A Model for Knowledge Management Systems in the UbuntuNet Alliance Member Institutions

Abstract

In the current knowledge-driven global economy, higher education and research institutions are taking a leading role as the hubs for knowledge creation and sharing. In contribution to the needed coordination of the efforts, this paper presents a guiding model thorough assessment of the prevailing status of knowledge resources sharing and collaboration in the regional alliance for education and research networks in the eastern and southern African countries—UbuntuNet Alliance. This research carried out a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews with CEOs of three active national research and education networks (NRENs), representing both the government-run and private consortium-based settings. The study adopted a socio-technical perspective in assessing the technological engagements and the knowledge resources utilization within and among the NRENs in the region. The findings show that the NRENs share a similar set of challenges as well as missions and objectives; they aspire to provide technology-enhanced knowledge-sharing platforms within and across their domains. Finally, it presents UbuntuKMS Model—a comprehensive technology-enhanced knowledge management systems model that intends to provide guidance for the NRENs to orient their efforts accordingly. The research revealed that contextual considerations in developing system solutions are vital as the developing economies experience unique realities on the ground.

1. Introduction

With the advent of information technologies and the wider internet platform during the last decade of the 20th century, the values of knowledge assets have been enhanced with enabling technologies for sharing and collaborative research [1,2]. Hence, the development of knowledge management systems (KMS) gained more focus from institutions to manage the process of acquiring, sharing and creating these assets, and promoting organizational learning [3,4].

Today, educational resources and information have become universal while educational institutions adopt their own unique ways of exploiting the resources and excel in their services. The way we use the resources and acquire knowledge is becoming the core engine for institutional excellence, especially in the educational sector. However, having piles of knowledge resources is no more advantage to our institutions. The dynamic utilization and sharing of those resources are becoming the core source of wealth and unique advantage [5]. The advances in information technologies and networking platforms further enhance the reachability and utilization of these universal resources. Lately, open access journals and publicly shared research data and outputs have been highly promoted, while research themes and research projects are openly advertised for collaboration and shared efforts. Moreover, big universities are opening their digital course materials and lecture videos for free access which proves that sharing induces more gains and more wealth. Researchers have also mentioned that knowledge hoarding as a sign of wealth is a mode of the past as it becomes obsolete when more enhanced and openly optimized knowledge takes over [6]; hence, it is the order of the day to open up and collaborate, while stepping together into the next generation.

Higher education institutions in the developed world are continuously leveraging their domain of excellence through collaboration and merging resources. Many countries have funding instruments promoting consortia and collaborative development of solutions in their teaching-learning and research endeavors, also collaborating with relevant industries. Their universities have learning management systems and academic management platforms commonly developed and shared among them at a national level. Moreover, their research data is often put in national repositories and is made available to researchers for further analysis and advancing the knowledge of the related phenomenon. Moreover, some advanced countries are promoting their national strategies that transform the higher education system to the next level where location and time may not matter, while all educational resources and teaching-learning endeavors are seamlessly catered to, expanding access to quality education for anybody.

This being the open reality, developing countries’ higher education institutions need not be told about the significance and importance of these developments as well as the transformation strategies currently being worked on. Studies conducted on higher education environments in developing countries have shown that it is a universal understanding in higher education institutions that there is an urge for collaboration and sharing of resources [5,7,8]. They believe that sharing would ease the scarcity of resources prevalent in most cases in the institutions, scarcity in educational resources, as well as scarcity in the quality of higher education teachers and researchers. However, they all face several challenges to make their way towards the trend experienced in the developed world. The long-enduring scarcity of resources and facilities in developing countries has affected the sought sharing culture of the higher education communities. It is further compounded by the lack or scarcity of enabling information technology infrastructure, where in many cases, wishfully acquired technology tools and facilities end up being underutilized due to a lack of interconnecting infrastructure enabling their capabilities and awareness of users [9]. The same research further mentioned that there are also other challenges due to a lack of careful selection and contextual design of solutions that often end up failing or are underutilized in most cases.

However, challenges are good inputs for devising solutions should they be properly identified in time, and they are the core consideration to contextually designing overarching collaboration systems for higher education and research. It is evident that contextually adapting working models and strategies from the developed world is crucial in ways that conform with the prevailing realities in the developing world. It is equally important to have vertical collaboration with the developed world in knowledge sharing too, although enabling platforms and contextual readiness might differ significantly [6].

Therefore, working around the challenges, developing countries’ higher education and research institutions do have good opportunities to capitalize on. Previous research shows that regardless of the level of utilization, mobile tools and other smaller devices that are equipped with appropriate capabilities have been flooding these countries; hence, creating wider awareness in the society and good potential for turning such endowment into their favor with appropriate planning and assimilation of contextually-designed applications [9], avoiding the so-called design-use gap [10].

Yigzaw et al. [6] mentioned in a study on knowledge management systems in developing countries that the growing digital-native generation also forms the basis for the application of advancing features of technology into the processes to efficiently utilize the knowledge resources for greater educational and research endeavors towards the sustainability of higher education. As discussed in the study, the new generation even in the developing countries is developing a technology culture or at least the awareness of those digital accessories. This provides a good ground for possibly easier development and deployment of the sought solutions.

This research presents relevant findings from the analysis of the qualitative data collected from the NRENs under the UbuntuNet Alliance (UA), as well as from literature on developing countries’ knowledge sharing domain. Then, it finally presents the discussion and recommendations for the comprehensive knowledge-sharing platform sought from the research results.

1.1. Research Questions

Overarching Question: What kind of Knowledge Management Systems Model could contextually promote and serve Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration among Higher Education and Research Institutions within and across NRENs under the UbuntuNet Alliance?

• What are the prevailing core challenges deterring collaboration and knowledge sharing in the NRENs of the region?
• What technology features would help to change the research and collaboration culture of HE and R institutions in the region?
• What kind of KM platform would best serve to motivate and enable the HE and R community to collaborate in education and research with impactful orientation?
• What could be the role of government policies in the knowledge-sharing platforms’ development and functionality?

1.2. The Research Context

The focus of the research reported in this article is to develop a comprehensive knowledge management model for the UbuntuNet alliance member NRENs. The model aims to provide guidance for contextually developed platforms that promote collaboration and sharing of resources among the partner NRENs. The UbuntuNet Alliance consists of 16 member states from the eastern and southern Africa region, among which 9 NRENs are currently active in their operations, while others are in different stages in the process of building their infrastructure or expanding their services to member institutions.

This research presents the realities on the ground in the UbuntuNet Alliance region in terms of the IT infrastructure and services that are widely deployed, the existing collaboration facilities for sharing knowledge resources, as well as the challenges the NRENs have, in order to meet their needs.

The NRENs in the region have taken several different forms. Many of them are non-governmental-based on a consortium of member institutions, while some of them are fully governmental. Both models of the establishment have their own pros and cons when examined for their administrative and technological functionalities and reachability issues. As described by the interview respondents, those government-run NRENs have a defined budget source from the government for all specific technology facilities and excess to planned resources. They usually manage with the government funding to subsidize the member institutions for their connectivity and services from the NREN, and most of the resources and services are developed and managed centrally at the NREN. On the other hand, those NRENs that are established by the consortium of higher education and research institutions experience serious issues of inconsistent fundraising from member institutions. They usually have very minimal or no budgetary support from the government, despite the full approval from the government and support for their establishment. All costs must be borne by the member institutions as these membership fees do sustain the secretariate/NRENs life. In the case of the government-run NRENs, they tend to favor government higher education and research institutions, while the consortium-based NRENs openly promote membership for any eligible institution regardless of size or affiliation.

