors in the form of "I can …" statements describe the competences, providing more detailed information about the objectives and the corresponding topics and serving as the basis for the new competence oriented informatics curriculum in the 9 th grade. This should provide teachers and students with a comprehensive and clear picture of informatics.

Table 3. Contents of the curriculum in grade 9

The competence oriented curriculum for grade 9 which is an amalgam of the old curriculum of 2003 [START_REF]Informatics Curriculum Upper Secondary Level Austria[END_REF] and the competence model in Fig. 1, is in review for approval and will be enacted from the school year 2016/2017 on. Its subject matters and competencies (Table 3.) mirror the competence model in Table 2. Considering the fact that there are only two hours of lessons per week, it covers a very wide range of contents. For many pupils aged 15 years this is the first contact with formal informatics lessons. Therefore, it may be questioned if the broad content including many objectives of this curriculum is overloaded.

Each intended curriculum is at first sight a theoretical plan which has to be implemented and achieved in practice. A pilot study about the contents taught in four elected schools has been conducted in the school year 2013/2014 and yielded interesting insights. The data were collected after an informed consent of the schools from the central database of an Austrian wide digital class register. Most academic secondary schools have outsourced the documentation of taught contents. Teachers have to record the subject matter they teach each week. Therefore, this central database provides a rich source of data which can be compared to the specification of content in the respective curriculum.

The word cloud (Fig. 2.) gives an impression of the subject matter covered (or at least recorded as covered) by informatics teachers. It is striking that there is very little programming or databases. Standard software widely dominates the content. Although the sample of data is very small and needs to be extended to yield valid results, the assumption that informatics in grade 9 is mainly application driven has been confirmed. At this point it is opportune to point at different views on curriculum levels. The intended curriculum is content specific by the state, district or school to be addressed in a particular course or at a particular grade level. The implemented curriculum is content actually delivered by the teacher, and the attained curriculum is actually learned by the students [START_REF] Marzano | What works in schools? What Works in Schools: Translating Research Into Action[END_REF]. 4 illustrates the long way from the intended curriculum to its way into the brains of the learners where effective curricula with the status "attained" leave something magic called "competence".

The analyzed empirical data in the word cloud in Fig. 2. can be unambiguously assigned to the implemented and perceived curriculum. It shows how the teacher in grade 9 interprets the curriculum, but it does not tell us anything about the attained curriculum and the learning outcomes of the students.

These measurable learning outcomes are at the core of the idea of competence orientation. This is represented by the top dimension "consequences" of the Darmstadt Model, whereas the operational and experimental stage can be subsumed under the "decision area", the "battle zone" in the class where the curriculum meets the students in concrete lessons.

Informatics from Grade 10 to 12 as an Elective Subject

Influenced by the Austrian vocational education system, all curricula including the elective subject informatics for grades 10-12 in the AHS (Gymnasium) have undergone revisions. After an evaluation process the revised informatics curriculum will be implemented from the school year 2017/2018 on in grade 10, affecting the teaching and learning plans for all students who will choose this subject then.

A newly designed competence oriented oral final examination (so-called Matura) has been implemented and were conducted for the first time at the end of 2014/15 [START_REF] Micheuz | Selected spotlights on informatics education in Austrian schools[END_REF]. Oddly, these competence oriented exams took place before the new competence based curricula had been enacted. Despite these obvious formal deficiencies ("old curriculum and new Matura"), a nationwide cursory evaluation of the oral Informatics Matura yielded no obvious problems. Apparently, the competence model [START_REF]Informatics Curriculum Upper Secondary Level Austria[END_REF] sufficed as a reasonable basis and the old curriculum which has been implemented in 2003 is without constraints. It comprises eleven different topics, without any further specifications when and to what depth to teach the following broad topics:

Basic principles of information processing, concepts of operating systems, construction and operation of networks, databases, learning and work organization, concepts of programming, artificial intelligence, expansion of theoretical and technical foundations of computer science, basic algorithms and data structures, computer science, society and the world of work and legal issues.

Teachers are currently responsible for the selection and sequencing of these topics in combination with appropriate software tools. Together with the competence model, these topics serve as the basis for the oral Matura.

