The Principal CoCIS-Prof. Tonny Oyana (2nd Left) with the Dean EASLIS-Dr. Sarah Kaddu (Left) and other participants at the workshop held 18th-19th June 2024.
The East Africa School of Library and Information Science (EASLIS) last week (18th – 19th June, 2024) held a two day Library & Information Science (LIS), and Records and Archives Management (RAM) Teaching Professionals Pedagogical Re-Orientation Workshop.
The event held at Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences (Mak CoCIS), Block B attracted a number of teaching staff at various ranks from Ugandan universities, and the region at large.
In his opening Remarks, the Principal-CoCIS; Prof. Tony Oyana thanked the leadership of EASLIS for holding such an important workshop aimed at improving teaching and learning. He emphasized the importance of pedagogical orientation for teaching staff noting that good subject matter knowledge and good research does not directly translate into good teaching.
Prof. Tonny Oyana, the Mak CoCIS Principal giving his remarks.
He also highlighted a number of other important aspects that contribute to effective learning, including the need to create conducive learning environments, emotional intelligence through the ability to understand and relate to the learners and called for the need to deal away with challenge of superiority attitudes manifested in the by some African scholars that sometimes impedes free interaction with learners thereby affecting effective teaching.
A cross-section of workshop participants.
He noted that everybody has a propensity to learn, but that people learn at different paces hence the need to give attention to every learner. He also emphasized the need for teaching staff to appreciate cultural diversity in learning environments.
The Dean-EASLIS, Dr. Sarah Kaddu giving an overview of workshop noted that the workshop aimed at achieving the following objectives;
Dr. Sarah Kaddu, the EASLIS Dean giving her remarks.
Improved teacher-student support, relations and classroom management
Better alignment of course goals, instructional strategies, objectives
Improved lecture planning, content delivery and course evaluation
Enhanced knowledge and skills in content sourcing and preparation
Partnership brokerage and networking among LIS/RAM professionals in Uganda and in the region.
Dr. Rebecca Nambi, one of the workshop facilitators during one of the sessions.
The participatory workshop was facilitated by Dr. Josephine Najjemba, Dr. Rebecca Nambi, and Dr. Kajumbula; a team of experienced staff in pedagogy training from Makerere University College of Education and External Studies, School of Education.
Dr. Josephine Najjemba, one of the workshop facilitators during one of the sessions.
The workshop presentations focused on the following areas:
Education Foundations – Teaching Philosophies
Education Foundations – Learning Theories
Pedagogical Models: Teacher Centered vs. Learner Centered Strategies
Teacher and Learners Roles in the Learner-Centered Pedagogy (LCP)
Leadership in pedagogical practice
Assessment: Principles of Assessment, and
Technology enhanced learning
The workshop concluded with a plenary session, and award of certificates to the participants.
How can AI help bridge the mental health service gap in Africa?
Through this project, teams from Uganda and Tanzania implemented AI-powered call center solutions at national mental health hospitals, leveraging Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze conversations in local languages and generate insights that support better service delivery.
Some of the key achievements include:
Developing ASR models for Ugandan-accented English and Luganda mental health recordings
Assessing the quality of mental health conversations
Detecting mental health topics from speech recordings
Generating escalations and decision-support insights for healthcare practitioners
The project also reinforced important lessons: local-language AI improves accessibility, user-centered design builds trust, and privacy and ethics must remain at the center of AI-driven healthcare innovation.
As Africa continues to embrace digital health solutions, initiatives like these demonstrate the potential of AI to strengthen mental healthcare systems and improve access to quality care for underserved communities.
Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS) is the main ICT Training, Research and Consultancy Centre in Makerere University. The College has six Academic departments comprising of the Department of Computer Science, Department of Networks, Department of Information Technology, Department of Information Systems, Department of Library and Information Sciences, and the Department of Records and Archives management.
In addition to the mainstream degree programmes, CoCIS has a specialized Center for Innovations and Professional Skills Development (CIPSD) which delivers state-of-art training in ICT e.g. the Cisco Networking Academy for Cisco related courses, the Microsoft IT Academy Program for Microsoft related courses, International Computer Driving License course, Oracle Certified Training center for Oracle, Linux and Unix Training center. CIPSD also offers Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ethical Hacking as online courses. The College is an authorized Testing center, operating under PearsonVUE and Kryterion. Listed in the table (see downloads below) are the courses currently offered at the Center with their next start dates, duration, and cost.
All courses are at affordable fees catering for Students, Vacists, Professionals and
Anyone who wants to start a career in ICT or polish his/her ICT skills.
Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS) is the main ICT Training, Research and Consultancy Centre in Makerere University. The College has six Academic departments comprising of the Department of Computer Science, Department of Networks, Department of Information Technology, Department of Information Systems, Department of Library and Information Sciences, and the Department of Records and Archives management.
In addition to the mainstream degree programmes, CoCIS has a specialized Center for Innovations and Professional Skills Development (CIPSD) which delivers state-of-art training in ICT e.g. the Cisco Networking Academy for Cisco related courses, the Microsoft IT Academy Program for Microsoft related courses, International Computer Driving License course, Oracle Certified Training center for Oracle, Linux and Unix Training center. CIPSD also offers Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) as online courses.