One of the young NRENs, the Somalian NREN, shares a great lesson where the member institutions had to form a consortium while they are in different parts of the country and with different local governance. They had to clearly set their mission for their consortium and isolate the efforts from any political affiliation, which was made possible although a demanding task to go through. As the CEO mentioned, “… make sure that we avoid all political issues and be careful about political sensitivities, and the board supported us very well and encourages us to work very hard to make sure we stay at flow when it comes to political issues”. He stated that the shared agenda for realizing the formation of the consortium was ‘improving quality of education and research using technology’, which enabled the consortium to keep its flow and progress to a full-fledged NREN. Having this range of often contextually unique and demanding experiences in the regional NRENs formation, there is a lot to share among each other in the region that shares a similar environment for operation.

NRENs membership: the membership of the NRENs is open to higher education institutions, technical and vocational training institutions (TVETs), and research institutions and lately there are extensions of services to secondary schools in some cases. The membership criteria differ from one country to another, but they all share a similar mission of promoting quality education and research through knowledge resources sharing and communication over the contextually designed technology facilities.

Table 1. NRENs of UbuntuNet Alliance: Basic info.

Ser No.	Country	Name of NREN	Ownership/Legal Status	Registered as NREN in (Year)	NREN Status		No. of Active Member Institutions
					Active	Not Active
1	Rwanda	RwedNet	Government owned	2006		X	1
2	DRC	EBALE	Trust	2007		X	No
3	Burundi	BERNET	Association	2016	X		12
4	Madagascar	i RENALA	Government Unit	2012	X		30
5	Ethiopia	EtERNET	Government Unit	2001	X		36
6	Sudan	SUDREN	Trust	2004	X		154
7	Somalia	SomaliREN	Trust	2009	X		21
8	Kenya	KENET	Trust	2007	X		280 campuses + 38 schools
9	Uganda	RENU	Company Limited by Guarantee	2008	X		200
10	Tanzanya	TERNET	Trust	2008	X		61
11	Mozambique	MORENET	Government Unit	2009	X		180
12	Zambia	ZAMREN	Company Limited by Guarantee	2012	X		28
13	Malawi	MAREN	Company Limited by Guarantee	2007	X		7
14	Zimbabwe	ZARNET	Government, through Act	2007	X		N/A
15	South Africa	TENET	Non-profit Company	2000	X		350 Campuses in 85 HEIs
16	Namibia	XNET	Trust	2004		X

shows the general information about the NRENs.

Except for the three indicated in Table 1, others have some kind of activity as NRENs, while only nine of them are actively engaged in serving their member institutions and expanding their reach to wider domains. All these institutions are connected to UbuntuNet Alliance for internet bandwidth, hence, mainly getting connectivity infrastructure. As also indicated in the table, the sizes of the NRENs show how widely they can operate and that their services can reach various levels of client members. Many of the NRENs are small while consolidating their system for a sustainable functionality, and they already know from their peers that their services can span many clients. This draws in the need for platforms that promote easier management of the expanding systems, while also promoting collaboration and knowledge resource sharing among member institutions and with system NRENs at the regional level.

The issue of the budget was also discussed in the interviews. It is a firm belief of some of the NRENs that they want to sustain themselves by the membership and services fees from member institutions while following the government policies and directions for the empowerment of their activities. This is sought to have more freedom in terms of the working environment and participation of the member institutions in the NREN activities, but the member institutions often have challenges to channel enough budget for these services. On the other hand, some NRENs are fully dependent on the government budget and work as part of the government structure, while serving member institutions. They often call the member institutions ‘beneficiaries’ rather than ‘members’ as they are also subsidized for their costs of services by the government budget; hence, less room for the beneficiaries’ participation as they are more receiving clients than acting members.

2. Materials and Methods

The research methodology follows interpretivism research philosophy [11], with a socio-technical perspective [12,13] as the nature of the study domain is highly influenced by the knowledge hosts, the people, and their engagement interpreted and augmented by technology. This research studies how knowledge resources could interact to create and exchange new knowledge in the context of the developing countries with the enhancing technology capabilities. It also involves cross-boundary regional alliances of those countries that share the same regional ecosystem while having heterogeneous knowledge resources; hence, the research considered the symbiosis theory [14,15], exploring the main factors that drive the need for the alliance. Zhang et al. [14] also described that the symbiotic drive for the alliance promotes cooperation and innovation among member institutions, creates the basis for comprehensive utilization of resources, and ensures mutual benefit in sharing of cross-boundary knowledge.

The research method is based on exploratory and explanatory research using a cross-sectional data collection approach with qualitative analysis of interviews conducted, data collection from the target study environment, and relevant literature. The study targets a representative selection of sample interviewees that could cover various scenarios with the member countries of the UbuntuNet Alliance while implementing an in-depth study of those contextual factors that span both technological and non-technical phenomena; hence it is an interpretative in nature [16]. Interpretivism philosophy requires an in-depth investigation of small and representative samples, focusing on qualitative research methods [11], which is how this research approached the study.

This research explores the higher education and research environments in the UbuntuNet Alliance countries of the eastern and southern African regions, which widely represent the developing economies scenario. The National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) of all member countries of the UbuntuNet Alliance are considered in this research for exploring the prevailing technology infrastructure and collaboration among their member higher education and research institutions. Necessary data was gathered from all NRENs in the alliance, through the UbuntuNet alliance regional office, which provided the basic information about the status and activities of the NRENs as connected to their central office. Moreover, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with CEOs of selected active NRENs for getting a comprehensive understanding of those environments. This research aimed at exploring the status of prevailing collaboration for educational and research resources and activities, as well as identifying the challenges for acquiring and using the required technologies for further interaction and collaboration among the institutions and researchers across the alliance and beyond. Therefore, it used qualitative methodology due to the exploratory nature of the study as perceptions and interpretations of views can better be expressed and collected through open and engaging interviews, without limiting focus and domains of expression. Semi-structured interview questions were prepared to assess the higher education and research environments in the respective NREN’s domain exploring the status of resource sharing and collaboration among the professionals in the institutions and their urge for further interaction, collaboration and sharing despite the current challenges and shortages. Out of 16 member NRENs of the alliance, 9 are fully active and operating to full potential with a considerable number of member institutions, and a purposeful sample selection was made to represent those NRENs. Hence, three NRENs were selected for the semi-structured interview based on their readiness to respond to the request for the same and that fairly represent all categories of the NRENs. These are:

• MORENET of Mozambique, a government-run NREN;
• TERNET of Tanzania, run by a consortium of member institutions; and
• SomaliREN of Somalia, for its unique environment of organization and successful activities that may have great lessons to other countries who need to get over complex challenges, mainly due to issues related to government policies and political will, and make it work.

A 50 to 80 min online video interview was conducted with each interviewee, CEOs of the selected NRENs, with prior consent for the arrangement, and six questions were shared with the respondents ahead of the interview. These interview questions cover four major themes that address the main aim of the research. These themes are: (1) coverage of the NREN services and usability/reachability by the member institutions; (2) types of services and collaboration platforms; (3) major challenges and current mitigation plans; and (4) additional technologies needed, expectations from the regional alliance and vision of the NREN.