Readjusting curricula for the sake of alignment with the new Matura is just one reason for the recently revised informatics curriculum. The other one is a further reform ahead, namely "Modularization" in analogy to the reform in the BHS. This means also for the AHS that all syllabi including informatics from grade 10 onwards have to be split into modules for every semester, and assessment will take place on a semester basis similar to the practice at university level. Table 5. Distribution of content areas on a semester basis.

The replacement of the old curriculum with the significantly new one has been accomplished recently and waits for approval. Its implications for teachers and students will be substantial. The freedom of planning lessons for three years with broad topics will be replaced by six semesters with preset learning objectives and selfcontained modules. Table 5 shows the proposed distribution of content areas. The numbers in brackets indicate the number of descriptors which put the learning objectives into more concrete terms.

All 16 main content areas from the existing competence model in Table 1 are represented. Algorithms, data structures and programming (ADP) can be found in all semesters with 16 out of 71 descriptors, covering a constitutive part of informatics. The topic databases (DBS) with 4 descriptors is provided to be taught only in the first semester of grade 11.

Actually, this proposed curriculum is essentially a rearrangement of the competence model and its content areas and learning objectives into 5 semesters. The last semester in grade 12 is intended to serve for integrating and repeating the subject areas.

The next years will prove if and how this loss of freedom for teachers in planning informatics lessons throughout three years will be commonly accepted.

Discussion

Curriculum issues play a very important role in any educational system, in particular with respect to informatics education. In contrast to other traditional disciplines and due to a comparatively new and still dynamic and fuzzy field, the challenges now and ahead are considerable.

"Given the importance of informatics as the scientific and engineering basis for the information society, and the ubiquitous political discourse about the importance of innovation, high technology and IT, one might expect that informatics education would by now have found its natural place in the curriculum of industrialized countries, particularly in Europe. Unfortunately, and paradoxically, this is not the case. In fact, informatics education has retreated in most European curricula since pioneering efforts in the 1970 and 1980s". This citation from Informatics-Europe [15] can be applied in particular to the Austrian situation. From the perspective of experts, it expresses concerns about the insufficient representation of digital education at all levels of school education except for special areas of vocational education. However, the next years with approved new curricula, accompanied by professional teachers training and appropriate teaching material, will be a challenge.

Seen from a more general and abstract point of view, there is evidence that a certain "vocationalization" of general school curricula not only in the field of informatics takes place [START_REF] Mintz | Secondary Education[END_REF], a phenomenon which is also addressed in this paper. The shift of from education (in German "Bildung") to an unconditioned and maybe exaggerated competence orientation, to a sort of "utilitarism" and a loss of teaching freedom are increasingly discussed by some teachers and education experts.

Finally, some questions are still up to discussion. Who controls and influences the expert groups who develop models and curricula? Who is in charge for the implementation, and above all, how it is ensured that the enacted models, curricula and educational standards correspond with the teachers' expectations and students' attainments? Obviously, these questions also apply to traditional subjects. With respect to informatics and digital education, we should be, in the first place, so modest to agree at least on a widely accepted balanced curricular coverage of secondary education.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Poster at Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, Kenya, 2011.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Contents taught in informatics lessons in grade 9 of four Austrian schools.

Table 4 .

 4 Typology of curriculum representations[START_REF] Akker | A curriculum perspective on plurilingual education, for the document "Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education[END_REF]

		Ideal	Vision (rationale or basic philosophy underlying a curriculum)
	INTENDED	Formal/Written	Intentions as specified in curriculum documents/materials
		Perceived	Curriculum as interpreted by its users (especially teachers)
	IMPLEMENTED	Operational	Actual process of teaching and learning (curriculum-in-action)
		Experiential	Learning experiences as perceived by learners
	ATTAINED	Learned	Resulting learning outcomes of learners

Table


Adewunmi Obafemi Ogunbase
email: femiogunbasea@hotmail.com

Roope Raisamo
email: roope.raisamo@sis.uta.fi

The Project Case: A West African Digital University

Keywords: West Africa (W/A), digital university, higher education institution

This paper is a project case report of a proposed West African Digital University that started based on the outcome of several research findings that focused on three West African countries mainly on export e-education through e-learning environments, which has been discussed as a way to improve African students' learning culture, designs and usability of web-based learning. The main aim and objective of this digital higher education institution are to contribute to the possible solutions to problems of higher education in developing countries, in particular the sub-Saharan West African countries by providing export e-education to West Africa citizens. The West African Digital University, put in practice, would develop students' minds and raise awareness for peace and tolerance as a way of integrating the West African region.

