Mount Kenya University Investing In Cutting Edge Technologies

MKU Migrates Its ICT Sys­tem To Fast Track Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion

By James Wakahiu 

Worth Not­ing:

• The uni­ver­si­ty will serve in that capac­i­ty from last month to Decem­ber 2027. Goal 9 cham­pi­ons the build­ing of resilient infra­struc­ture, pro­mo­tion of sus­tain­able indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion, and the fos­ter­ing of inno­va­tion. “The insti­tu­tion also aspires to be a leader in Uni­ver­si­ty Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion. This is why we are migrat­ing our sys­tems,” he added.
• The uni­ver­si­ty Inte­grat­ed Resource Plat­form (UnIRP) has been suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed by oth­er uni­ver­si­ties and insti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing. They include: Mar­wa­di Uni­ver­si­ty, Nation­al Foren­sic Sci­ences Uni­ver­si­ty, Dr. Sub­hash Uni­ver­si­ty, Chandi­garh Group of Col­leges, Swami­narayan Uni­ver­si­ty, Vid­hyadeep Uni­ver­si­ty, Gujarat Biotech­nol­o­gy Uni­ver­si­ty, Gokul Glob­al Uni­ver­si­ty, Varo­haman Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing and Shree­yash Pratishthan Mis­sion Edu­ca­tion among oth­ers.

Mount Kenya Uni­ver­si­ty (MKU) has inten­si­fied invest­ments in tech­nol­o­gy to enhance edu­ca­tion­al deliv­ery fur­ther and improve learn­ing out­comes.

Vice-Chan­cel­lor, Prof Deogratius Jaganyi, says stu­dents and fac­ul­ty enjoy the expe­ri­ence of using the cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy that the uni­ver­si­ty has inte­grat­ed into teach­ing and learn­ing.

“In the next five years, the uni­ver­si­ty will expand its use of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence, immer­sive learn­ing tech­nolo­gies, and data ana­lyt­ics,” says Prof Jaganyi. He says the aim is to pro­vide even more per­son­alised, flex­i­ble, and engag­ing learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Con­se­quent­ly, the insti­tu­tion is imple­ment­ing an Edu-Tech solu­tion in part­ner­ship with Mar­wa­di Tech­nolo­gies of India.

As a result of this part­ner­ship, the uni­ver­si­ty will migrate from the Stu­dents Man­age­ment Infor­ma­tion Sys­tem (SMIS), ERP and “My.MKU” to the more uni­fied Uni­ver­si­ty Inte­grat­ed Resource Plat­form (UnIRP) in the course of this month.

Dr Ronald Maathai, Reg­is­trar, Aca­d­e­m­ic Admin­is­tra­tion at MKU says that last month, MKU was appoint­ed as the Unit­ed Nations Aca­d­e­m­ic Impact (UNAI) Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal (SDG)-9 Hub Chair for Indus­try, Inno­va­tion and Infra­struc­ture.

The uni­ver­si­ty will serve in that capac­i­ty from last month to Decem­ber 2027. Goal 9 cham­pi­ons the build­ing of resilient infra­struc­ture, pro­mo­tion of sus­tain­able indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion, and the fos­ter­ing of inno­va­tion. “The insti­tu­tion also aspires to be a leader in Uni­ver­si­ty Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion. This is why we are migrat­ing our sys­tems,” he added.

The uni­ver­si­ty Inte­grat­ed Resource Plat­form (UnIRP) has been suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed by oth­er uni­ver­si­ties and insti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing. They include: Mar­wa­di Uni­ver­si­ty, Nation­al Foren­sic Sci­ences Uni­ver­si­ty, Dr. Sub­hash Uni­ver­si­ty, Chandi­garh Group of Col­leges, Swami­narayan Uni­ver­si­ty, Vid­hyadeep Uni­ver­si­ty, Gujarat Biotech­nol­o­gy Uni­ver­si­ty, Gokul Glob­al Uni­ver­si­ty, Varo­haman Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing and Shree­yash Pratishthan Mis­sion Edu­ca­tion among oth­ers.