The interviews were recorded with the consent of the interviewees by the Zoom video conferencing tool, and a backup voice was recorded using a smartphone. The recordings were later transcribed by the researcher. The interviews were conducted in English because the medium of instruction and communication in all those NRENs was English, hence, the transcriptions were direct in the same language.

The research used thematic analysis of the qualitative data collected using the qualitative data analysis tool, Atlas.ti 9.0.18- Licensed for the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland.. This tool was used to organize the contents of the interview into codes and themes that helped the processing of contents. In Atlas.ti, codes are labels that are linked to a selected piece of data in the transcript or document for analysis. Hence, they need to be created with a methodological consideration that serves the purpose of the analysis. They can be derived from the research questions, theoretical models, literature or interview guidelines depending on the nature of the research. As described by Saldaña [17], coding is not a precise science as different people can have different choices of labeling; it is primarily an interpretive act. In this research, therefore, the codes are created from the interview transcripts with an open-ended approach as derived from the research questions so that they represent themes that address those questions and collect pieces of data relevant to their respective context. Because of the nature of the interviews conducted, semi-structured that require subjective interpretation, the researchers preferred not to use inter-coder testing or any formalized coder testing.

Accordingly, 21 codes were created to extract the relevant data from the transcripts, which were grouped into five themes for analysis as per the aims of the research. These codes and code groups are shown in

Table 2. Codes and Themes (Atlas.ti).

Code Groups	Codes
Challenges for NREN	Challenges during establishment
	Challenges for NREN services
	Connectivity to the internet (BW)
	Cost of service
	Market Competition for NREN
	Poor Quality of Telecom infrastructure
Government Role	Government policy
	Government Policy Challenge
NREN formation	NREN establishment
	Shared Agenda for membership
	Size of NREN membership
	Source of budget
NREN Demands	Current needs of the NREN
	NREN demand from UbuntuNet Alliance
	Ideas at UbuntuNet Alliance level
NREN Facilities	Collaboration platforms for members
	Journals subscription
	NREN Services
	Usability of NREN services

.

Further publications were consulted for the literature review on knowledge sharing and collaboration platforms both in developing and developed countries. These references were analyzed using the Mendeley reference management system to organize the contents and referencing in the research. Previous works of the researchers in the same domain were also thoroughly consulted for their firsthand data collected from higher education environments in a developing country to base this research on a good foundation and build the knowledge this can contribute to the research domain.

Moreover, basic data was gathered from every NREN member of the regional alliance through the UbuntuNet Alliance regional office. The researcher provided a request for specific information about all the member NRENs in a tabular form to UbuntuNet Alliance personnel who collected the appropriate response data from their records and connections with the member NRENs. More information was also gathered through direct questions shared with four NRENs and from the institutional websites of the other NRENs. Therefore, detailed data were collected from all other NRENs in addition to the in-depth interview data from the three representative NREN CEOs. These data include information on the services provided, challenges member institutions face, type of member institutions, aims and missions, as well as their future expansion plans and expectations from the regional alliance.

These data gave a more complete picture of the member NRENs that supported the analysis and interpretation of the information gathered through the interviews with the CEOs of the representative NRENs. Therefore, the authors believe that the data was reliable enough and no further need for data triangulation was presented as also supported by Turner and Turner [18], referring that getting a fuller picture of the data gathered is one of the aims of triangulation by itself.

As shown in Figure 1, this methodology used qualitative data using extensive interviews with the CEOs of the selected NRENs. It was adopted in this research because the core focus of the research involved the interaction between human resources and the technology systems required, which requires complete and rich description that qualitative data is mainly tuned for. Moreover, the focus domain of the research being the developing economies also adds to the importance of such a methodology that offers detailed and rich descriptions on a full scale of the varying contextual realities. The scope of the research could be considered as the weakness, which would have expanded the coverage to all the active NRENs and revealed more contextual challenges and better-focused solutions. This research, therefore, calls for further research in the alliance with the new model proposed.

In general, the authors preferred to tune the research methodology to reveal the recurring challenges in the case of developing economies that are often used to lead to the failure of IS projects and turn them into opportunities by prior consideration in the design of KMS. The research mainly focuses on the need for a contextual understanding of the deployment environment in the developing economies as the IS and technologies are often developed in different contexts in developed countries. Moreover, it introduces the symbiotic nature of the regional alliance to consider a due focus on mutual benefits from the heterogeneous nature of knowledge resources and capabilities the member NRENs have; and this calls for further research based on the contributions of this work.

The research ultimately proposes a new UbuntuKMS Model, which was developed through a process of revealing contextual challenges the member NRENs have and the heterogeneous resource endowment in the region. The uniqueness of the model could be its base that considers the unique nature of the knowledge asset that the source never diminishes while sharing and enriching others, and that the identified challenges can be turned into opportunities when the diverse knowledge resources and technology capabilities in the region are symbiotically harmonized for mutual benefit in the regional alliance.

3. Literature Review

The essence of knowledge resource in an institution is cherished only in its dynamic state; when it is shared, then developed, enhanced, transformed, and lives in this continuous loop in motion, inducing more meaning to the institution and beyond [6]. The process of knowledge sharing, however, is so complex and it involves many variables [19] that are connected with the dynamic nature of human beings as the core source of knowledge and ultimate decision-makers [20]. Factors that have a significant influence on knowledge sharing and collaboration are contextual to the environment where this process is run. These factors vary from one setting to another, even when knowledge sharing happens across geographical locations and between institutions. This adds to the complexity of the nature of sharing and collaboration. The core importance of knowledge sharing is, however, evident for the added advantage of the institution as the value of knowledge appreciates when shared and distributed to a wider community. Davenport [21] stated in their research that ”unlike other organizational assets, knowledge tends to increase when used or shared: ideas breed new ideas and shared knowledge stays with the giver while it enriches the receiver”.

3.1. The Role of Technology in Knowledge Sharing Systems

Technology as one of the main factors that influence the extent and capabilities of knowledge sharing is, however, less contested, regardless of the location of the state where this sharing takes place. It provides a fundamental role in facilitating and enhancing the process of knowledge sharing through appropriate tools for capturing, encoding, storing, delivering and collaborating and further inducing new knowledge. Many researchers revealed the uncontested role of information technology systems in augmenting the process of knowledge sharing and the creation of organizational values [22,23]. Handzic [24] mentioned in his research: “Technology can be used to successfully facilitate knowledge sharing process by linking all members of the firm to one another, and to all relevant external parties, creating an institutional memory that is accessible to the entire organization, linking the organization with its customers and partners, supporting collaboration amongst employees, fostering human-centered, real-time, integrated and smart systems”. It can also embed knowledge, such as procedures that are culture-bound, into organizational routines [25,26,27]. Yigzaw et al. [6] also mentioned that information technologies have the enabling capabilities for knowledge management by allowing the expansion and universalization of the scope of knowledge through its representation and transferability.

A general agreement can be found from the literature that technology augments and promotes the impacts of those influences from the non-technical factors in a way that benefits the institution and the actors in sharing and exchanging knowledge [5,19,20]. Akhavan et al. [28] and Annabi [29] further discussed the importance of providing appropriate incentive factors that build the knowledge-sharing behavior of the actors, which they regarded as the most important factor for a successful KMS. Trust was also identified in another research as a significant predictor of knowledge sharing intention and commitment [30].

