ICT & Library Services

ICT services

The ICT office is one of the core service centers that have been set up to provide information services within the University. It provides services in the areas of Information and Communication Technology.

Information and Communication Technologies have become one of the most useful sources of information in the last few years all over the world, particularly for the development of educational resources. As more information is made available in a variety of formats and media in many locations, the need to manage information efficiently becomes more and more important. In addition with the coming of information revolution, more and more information is available and accessible. Analyzing, interpreting, and making use of the data has been difficult using the classical or manual analysis.

In this regard, the use of ICT and utilization of up to date technologies could be utmost important. Hence, recognizing the potential of ICT for all-round, Wollo University launched the ICT Center to provide different ICT services to the community, both in Dessie and Kombolcha Campuses, to enable all academic, administrative and managerial staff with the required competencies in ICT and to carry out internal and international communication as well as access to resources that support the Wollo University’s learning, research and other activities.

Mission

“ICT’s mission is to provide sustainable ICT services and facilitate Change through the effective use of ICT in the University”.

Vision

The vision of the ICT unit is to provide a customer centered ICT and Business Development service that:

• Is responsive to the needs of a diverse range of users
• Is a valued and integral part of the University’s academic teaching-learning processes
• Provides the lead in access to electronic forms of information
• Exploits technology to its full potential
• Leads and manages information resources in the University
• Provides leadership in the area of ICT to ensure the effective use of academic and business information systems within the University

Vision

The ICT office recently took part in a University wide exercise to identify its core values and to demonstrate how it puts those values into practice on a daily basis.

We will achieve the plan through developing a service and culture that is:

• Professional and friendly
• Proactive as well as reactive
• Customer focused
• Collaborative and sharing
• Forward thinking and reflective

Objectives

The objectives set to achieve the vision and missions are:

• To lead, manage and develop ICT in the University
• To provide excellent customer centered services, that are responsive to the changing needs of the user
• To maintain an effective staff development program to ensure that ICT staff continue to develop the necessary skills to provide high-quality services and support
• To promote teaching and learning with ICT and the development of ICT skills in all staff and students
• To ensure data integrity for all users
• Provide ICT services, such as Internet Access, e-Resources and Computer Access Pools.
• Set up, operate and maintain dedicated server applications for the different ICT services.
• Perform a proper management of the available ICT resources, including Internet bandwidth.
• Design and develop support tools according to the needs of the Wollo University community.
• Establish ICT communication and collaboration between students, teachers and staff of the University.
• Provide maintenance to the ICT infrastructure and services.
• Establish an ICT User Policy.
• Controls Network security at all levels including desktop, services, network and the gateway;
• Ensures that hardware/software application server platforms are up-to-date, accessible, secure and operating normally;

ICT Organization and Management

The ICT office is currently organized into three units: Infrastructure management, Network administration, and content management section. The network administration unit is responsible for the design, implementation, and day-to-day operation of the network. The content management section of the ICT Center will take care about the content part of the network. In addition to Internet access, many e-Resources can be placed in a dedicated server inside the campus, and therefore they can be accessible from any computer attached to the Intranet. It is also responsible for the acquisition of digital resources, deployment, and maintenance of applications and web services. Besides, the Infrastructure management unit provides wide range support to the user community. This section takes the responsibility to set up and maintain the needed ICT infrastructure at the physical level, which is, taking care of the connections as well as the configuration, performance and maintenance of the computers and the communication equipment.

NETWORK CONFIGURATION

Wollo University has two campuses with a wide geographic area at Dessie and Kombolcha. Each Campus has had their own Internet connection in the form of a hybrid wired and wireless connection independently. The internal network (LAN/WAN) is connected to the internet via a 2Mbps link to the ETC. There is a current effort in progress, in collaboration with ETC, to upgrade the limited internet bandwidth wired and wireless connections to 8Mbps.

The actual source of Internet Access arrives to the main ICT room and is connected through a Media Converter (fiber to Ethernet) to a Router. This Router is connected to a computer that operates as Campus Proxy Server. And thus, the actual network configuration consists of different buildings connected to each other using switches, wireless network (i.e. omini-directional antenna, nano stations and linksys).

Within the various colleges there are numerous existing and new buildings that do not yet have access to the network. Connecting more and more buildings (and rooms within the buildings) is an ongoing process. Currently, apart from wireless laptop users, there are about 80 nodes connecting end-users to the wired network at Dessie Campus. These nodes include administrative and lab for academic staff on ICT building offices and computer labs for students

Moreover, the Internet service at Kombolcha campus runs the same manner as Dessie. Thus, the source of Internet access arrives to the building of college of Natural science and connected through a Media Converter (fiber to Ethernet) to a Router. This Router is connected to a computer that operates as campus Proxy Server. The actual network configuration consists of different buildings connected to each other using switches, and wireless network such as Linksys. And thus, the two colleges of Kombolcha campus have their own computer pool for their respective academic staffs . Moreover, connecting one computer lab and other computer pool on the library for students are an ongoing process.

Official website of Wollo University

Among several services that the ICT office runs and maintains, the Wollo University’s Official website is one of the most important ones. And thus, at this time a serious of improvements are being made to the website using comments collected from users. The Official website of Wollo University could be accessed through http://www.wu.edu.et/

Library Services

Library and information services play a significant role in the teaching, learning and research activities of a University. The purpose of Wollo University Library System shall be to provide the most effective university library services possible in response to current and future users needs, and to maintain and develop access to the university information resource collections.

Currently the Library System of Wollo University is composed of two Libraries located in the main campus of the University (Dessie) and its branch library located in Kombolcha. The University Libraries directly facilitate the teaching-learning process of the University. It is an integral part of the University program and a centre of all academic activities.

Present Collection of the Library

The University library, the way recognized recently, has made progress in increasing both the quality and quantity of its collection.

At this time the Wollo University library system delivered different services such as Circulation and periodical services.The library gives circulation service for students, academic and administrative staff.Periodical service gives different types of magazines and periodical services which contains current information about all aspects of the world.

There is a need to work hard to improve the library service, both hard and electronic versions in the coming years to satisfy the growing number of students in the university. Hence, there is a centeralized Library which will be effective by 2004 E.C. to satisfy the requird services.