Introduction

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in its education sector has increased the importance of export education through e-learning for higher education across the boundaries of ECOWAS in order to diversify member states' education systems and attract more international students [START_REF] Ogunbase | The West African Digital University: A case for reconstructing education/e-education and seizing the peace premium towards promoting a culture of peace and tolerance in post-conflict situations in West Africa[END_REF].

To achieve this aim of ECOWAS, West African countries are facing challenges in the attempt to adopt export e-education due to the issues of educational policies in West African States' infrastructure, acceptance, accessibility and willingness of member states' governments, students and teachers or/and the perceived acceptability of e-learning methods [START_REF] Adams | Understanding the factors that limit the acceptability of online courses and degrees[END_REF], [START_REF] Siritongthaworn | The study of e-learning technology implementation: A preliminary investigation of universities in Thailand[END_REF].

This project case for the West African Digital University report will focus on the processes and practice of achieving this ECOWAS aim through e-learning environments has been discussed as a way to improve African students' learning culture, designs and usability of web-based learning environments. Web-based environments/e-learning through a digital higher education institution have also been discussed to contribute to the possible solutions to problems of higher education in developing countries, in particular the sub-Saharan West African countries by providing export e-education to West Africa citizens. This is in order to develop students' minds and raise awareness for peace and tolerance as a way of integrating the West African region [START_REF] Ogunbase | The West African Digital University: A case for reconstructing education/e-education and seizing the peace premium towards promoting a culture of peace and tolerance in post-conflict situations in West Africa[END_REF], which is the main aim and objective of the West African Digital University.

This project case report will be based mainly on three parts in respect to the context of a case for the West African Digital University (an on-going project) as a medium of regional integration in West Africa. These parts are:

1) The description of the electronic site of the Digital University and its infrastructures.

2) The description of the traditional or physical site of the Digital University and its operational structures.

3) The study contents and contexts, such as, university affiliations or partnerships, degree certifications, and the three educational actors' win-lose situations in West Africa focusing on education and export e-education as a way of promoting a culture of peace and tolerance.

Essentially, the practical and operational results of the West African Digital University would provide meaningful students' acceptance, accessibility and willingness of adopting export e-education (in higher education) through a smart digital higher education institution in West African developing countries. It would in practice and process showcase the solutions to questions that reflect on these areas of students' acceptance, accessibility and willingness of adopting export e-education (in higher education) through a smart digital higher education institution in West African developing countries.

Literature Review and Theoretical Background to the Region of West African States

The idea and motivation for the project for a West African Digital University reflects on the findings and outcomes of several research studies in respect to the followings:

• The benefits of e-learning, web-based learning and virtual learning that has been anticipated for more than a decade since governments and university educators and researchers have been discussing the change from the traditional teaching and learning methods based on the revolutionary adoption of technology and technology-supported approaches through use of computers [START_REF] Ogunbase | Pedagogical Design and Pedagogical Usability of Web-based Learning Environments: Comparative Cultural Implications between Africa and Europe[END_REF]. • ECOWAS education sector's commentaries on the digital divide in education institutions among member states ready for e-learning and wed-based learning environments use show that less than 35% of higher education institutions in Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria had the infrastructures and equipments to effectively implement e-learning in their teaching and learning processes [START_REF] Afoakwa | Promoting a culture of peace -some useful thoughts[END_REF], [START_REF] Ogunbase | Pedagogical Design and Pedagogical Usability of Web-based Learning Environments: Comparative Cultural Implications between Africa and Europe[END_REF], [START_REF] Oye | Holistic Elearning in Nigerian Higher Education Institutions[END_REF]. Despite these infrastructure and implementation problems, the West African governments through ECOWAS's education wing have been very active to develop educational technology policies to promote the use of technology in HE institutions in the region [START_REF] Ogunbase | The West African Digital University: A case for reconstructing education/e-education and seizing the peace premium towards promoting a culture of peace and tolerance in post-conflict situations in West Africa[END_REF]. • Additional problems that seem to hinder development and adoption of online learning seem to include lack of motivation to adopt e-learning, lack of financial support, and lack of a clear-cut education development policy from the governments of these West African states in respect to their higher education systems [START_REF] Ogunbase | Acceptance and Use of Web-based Learning Environments/E-learning Environments in Higher Education: West African learners experience[END_REF]. • African learners' collective learning values as one of the key requirements to e-learning environment designs and usability in an African context, while learning through online, VLE, MOOCs and etcetera is learner centered. In this perspective, the study on cultural influences in the designs and usability of web-based learning environments from Africa and Europe points out that pedagogical designs for African learners should be based on learners' motivation and self-regulation among students as well as the higher reliance on group learning because the learning culture of the West African is influenced by strong values of collectivism and respect for authority [START_REF] Ogunbase | Pedagogical Design and Pedagogical Usability of Web-Based Learning Environments: Comparative Cultural Implications from Africa and Europe[END_REF].