3.2. Technology Features to Revolutionize Knowledge Sharing Culture

It is evident that in today’s competitive environment, internally created knowledge is not sufficient for companies to survive in the dynamic environment; hence collaboration and sharing of knowledge are inevitably considered a means for surviving and prospering [31]. One of the core factors promoting this knowledge-sharing process and collaboration is the use of information technologies and enabling software systems [6,20,32].

The advancing features of information technologies and software systems are gaining new capabilities that can greatly enhance the process of knowledge sharing, collaboration and communication within and among institutions [19,33]. Lately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related severe issues, the use of technology tools for communication and collaboration has become a necessity more than ever, while it was a rational choice and enabling tool with its ever-advancing features prior to the current situation. Technology gadgets and systems are now more widely used when people must work remotely, convene online on matters of varying importance with colleagues and partners, and it is becoming the order of the day to run big research conferences and consortia in mostly hybrid mode. This latest trend in wider utilization of technology medium has also opened more benefits in terms of saving time and finance that would otherwise be spent on travels and related risks, although these are at the expense of gains from face-to-face and social interactions with colleagues and partners.

It has now become a matter of a click to reach potential colleagues and partners from different parts of the globe and at a preferred time, while enhanced and new technology solutions are advancing towards catering to such facilitation. Moreover, these developments are also blurring the prevailing barriers due to physical boundaries, economic, cultural, and racial issues to any extent [34].

How does this latest trend tend to address the need for knowledge sharing and management to not only depend on enabling technology, but also on the human aspect of the whole process as the core source of knowledge resources?

Stepping aside from the technology hype that ‘it does them all and more efficiently’, it has its profound role in processing and facilitating knowledge management and collaboration. However, the non-technical factors including the knowledge hosts, as knowledge resides in the minds of the people [35], do also have a vital role in originating the resource and making the process complete and sensible. So, technology provides various features that augment the knowledge resource from the knowledge hosts and coordinate the effects of those non-technical factors that constitute the whole process of knowledge management. It provides the ground for hosting the whole dynamism in the knowledge management process, unifying all into a single knowledge management system. Excessive focus on technology or lack of enough consideration for the non-technical factors, mainly in knowledge management systems, likely lead to failure or underutilization of resources [8].

A holistic solution for knowledge management and collaboration entails socio-technical considerations [12], where the social perspective refers to knowledge exploration and exploitation, while the technical perspective refers to the adoption and development of IT infrastructure, tools and systems [36]. It is one of the technology’s profound roles to process and encode knowledge resources through externalization, socialization, internalization and combination processes as discussed by Bawden [37] on Nonaka—Takeuchi model of KM.

In principle, technology features provide both personalization and codification facilities for knowledge management in organizations. These features also facilitate communication between individuals for sharing knowledge and codification of individuals’ knowledge in the organization with the intention of future use [38]. Hence, it is evident that there is a strong link between IT and KM, as also supported by many researchers [6,17,39].

3.3. Challenges in Promoting Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration

The challenges in knowledge sharing are attributed mainly to the complex nature of a wide range of influencing factors, ranging from technical to non-technical: social, cultural, behavioral, socio-political history, nature of the organization and the whole operating ecosystem around. Different research works have revealed various sets of challenges that correspond to certain aspects of the organization or the process that the knowledge sharing initiative entails.

A survey-based research work on factors affecting knowledge sharing by Minwalkulet and Assefa [31] shows that limitations for enabling information technology infrastructure and services, lack of knowledge about KMS and other related barriers are detrimental to the knowledge sharing practices. On the other hand, these researchers feel that the internet could serve as a knowledge-sharing platform that is more accessible to them. In a similar study, it is shown that due to the alarming diffusion of ICT gadgets to the developing countries, without planning and through informal and often purely commercial channels, these countries are over-flooded with all kinds of gadgets and all levels, most of which ending up underutilized [5]. This situation poses a challenge to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration as the environment requires a unifying system that would create technology awareness in the communities and utilize the gadgets better, turning this situation into a potential opportunity to cherish.

Another sought challenge stems from the overwhelming fact of the socio-political history and related economic challenges the developing countries do have. These countries have not been pacing with the advancement of technologies and solutions that the developed world has been undergoing. Hence, this deserves contextual attention as it profoundly affects the culture and understanding of the human actors at the center of the KMS [9]. Mohamed and Pillutla [40] also presented important precautions to consider while using cutting-edge technologies such as cloud computing for KM initiatives. They mentioned several potential challenges that are inherited from its ascendant architectures. These challenges include security, legal issues, information overload and cultural differences, although they are not entirely insurmountable. They also mentioned that the expectation of return from expenditures on KM systems by executives often poses a major challenge in adopting or implementing KMS while the effects of KMS are usually realized after an appreciably longer period.

In general, the advancing features and capabilities of IT are further expanding the scope of knowledge sharing and collaboration by re-engineering the tools and processes involved, while increasing the quality and speed of knowledge exchange [6,41,42].

3.4. The Role of Government Policy in Promoting KMS

Government support through policies is indispensable in promoting KMS developments and the communication and collaboration that give these systems a life. Generally, government policies towards such impactful initiatives could depend on the nature of these initiatives and their applicability to the public. Governments issue policies that enforce particular needed actions by the actors, they may provide directives that are assumed by the actors as mandatory activities by nature, or the policies may provide guidelines aiming to guide actions at the discretion of the addressee [43].

As supported in previous research, appropriately designed policies that promote KMS and related processes play a vital role in building a culture of knowledge sharing in the communities involved. Asdar et al. [44] show in their research the importance of consistent policy support in implementing knowledge-sharing systems in a university environment that covers all activities of teaching and learning interaction, research endeavors and other community service activities. Alemu et al. [45] also mentioned an institutional policy- Information Systems Security Policy (ISSP) that compliance to the policy is required to protect the organization’s internal information from leaking and getting misused, with or without awareness of the individuals exposing it to external bodies. This ISSP Compliance is enforced by management Commitment, Awareness and training, Accountability of individuals, and Audit and monitoring to oversee the compliance.

Moreover, Ahmad and Daghfous [46] mentioned in their research that the multinational companies believed in the importance of the government’s role in the development and implementation of knowledge networks. Accordingly, the government’s role is sought to promote innovation in the people’s culture, create an environment where knowledge networks can evolve, and enhance the links between educational research and innovation.

3.5. The Kinds of Knowledge Sharing Platforms That are Promoted Most

The first step in designing knowledge-sharing platforms is to identify and locate the core knowledge sources of the institution and develop a framework to utilize them. This could aim to contextually target appropriate solutions that promote knowledge sharing and creation for organizational benefit. The KM framework then lays an essential foundation for the development of a holistic KMS by providing appropriate policies, guidelines and strategies to accommodate all the building blocks that make up the holistic system [8]. It is also important to note that knowledge creation can take place on four different levels: individual, group or collective, organizational, or inter-organizational [47].

The latest capabilities of information technologies are emulating the interaction between individuals as knowledge resources and representing this knowledge set into a format that is understandable by machines. These may include simulations fostering tacit knowledge and skills, utilizing them in the knowledge base; a typical example could be the flight emulators or embodied games. This process, therefore, enables further applications of technology tools and systems to process, store, disseminate and dynamically flow the acquired knowledge and enrich the knowledge base of the organization [6].