The migra­tion process will com­mence on Sat­ur­day in a phased approach guid­ed by an ICT steer­ing com­mit­tee.  Dur­ing the tran­si­tion peri­od, the old sys­tem will run con­cur­rent­ly with the new sys­tem until it is ful­ly phased out.

“We are appeal­ing to your­selves as uni­ver­si­ty key stake­hold­ers to sup­port the tran­si­tion process,” Dr Maathai said.

The key fea­tures of the new sys­tem include auto­mat­ed work­flows for stu­dent man­age­ment, finance and admin­is­tra­tion. “We expect more effi­cient real-time data access and report­ing as well as improved user expe­ri­ence for stu­dents, fac­ul­ty and staff,” he added.

Inter­ac­tive dis­plays

Recent­ly, MKU inte­grat­ed the use of Inter­ac­tive dis­plays and smart class­rooms to enhance learn­ing expe­ri­ences and ele­vate the e‑learning and con­fer­ence expe­ri­ence. These inter­ac­tive dis­plays will serve as a dynam­ic plat­form for con­tent deliv­ery, fos­ter­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion, and inter­ac­tiv­i­ty.

The uni­ver­si­ty also intends to build Smart class­rooms across the cam­pus­es and record­ing stu­dios for con­tent devel­op­ment. This will com­ple­ment ear­li­er devel­op­ments where the uni­ver­si­ty began a jour­ney of self-paced con­tent devel­op­ment and dig­i­ti­za­tion.

The chair­man, Board of Direc­tors and Founder, MKU, Prof Simon Gicharu, said the inter­ac­tive dis­plays will allow lec­tur­ers to incor­po­rate a range of use­ful apps or teach­ing aids that sup­port in sim­pli­fy­ing dif­fer­ent con­cepts in class, hence enabling lec­tur­ers to be more effec­tive in train­ing stu­dents vir­tu­al­ly.

Hand­ing over the dis­plays to the Vice-Chan­cel­lor Prof Deogratius Jaganyi, the chair­man said the new­ly acquired inter­ac­tive dis­plays that will be used to enhance lec­tur­er-stu­dent inter­ac­tion vir­tu­al­ly.

The 18 devices were acquired from Chi­na at a cost of Sh28 mil­lion.

Prof Gicharu said the tra­di­tion­al mod­el of “brick and mor­tar uni­ver­si­ties” would most like­ly be replaced by open uni­ver­si­ties that offer pro­grammes through vir­tu­al plat­forms and retain only small admin­is­tra­tive offices.

“We need to ensure that we are alive to where the world is going, embrace tech­no­log­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions, and inte­grate dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies with Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) and opti­mize on the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to improve liveli­hoods,” he said.

Accord­ing to the chair­man, the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion agen­da will be embraced in all Open and Dis­tance Elec­tron­ic Learn­ing (ODEL) plat­forms and that MKU stu­dents will be among the first in the coun­try to ben­e­fit from this tech­nol­o­gy.

“We expect that these inter­ac­tive dis­plays will be ful­ly inte­grat­ed in our train­ing in Thi­ka main cam­pus and also in all our cam­pus­es and ODEL cen­ters. We are ful­ly com­mit­ted to ensure that our stu­dents have the best learn­ing expe­ri­ence,” the chair­man stat­ed.

The Vice Chan­cel­lor said it is time for MKU to ful­ly embrace the fourth indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion by entrench­ing tech­nol­o­gy medi­at­ed modal­i­ties of teach­ing and learn­ing in order to meet the needs and expec­ta­tions of the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion.

“This is not just about keep­ing pace with glob­al trends. It ensures that MKU remains com­pet­i­tive and pro­vides its stu­dents with the most inno­v­a­tive and effec­tive tech­no­log­i­cal tools avail­able,” he added.

Delib­er­ate poli­cies 

MKU has poli­cies that empha­sise the inte­gra­tion of tech­nol­o­gy into both teach­ing and learn­ing process­es. The objec­tive is to enhance the acces­si­bil­i­ty of edu­ca­tion­al resources, pro­mote dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy among stu­dents and fac­ul­ty, and fos­ter an envi­ron­ment where tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven solu­tions improve edu­ca­tion­al out­comes. The poli­cies also aim to equip stu­dents with the nec­es­sary skills to thrive in an increas­ing­ly dig­i­tal world, while enabling fac­ul­ty to use mod­ern tools to enhance their teach­ing meth­ods.

Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence

MKU has made sig­ni­cant strides in incor­po­rat­ing AI and Machine Learn­ing into its cur­ricu­lum, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cours­es relat­ed to com­put­er sci­ence and IT.

Immer­sive Learn­ing tech­nolo­gies, such as vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR), are used in spe­cialised pro­grammes like med­i­cine and engi­neer­ing, to sim­u­late real-life sce­nar­ios and hands-on expe­ri­ences.

Tech­nolo­gies such as VR and AR pro­vide stu­dents with the abil­i­ty to engage in expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing by sim­u­lat­ing real-life sce­nar­ios in a con­trolled and safe envi­ron­ment. These tech­nolo­gies allow stu­dents to prac­tice skills, explore com­plex con­cepts, and gain prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence with­out the risk of real-world con­se­quences.

Cus­tomised learn­ing

Addi­tion­al­ly, the insti­tu­tion has intro­duced AI-pow­ered tools for per­son­alised learn­ing and assess­ment, which helps track stu­dent progress and pro­vide cus­tomised learn­ing paths based on indi­vid­ual needs. “MKU uses data ana­lyt­ics tools to track stu­dent per­for­mance and engage­ment through­out their aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney,” said the VC.

By mon­i­tor­ing fac­tors like grades, atten­dance, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in online dis­cus­sions, the uni­ver­si­ty can iden­ti­fy stu­dents who may be strug­gling aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly or fac­ing per­son­al chal­lenges. The sys­tem also pro­vides ear­ly alerts to aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sors, who can then inter­vene with tar­get­ed sup­port, such as tutor­ing, aid assis­tance, or coun­selling. This proac­tive approach helps min­imise drop-out rates by address­ing issues before they esca­late.

“Stu­dents who join a uni­ver­si­ty like MKU, where tech­nol­o­gy is per­va­sive, will be equipped with the dig­i­tal skills nec­es­sary for suc­cess in the mod­ern work­place,” says Prof Jaganyi.

Stu­dents have access to advanced learn­ing tools, per­son­alised instruc­tion, and hands-on expe­ri­ences through immer­sive tech­nolo­gies. This also pre­pares them to work in a vari­ety of indus­tries that increas­ing­ly rely on tech­nol­o­gy for deci­sion-mak­ing, inno­va­tion, and growth. Addi­tion­al­ly, stu­dents ben­e­fit from flex­i­ble learn­ing envi­ron­ments, such as online cours­es and dig­i­tal col­lab­o­ra­tion tools that make learn­ing more acces­si­ble and effi­cient.

Online Stud­ies

For stu­dents who would pre­fer to study online, MKU offers a robust online learn­ing plat­form designed to pro­vide them with a seam­less and inter­ac­tive learn­ing expe­ri­ence. The plat­form includes fea­tures such as live video lec­tures, record­ed mate­ri­als, dis­cus­sion forums, quizzes, and real-time assess­ments. Addi­tion­al­ly, MKU uses AI-pow­ered tools to enhance the learn­ing expe­ri­ence by offer­ing per­son­alised feed­back.

The university’s online cours­es are designed to be engag­ing and acces­si­ble, pro­vid­ing stu­dents with the flex­i­bil­i­ty to study at their own pace while still receiv­ing the sup­port and resources they need to MKU con­tin­u­ous­ly bench­marks its tech­no­log­i­cal prac­tices and infra­struc­ture against glob­al best prac­tices in high­er edu­ca­tion. The uni­ver­si­ty active­ly col­lab­o­rates with indus­try experts and high­er edu­ca­tion net­works to stay informed about the lat­est devel­op­ments in edu­ca­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy.

By embrac­ing the lat­est advance­ments in edu­ca­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy, MKU is posi­tion­ing itself as a for­ward-think­ing insti­tu­tion that offers stu­dents access to inno­v­a­tive tools and resources.