It is based on these foregoing that the West African Digital University will implement and put into practice and process as a medium of promoting culture of peace and tolerance as a way of integrating the West African region through export e-education.

According to the United Nations [START_REF]West Africa -Wikipedia article[END_REF], Western Africa includes the following sixteen countries: Cape Verde, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria. These Western Africa countries formed the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. Its mission is to promote economic integration in "all fields of economic activity, particularly industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial questions, social and cultural matters" [START_REF] Ogunbase | The West African Digital University: A case for reconstructing education/e-education and seizing the peace premium towards promoting a culture of peace and tolerance in post-conflict situations in West Africa[END_REF]. Figure 1 shows the geographical locations of the sixteen member states of ECOWAS. These sixteen West African countries consist of former British, French and Portuguese colonies, and the West African Digital University will be focusing on these sixteen countries of ECOWAS, which will be referred to as West Africa in this project case report. Although the initial startup project of the West African Digital University will focus on the Anglo-phone West African countries of ECOWAS and later as it succeeds moves to the Franco-phone West African countries.

The practice and processes of the West African Digital University are going to be based on e-learning design and evaluating courses, designing e-modules, technical usability support, and project management for learning HE institutions in West Africa. It will enable less privileged ambitious West African youths to learn in different areas of academic excellences in different prominent universities within West African countries and especially, in Western European countries where about 75% of African students are presently studying either directly or indirectly [START_REF] Ogunbase | Pedagogical Design and Pedagogical Usability of Web-based Learning Environments: Comparative Cultural Implications between Africa and Europe[END_REF]. This West African Digital University, as earlier stated, will serve as a way of integrating the West African region through the power of (higher) education in a flexible learning digital world.

The Project Case Report of the West African Digital University

The idea of the project case is to implement preceding research of this project case as possible solutions to these problems of higher education in West Africa. These previous research works are [START_REF] Ogunbase | Pedagogical Design and Pedagogical Usability of Web-based Learning Environments: Comparative Cultural Implications between Africa and Europe[END_REF], [START_REF] Ogunbase | Acceptance and Use of Web-based Learning Environments/E-learning Environments in Higher Education: West African learners experience[END_REF], [START_REF] Ogunbase | Investigating the Acceptability and Accessibility of a Smart Digital University in West Africa[END_REF].

This section of the project report focuses mainly on three parts in respect to the context of a case for the West African Digital University (an on-going project) as a medium of regional integration in West Africa. These parts, processes and practice, are:

• The description of the electronic site of the West African Digital University and its infrastructures. • The description of the traditional or physical site of the West African Digital University and its operational structures.

The Electronic Site and Its Infrastructures

The West African Digital University though is going to be a blended learning higher education institution with in-house real-time course programme activities. The blended approach will mainly be based on the idea of core technology and complementary technology [START_REF] Collis | Flexible Learning in a digital world: Experiences and Expectations[END_REF]. The e-site features will mainly be based on core technology of WWW-based systems including information, communication, dissemination, collaboration and learning resources. This will be supported with a complementary approach of prints and real-time session learning activities, that is, complementary technology. The West African Digital University will have its own specially developed tools, such as, 'tablet-computers', 'cloud-computing' internet server and tuition export eeducation from the parenting HE institutions. The West African Digital University's web-based learning environment (e-site) will be linked with password to the partnerships/parents' module (VLE) sites for an effective e-learning system.