As also referred to in the socio-technical theory by Baskerville and Dulipovici [33] and Beese et al. [13], an appropriate mix of technological capabilities with non-technical factors in the social settings makes up a holistic system solution for knowledge management. They further mentioned in their research that socio-technical thinking is even more applicable in the case of developing countries where the social sub-system entails unique realities. These realities greatly vary from those in the industrialized world while the technology-sub-system is usually similar as it usually originates from the same source.

KMS could be developed to serve a specific domain of knowledge and profession- building a domain-specific knowledge base for its user community, or across domains of knowledge at organizational or inter-organizational levels. It could entail all members as knowledge actors in the system and build an organizational or inter-organizational knowledge base for organizational excellence. Warner et al. [48] presented a good example of knowledge sharing in a specific domain of knowledge through setting a knowledge platform that develops content, serving as the bible of that domain, where only approved professionals can edit content. Hence, knowledge sharing goes from the repository to the practitioner in most cases. It, however, provides a dependable knowledge base for professionals in the same domain or for public use on a need basis.

Nooshinfard and Nemati-Anaraki [49] also mentioned that investment in knowledge sharing, especially between different organizations, such as universities and research centers knowledge-based organizations, is important. This investment helps to highlight the unknowns of this emerging phenomenon. It, in turn, can contribute to increased productivity of knowledge as well as the use of it.

4. Results

Exploring the prevailing situation of the NRENs, in-depth interviews were taken with CEOs of three selected actively functioning NRENs that represent different organizational structures and establishment scenarios. The institutions included in the interviews are:

• MORENET, a fully government-run NREN of Mozambique that serves the second biggest number of beneficiary institutions.
• TERNET, a consortium of member institutions that is sustained by membership fees and other activities.
• SomaliREN, a successful NREN serving member institutions from different parts of the country across different political administration zones, which provides a good scenario to consider in the study.

The interview data were analyzed using the Atlas.ti qualitative analysis tool. The contents of the interview were thoroughly analyzed under 21 codes and 5 code groups, with a sematic linkage between them as presented in the Atlas.ti report in Figure 2.

As shown in Figure 2, the codes and code groups are created with a methodological consideration that serves the purpose of the research. They are created by the researcher from the interview transcripts as derived from the research questions so that they represent themes that address those questions and collect pieces of data relevant to their respective context.

Accordingly, 21 codes were created to extract the relevant data from the interview transcripts. The codes were grouped into five core themes for analysis. The different colors of the codes correspond to the code groups presented in Table 2. Figure 2 shows the semantic linkages between the codes and code groups that helped the researcher in a systematic analysis of the contents across the NRENs.

In this knowledge era, collaboration and sharing resources across institutions and nations cannot be thought of without deploying appropriate information technology infrastructure. This technology infrastructure plays a vital role in augmenting the other core components of knowledge sharing; the people involved and the process of promoting communication and collaboration among parties. It is noted in previous research that a complete knowledge management cycle involves unwavering interaction between the people, technology, and process [3,6,50].

Some of the coded information, although mentioned by all the respondents, refer to issues that the NRENs or the member institutions have less influence on, such as the challenges with the telecom infrastructure. As per the detailed collection of findings from the interview transcripts through the codes and code groups, therefore, we present the following findings based on the significance of their relevance to the NRENs or member institutions.

As discussed in the interviews, the NREN services could be categorized into three main sets of facilities that serve the demands of member institutions. One of the respondent CEOs described them as ‘service pillars’, promoting quality education and research in the community. We adopt this label (the pillars) for the categories and will discuss all the findings and analysis of the findings around these categories. These pillars are:

• The connectivity and infrastructure facilities pillar;
• The products and resources pillar; and
• The Community pillar.

In the connectivity pillar, the NRENs provide connectivity to the intranet resources and to the internet for member institutions at affordable rates. The internet link is provided by the UbuntuNet Alliance. Moreover, the NRENs provide direct engineering assistance to members for building and managing their own campus networks and capacity building. This assistance could be in areas related to internet technologies, video conferencing solutions, open-source software for teaching-learning and research, the federation of identity, data center and hosting facilities, security services, high-performance computing, Eduroam connectivity, etc.

Under the products and resources pillar, they provide e-learning services such as Moodle and web conferencing for teaching-learning, organizing research workshops and building research capabilities, open research and education resources repositories, access to journals, high-performance computing services for running simulation modes, for example in climate and marine studies, in the case of MORENET.

Another important aspect is the community pillar, where the NRENs promote communities of practice and knowledge networks across member institutions by providing enabling technology infrastructure and communication facilities, such as video conferencing and openly shared resources. This service in almost all NRENs is sought as the most important one and stated in their mission, while it is currently promoted through basic communication and networking facilities. This service opens great potential for new possibilities by facilitating knowledge resources, sharing and building a knowledge base at the NRENs level by introducing enabling facilities across member institutions.

Regarding the usability of NREN services, those services under the connectivity pillar are most favored as they provide the basic platform to explore further facilities provided by the NREN. Internet connectivity and the hosting and video conferencing facilities are the most used services, while the other more advanced facilities are utilized mainly in the leading NRENs. It is evident from the findings that the development of NRENs is a gradual process as it entails not only technical infrastructure provision but also awareness, human capacity and techno-culture development, level and size of the member institution, as well as channeling the required budget for the advanced services. The other services under the community pillar and the access and resources pillar are in lower usage levels because they also depend on the capabilities of the member institution and the readiness of the community to utilize those resources.

4.1. Challenges of NRENs

Several challenges have been identified in this research. As in the other codes, the challenges of NRENs identified in the interviews were analyzed by using the analysis tool. Figure 3 shows the various challenges identified in the research and the relationship among them. This report from Atlas.ti illustrates how those various challenges build upon each other to cause the overall challenge that member institutions face in accessing or utilizing the services from their respective NREN. This set of challenges also makes part of the wider range of issues that NRENs face during establishment and their initial phases of operation, along with issues of government support and financial budgeting required among many more considerations.

The research identified various challenges that are prevalent during the establishment phases of the NRENS, as well as those that NRENS and their member institutions are facing during the functional stages. Those challenges related to the establishment of the NRENs are usually unique to the specific scenario and require a contextual approach to address them. These challenges include: the readiness of the institutional environment to join and make use of the facilities, acceptance of the NREN services due to a prevailing level of awareness, availability of initial funding instruments and government policy support, and challenges in resources coordination as a decentralized initiative often led to failure and dependence of unsustainable external resources. Moreover, varying costs of connectivity bandwidth in different regions of the country due to the kind of telecom facility available also poses a challenge in mobilizing member institutions and satisfying their demands for the proposed NREN services during establishment.

On the other hand, other challenges are also identified that many NRENs are facing at the functional stages, requiring due attention. These include political instability casing changing governing policies, often cost-free services are not given appropriate value by the member institution due to lack of awareness, lack of enough budget for ICT by the member institutions either due to shortage of government budget or partly because they do not know how important ICT is for their institution and excessive concern on the issue of intellectual property. The issue of sustenance budget for the member institutions, among the set of challenges poses more issues in the sustenance of the NRENs through membership contributions required, as well as on the expansion of local ICT infrastructure to ensure the expected usability of the NREN services. In connection with this, one of the respondent CEOs mentioned the effect of the budgetary issues that member institutions often face, saying “often members used to pay minimal fees for the initial stages of new service introduction, while they turn away as you tag a price to the service, in order to sustain our operations”.

Moreover, as the NRENs advance to more collaboration and sharing systems and resources, it is a common experience that people remain reluctant to engage in collaboration and knowledge sharing due to the issue of trust and security; hence, readiness for such initiatives too, as also supported in research literature (e.g., [5,19,44]). A respondent explained this by saying, “In Africa, we are not up to it. We feel, it is mine, I put so much money on it and it’s my work, it is mine …”. The prevailing sharing culture indicates that the NRENs also need to give enough attention and address the awareness of their communities for the meaning and importance of sharing knowledge and the tools that facilitate such resources.

The connectivity to the internet from all NRENs is, however, appreciated by the respondents as UbuntuNet Alliance provides a wider scale of internet bandwidth while the NREN pays per use. This gives freedom to scale up the subscription when needed without a need to invest in any extra technology or equipment.

4.2. Market Competition

It was found out that the NRENs are usually in fierce competition with local ISPs. They find their costs are not competitive in the market for connectivity and institutions often opt to go for the cheaper offer. The respondents explained that this has been an issue when the NRENs’ services are in line with what an ordinary ISP could provide, and this makes the institutions opt for a commercial provider. In some NRENs, they have identified several unique facilities that make them different from ISPs; hence, being able to provide tailored services to the member institutions in the education and research. However, the issue of cost competitiveness remains a challenge as many of the NREN services often come under the same category that is provided by big commercial companies. One of the respondents mentioned “regarding competition, for example, we offer colocation and hosting services, but we have bigger competition from AWS and others because their price is extremely cheap as compared to prices we can offer in the country”. On the other hand, initiatives to provide new services cost-free to the member institutions is not appreciated. Explaining this, one of the respondents said, “in our part of Africa, people put a value of something on its price tag”. This may indicate on the part of the member institutions that they have a lack of proper awareness of the values of the services and systems provided, but their price tags are associated with commercial dealers.

Such a situation remains a challenge to the NRENs, and they are always under pressure to keep their costs as low as possible and identify areas where they can provide unique facilities that promote the quality of education and research, hence remaining an effective choice for the members.

4.3. Government Policy

As national institutions, NRENs need a supportive government policy to be empowered with their services aiming at both private and public institutions. It was discussed by the respondents that in some cases, the NREN needs to be a government entity, to obtain government funding and support. However, being a government entity would not promote the private institutions on equal terms in the provision of all the facilities and does not provide them a deserved membership role, hence, tending to leave them behind. On the other hand, it is evident in many NRENs that when they are not governmental, they do not receive the required attention and assistance, and they are mostly required to be behind a governmental body to secure the needed government support. It was described that this condition leaves a mix of challenges and advantages, and it requires utmost attention as the government’s unwavering guidance and supporting policies are invaluable for the proper functionality of an NREN. One of the respondents described this by saying, “I wish the govt could agree to have NREN as an independent entity run by the universities or the education and research institutions but support them by a proper framework. There is a framework to support them with funds and policies to make sure that it works. So, reaching that balance, it hasn’t been easy for any country”.

Moreover, when the NREN becomes a government entity, the participation of the member institutions becomes very limited, and they are often considered as beneficiary institutions. This can, however, be an ideal model for having full government funding and policy support, should it be committed to empowering all beneficiaries for their full participation as members of the NREN and grant their role to play.

The research results provide a better understanding for the policymakers and practitioners in the regional alliance in general. The research reveals the challenges experienced either in setting the policies or implementing them, which are treated differently in different countries. Therefore, this research presents some concerning points for the policymakers and reminds them that there is no standard policy that works for all environments, and even so different when it comes to developing economies. The main point from what the research revealed is that policies, mainly in developing economies, shall not be in the sense of ‘controlling’ and ‘limiting’ as the prevailing realities are already handling those. However, the policies shall be promoting and encouraging, while tuning the efforts into the well-designed national directions.

4.4. Current Needs of the NREN

Having the basic connectivity and ICT infrastructure in place, NRENs are in continuous development and acquiring facilities to address the demand from the education and research communities. Most of the NRENs provide some kind of resource repositories and video conferencing platforms, mainly used for remote teaching and communication. These resources are in explicit form, organized in electronic repositories made available to member institutions in agreed-upon modalities. However, none of the NRENs have any kind of knowledge-sharing platform engaging scholars and professionals in the communities. In a way of preparing the environment for knowledge sharing, the NRENs mentioned their need to provide more hosting and collaboration services that would pave way for sharing knowledge and increase the storage and processing capacities of their cloud infrastructure to accommodate the trending demand for wider collaboration. Moreover, they plan to promote the networking of people, moving ideas from one location to another, and knowledge sharing enabled by the connectivity infrastructure underlying and the software solutions and collaboration platforms.

One of the respondents also mentioned, “Now because of COVID, demands are increasing to host services, for e-learning services, to store meeting, eLearning classes and videos. So, we need to expand the ICT infrastructure not only for the NREN but also for the universities”. It is a common plan by all respondents that the increasing demand for NREN services in turn requires more bandwidth and technology capabilities on the part of the NREN.

In this move, however, one of the respondents mentioned, “these kinds of sharing and collaboration platforms should not be off-the-shelf kind of solutions. They need to be contextually developed”. It was a commonly agreed plan for all NRENs to promote knowledge sharing and collaborative platforms, as they confirmed that their NRENs aspire to do so. Contextually developing these platforms to address the due needs was also a common understanding of the respondents in the interview discussion.

4.5. Demands for Service from the Regional Alliance

All participants appreciate the UbuntuNet Alliance for the internet connectivity infrastructure that it is providing to member NRENs in the region on a pay-per-use basis while providing extra capacity in place for ease of upgrading subscriptions when needed. However, they agree the provision of viable internet connectivity is not the end as the NRENs demand more high-end platforms to be centrally hosted and run by the regional alliance. Services such as knowledge sharing and collaboration systems, open-source learning management systems, regional cloud services, supercomputing facilities, and identity federation can be pushed to a regional level. This would save all member NRENs from much of the overhead costs and security issues, and would ease collaboration across NRENs. It would also standardize the quality of education and research in the community and save the need for redundant ICT experts in the local stations as the regional alliance handles most of the burden. The NRENs would then focus on capacity development and effectively utilize the resources that would promote the quality of their education and research endeavors. They all agree on the point that they want to see the regional alliance serving beyond just bandwidth sharing that one of the respondents referred to the demand as “beyond a kind of glorified ISP work, serving those high-end systems to members like how the Eduroam works across institutions and geographical boundaries”, hence lately initiated such demands on the alliance for expanding its comprehensive responsibilities and duties.

It was also mentioned that UbuntuNet could differentiate itself with the focus of services in its regional cloud facility, and this may give it an advantage in competing with the international cloud service providers such as Amazon and Microsoft. The regional cloud would tailor its services to the needs of the NRENs and optimize them to serve better than the commercial competitors, and that would be an ideal service the member NRENs demand from UbuntuNet Alliance. Moreover, they want UbuntuNet alliance to play its role of intermediating international negotiations for networking and resources acquisition.

The NRENs wish to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration not only through sharing research outputs and products but at earlier stages of ideas and projects, as one of the respondents clearly mentioned.