Project tools and manpower assistance and academic partnerships are anticipated from Nokia, Microsoft and Huawei for prototype tablet-computers and HE institutions from Finland, Netherlands and other prominent European and West African countries' universities.

The West African Digital University will be a 'wall-less' (education without border) HE institution with absolute contact via the World Wide Web (WWW). It will consist among others, of the followings:

1) E-learning platform (i.e. e-books, e-classrooms, work activities, assessments and submissions, group discussion and feedbacks). 2) Partnerships (i.e. collaborating foreign universities in W/A and Western European countries).

3) E-learning degrees and courses that mainly based on HE such as Bachelor, Master, Doctorate and Doctoral degrees/courses in sciences (minor nonpractical based sciences like mathematics and statistics), social sciences and education. 4) The partnerships' e-learning modules (VLEs links). The study contents and contexts, such as, university affiliations or/and partnerships, degree certifications, and the three educational actors' win-lose situations focusing on education and export e-education as way of promoting a culture of peace and tolerance in W/A countries would be practically experienced in the project.

The traditional/physical site and its operational structures

The West African Digital University will have locations (traditional site) in three West African countries with a total of eight highly IT competent academic staff who will serve as facilitators supporting the students online via the e-site and from these different locations in the West African region.

The physical site structure will be the same in these three African countries and serves as a complementary approach to the core approach of learning activities of the West African Digital University. It is connected and run along with the e-site where students or/and visiting lecturers and researchers stay over, especially when different time zones are involved while learning with the parents' universities. And students and lecturers can also use the work or study rooms for real-time teaching and learning activities while on site. The physical site will also consist of studio or computer display rooms that will be used for live tele conferencing, live learning streams, onsite real time examinations, and other live real time teaching and learning activities. The physical site is shown in figures 3 and 4 below as floor layout drawing and building layout drawing respectively. The traditional/physical site will have its private owned electricity power supply, such as, owned electricity transformer and diesel powered generator, to solve the problem of distribution of public electricity supply.

Conclusion

The West African Digital University project will aim to contribute to the solutions to problem of HE education in West African countries by providing export e-education to West African citizens in order to develop their minds and raise awareness for peace and tolerance in the West African region. It will help tackle qualitative HE education challenges, such as, lack of universal access to HE education; poor quality of HE education and poor management of the education system; and the increasing irrelevance of the current West African HE education system in the knowledge society. It will help find possible solutions to the socio-economic problems, such as, gender aspect for e-learning (particularly well suited for female learners), armed conflicts resolution, cyber crimes and other socio-political ills facing West African countries. It will serve as a way of integrating the educated youths of West African region towards the development of ECOWAS aims and objectives.

The construction of the West African Digital University is in its development/startup stage with initial start up in three West African countries (The Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria) and two European countries (Finland and Netherlands), already used as case study in the author's doctoral research study. Tuition, in form of export e-education, would be provided by partnership universities in West Africa and Western Europe notably, those European countries also used as case study in the author's doctoral research study [START_REF] Ogunbase | Pedagogical Design and Pedagogical Usability of Web-Based Learning Environments: Comparative Cultural Implications from Africa and Europe[END_REF].

The project would confirm students' supports, consents and willingness to access export e-education through an electronic higher education institution and applications of information communication technology in teaching and learning processes. It will confirm students' responses, accessibilities and willingness to use and acquire eeducation at a higher education institution in West African countries. The West African Digital University will continue to promote the West African students' use of several forms of technologies in their learning process that also has implications for the design and usability of e-learning environments.

Many West African students have extensive experiences using computers connected to network applications and information communication technology use in e-learning, however, they need to be informed in the use of other collaborative learning tools embedded in a digital higher education institution. This major obstacle in this region of Africa would be minimised through the approach of a West African Digital University.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Geographical locations of the sixteen member states of ECOWAS 1

Figure 2

 2 Figure 2 below shows the proposed World Wide Web (WWW) layout of the anticipated West African Digital University's WBLE.

Fig. 2 :

 2 Fig. 2: The E-site of the West African Digital University.

Fig. 3 :

 3 Fig. 3: The physical site -Floor layout drawing

Fig. 4 :

 4 Fig. 4: The physical site -Building layout drawing