A couple of initiatives were mentioned by one of the NREN CEOs that the regional alliance would coordinate and facilitate for the member NRENs. He mentioned them as,

“(1) The ‘Reconnect’ project- where we want the diaspora professors to be connected to our member institutions and contribute. It is a packaging of Identity service provider, video conferencing solution, contact center solution and learning management system all these components brought together and serving as the service at the higher level; and (2) the R&D marketplace- When we have UbuntuNet and these regional level associations, we go to Amazon and others for cloud services that should not be the case. We want a consortium; we should not go for outside of these communities. I want to bring it back to the R&D market, where people who are interested helping will do so with passion, instead of searching for that elsewhere”.

Another respondent also mentioned a similar situation saying, “It is hypothetically like ‘Hiring a mercenary Vs hiring somebody within your course’, while we need contextual development and deployment of the systems in the region”. In both cases, it is evident that the NRENs are seeking contextualized solutions for their demands for systems and support projects, and mainly seeking home-grown initiatives to pursue such solutions.

4.6. NREN Vision

The NRENs aspire to achieve some advancements in their services for member institutions, both in terms of their re-organization, sourcing appropriate funding and providing varieties of advanced collaboration services tailored to the needs of their members. The most important concern is sourcing appropriate funding to sustain their operations in addition to the membership fees. Some possibilities are sought, including consultancy and ICT-project activities as a means for supporting revenue collection for the NREN, renting free capacities in the infrastructure to other commercial companies, creating additional revenue, and possibly raising funds from donors. Moreover, most NRENs plan for raising awareness and deploying collaboration platforms as the next step with the aim of getting scholars and researchers together, while organizing national resources for open access to the education and research community, including thesis and dissertations. Expansion of connectivity bandwidth to gigabit links, when possible, was also sought as an important enabler of the future endeavors of the member institutions, as they expand and deploy online collaboration platforms and central repositories of educational and research materials. It was also commonly agreed that government policy support is seen as instrumental in developing policies that govern and support the mandates of the NRENs.

Generally promoting self-sustaining funds, technologies, supporting policies and awareness are the areas of major concern and achievement plans for the NRENs in due course.

5. Discussion

In this section, the prevailing findings, trends, and current needs of the NRENs are discussed and analyzed. Finally, we propose a contextually designed knowledge management model that could address the identified challenges and needs. This will be achieved through addressing the sub-questions that lead to the justification of the proposed model.

Overarching question: What kind of KMS Model could contextually promote and serve Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration among Higher Education and Research Institutions within and across nations under the UbuntuNet Alliance?

• What are the prevailing core challenges deterring collaboration and knowledge sharing in the NRENs of the region?
• What technology features would revolutionize the research and collaboration culture of HE and R institutions in the region?
• What kind of KM platform would best serve to motivate and enable the HE and R community to collaborate in education and research with impactful orientation?
• What could be the role of government policies in the knowledge-sharing platforms’ development and functionality?

As presented in the findings, the whole responsibilities of the NRENs are focused on promoting the three pillars of the infrastructure, the process/product, and the communities/people. These are coupled with the aim of achieving quality education and research outputs at the member institutions. In dealing with these responsibilities, therefore, every pillar poses its own set of challenges, that also differ from institution to institution. Figure 4 summarizes the identified challenges from the findings.

The first step in progressing to the future is to be able to identify and understand the prevailing challenges and turn them into opportunities [9]. As depicted in Figure 4, every pillar experiences its own set of challenges, while lack of public awareness and techno-literacy looms over all the pillars in various ways. Awareness of the impact of using technology that needs time to be revealed in its full scale, on the competency and acceptance by the member institution and consideration by the telecom to support the required capacities, and readiness of the users to accept new technologies are among the core justifications that deserve due attention to address. These requirements to deal with a feasible knowledge-sharing platform development require a socio-technical approach that will cater to the required technology support to boost the capabilities of the core knowledge resources, the people [33]. A comprehensive platform promoting a feasible and effective collaboration and knowledge sharing among knowledge resources, therefore, needs to primarily consider the fitness of the solution to the context where it is addressed to. Contextual fitness does not necessarily mean that the platform needs to fit into the existing state of the receiver’s environment, but the receiver’s environment shall also be geared to a level that can accept the solution best, hence the need for raising awareness through demonstration and capacity development activities.

As shown in Figure 5, various features of the technology solution are identified that could address the corresponding challenges in the three pillars. The proposed technology enhancement for the knowledge sharing systems could consider these requirements from the various pillars to contextualize the solution. The NRENs in the regional alliance do share similar challenges, but there are always some issues that are unique to specific NRENs and institutions too. The proposed technology-enhanced solution shall provide flexible and personalized solutions that may serve the wider member institutions’ domain.

People as the core host and actors of knowledge are at the center of knowledge sharing and networks [31]. The findings also revealed that the issue of public awareness on the importance and kinds of services that the NRENs provide spans across all the pillars. The proposed technology enhancement should, therefore, consider the core importance of getting the actors and users into the facilities with ease and with the required competencies. Systematically designing the technology literacy programs through open and self-paced tools, as well as game-based technology skills development can be part of the whole system of knowledge management across the institutions and the region. The crucial role of technology in knowledge management systems is even more visible as the ever-advancing features and capabilities of technology can further enrich the knowledge resources by providing ease of expression, communication, collaboration, sharing and creating new knowledge. In promoting knowledge sharing and revitalization, the NRENs should play an important role as the hub for all initiatives in the community. They have the responsibility to nurture the knowledge-sharing culture across the institutions and with sister NRENs seamlessly through enabling technology features that are ought to address the challenges in each pillar.

As national-level entities, NRENs are influenced by government policies and guidelines. Working across institutions and across countries in the region depends on the support provided by their respective government. It was observed in these research findings that the NRENs have considerable challenges in attaining the required government support, both in terms of funding and provision of national facilities such as telecom backbone infrastructure. Without proper government support and full cooperation as a national entity, the NRENs end up competing with commercial technology service providers in the market and often remain less competitive. It was revealed that those NRENs that are not governmental usually do not obtain appropriate instruments from the government for funding or other support needed, although the government bodies trust the mission and roles of the NRENs. This happens because there are no government policies that govern and promote the roles of NRENs. The respective NRENs describe the lack of government support as the most crimpling matter in their endeavors to reach out to their potential member institutions. It is important that NRENs shall consider the vital role of government support through enabling policy frameworks, mainly considering them as the main stakeholder in their establishment, even when the NREN is non-governmental. On the other hand, government-run NRENs may also not have the required freedom to engage all potential member institutions, mainly those private institutions. In most cases, it is seen that the policies in the governmental NRENs are limiting and binding leaving less freedom for the NRENs to actively engage the member communities. They often provide less flexibility for including all institutions in the higher education and research domain, mainly the private institutions may not easily qualify for the requirements set by the policies. The policies are often engaging for the qualifying member institutions with appropriate government support or subsidy, while less inclusive and less promoting wider membership domains. This issue triggers a new thought on how engaging and strict or how open and more inclusive the governing policies need to be. In the context of this research, the policy is understood as a statement of intent that is implemented as a procedure or protocol, it is a set of rules or guidelines that govern or determine a course of action (Merriam Webster dictionary, Available online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/policy (accessed on 21 January 2022). This can take different forms: public, organizational, functional, and specific policy. The public and organizational policies are highly related to the nature of the organizational setup, and they address organizational level rules and regulations. What is most important for the NRENs is, however, the functional policy that needs to be a more flexible and inclusive approach to serving and promoting active membership for quality research and education, as also supported by [23]. For the contextual findings from the regional NRENs, the functional policies need to be separated from organizational policies. This would minimize the influence of the organization’s formation and give the NRENs room to reach out to all potential members in a feasible instrument in fair sync with the organizational policy too.

This approach can be expected to pave the way to more harmonious linkages between institutions and across NRENs as the functional policies across the NRENs could be optimized to serve extended domains of membership and open rooms to learn from each other’s experiences. The policies shall provide less-dictating rules and procedures, and a more open environment for exploring and promoting new possibilities for human actors. The government’s policy shall acknowledge and promote a more free and inclusive functional policy for the NRENs while providing necessary support through appropriate instruments and budgetary.

5.1. Knowledge Sharing Experience in the NRENs

The findings show that most NRENs have various kinds of knowledge sharing platforms, but no considerable instances of knowledge sharing systems that enable researchers and scholars to network and collaborate. Here, ‘platform’ refers to a group of technologies that are used as a base upon which other applications, processes and technologies are developed. It includes the means for hosting the interaction between the knowledge actors, that is, people. A ‘system’ refers to a complete set of components, including people in the case of knowledge-sharing networks that are organized to perform a common task. Hence, a knowledge-sharing system includes the role of people as knowledge actors, in addition to the knowledge-sharing platforms.

The NRENs mentioned some services that make the knowledge-sharing platforms they aspire to develop. These include video conferencing platforms, educational resources and research outputs repositories, tailored engineering assistance and training activities, learning management systems, and frequently arranged workshops and conferences where scholars present their research works and projects. All these instances are run independently for their intended local mission, while they may be considered for wider integration to serve lively interaction and exchange of resources among scholars and with the public. The NRENs also plan to have such unifying and networking systems—the KMS that are enhanced by the technology infrastructure they developed for and across member institutions that make up a good platform to build upon. These KMSs are a combination of ICT tools as well as methods and techniques that support the organizational process of knowledge management [51].

5.2. Modes of Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing can take different forms depending on the context of the environment where it takes place, and the knowledge actors involved. In the context of this research the following modes of knowledge sharing are sought for consideration:

• Mobilize available knowledge resources through sharing and collaboration over a regional network (South-South cooperation) focusing more on open access and collaborative developments;
• Translate the shared knowledge from partner NRENs into the local context, and further create new knowledge and share across;
• Co-locate inventors and promote their communication through an appropriate platform in the KMS across NRENs, promoting creativity and innovation.

The proposed KMS promotes these modes of knowledge sharing that apply to the realities of the NRENs and institutions in the region, with appropriate technology features that personalize the tools and services according to the user’s membership or status. The following depicts the proposed model for KMS in the region.

Figure 6 shows various knowledge-sharing platforms that are hosted in their respective knowledge-sharing and collaboration categories and hosted on the regional cloud. Different types of users from the user communities in the region are supposed to identify themselves as per their association, managed by their respective NRENs’ systems. As per their respective privileges, therefore, they have the access to the cloud-based collaboration and communication platforms that promote knowledge sharing, while they all have the capabilities to create and build content to the platforms as per their design, and access to the knowledge resources they are authenticated for, from the ‘Individual’ and ‘Group’ categories. Open resources from the ‘Public’ category are freely accessible to all users in the communities without a need for authentication. These are mostly open resources that are commonly shared with the public as they are created or built by the respective professionals or groups in the knowledge categories. In this way, public users are beneficiaries of the resources, while respective professionals are responsible for creating the content. Figure 5 presents the whole knowledge sharing ecosystem and the kinds of knowledge sharing and collaboration categories hosted in the regional cloud for the mentioned benefits.

The enabling technology for the proposed knowledge-sharing ecosystem shall consider building a regional knowledge base, with registered membership for contributors, while open access for the public according to the transparent and contextual resources usage policies. Moreover, the technology solution shall consider open access and collaborative development of solutions, and cloud-based systems and resources to minimize the overhead tasks of technical administration and systems development at the NRENs levels. It shall also address the security concerns at the higher level, leaving less burden for individual member institutions. The proposed technology framework for the knowledge management support is presented in Figure 7.

Figure 7 shows the technology framework that enables the user communities from the research and education institutions in the region, as well as other interested individuals, to have seamless access to resources at the regional level. The NRENs role in this technology framework is to contextualize the regional resources to their local realities and manage authentication of their member institutions as per the guiding usage policies for the regional resources. The importance of providing cloud-based services at the regional level aims at providing equal access to quality education and research resources to all member institutions, while their local NRENs would contextualize required resources and promote effective utilization of all the facilities at a regional level. This would leave the NRENs with less overhead responsibilities in terms of mobilizing and providing resources and grant them the opportunity to equip their member institutions with capabilities to utilize the quality resources and promote knowledge sharing with peers and the community at a regional level.

Another important factor promoting knowledge sharing is trust [6,19,31,38]. Ensuring trust among knowledge actors provides additional value to collaboration and knowledge sharing. Building trust requires additional efforts beyond technology provision and NRENs need to promote awareness across their member communities on the importance of collaboration and sharing, and that they ensure complete security while encouraging creativity and collaboration. This can be promoted by demonstrating a clear set of requirements for membership at different levels as per the user’s personalized profile, which may also be automated instead of requiring human intervention. The knowledge base shall be open for public access though, while contribution and editorial responsibilities shall be based on justified evaluation criteria.

Figure 8 shows the outline of UbuntuKMS Model, as coined by the authors, a comprehensive and contextually developed solution for the regional knowledge sharing and technology support ecosystem for the UbuntuNet Alliance. The knowledge sharing and collaboration categories are presented in Figure 6, and the technology platform sought is presented in Figure 7. The UbuntuKMS Model provides decentralized and contextualized content, while user authentication roles are given to the NRENs. It also ensures equal access to resources and equal opportunity to contribute or collaborate at a regional level with seamless technology-supported privileges.

In general, the aim of all NRENs is to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration across their member institutions and across the sister NRENs at a regional level, as they all have mentioned in their mission. Whereas the realities on the ground reveal various challenges identified in this research related to the varying nature of their establishment. Moreover, there are no common guidelines to coordinate the establishment of NRENs and the development of their technology-enhanced facilities that could promote their mission. Therefore, this study could provide a comprehensive understanding of the environment, and the UbuntuKMS Model may provide a sought solution to consider, revitalizing the operational and organizational functionalities of the NRENs. A prototype could be developed to simulate the proposed technology enhancement for KMS development in the region, which may lead to further work for piloting and consideration.

6. Conclusions

This paper explores the higher education and research environments in connection with the facilitating and service-providing roles of their respective NRENs and the collaborations across the NRENs in the UbuntuNet Alliance region. It analyzes the prevailing challenges for the NRENs in building and providing the necessary facilities for the member institutions that would improve the quality of their education and research, as well as the possibilities for addressing those challenges using the advancing features of ICT. The whole picture could be analyzed in three core pillars: the technology infrastructure, the process/product, and the community/ people pillar. Each pillar experiences its own set of challenges in its expected functionality for the member NRENs, while the need for technology literacy and awareness remains to be of great importance across all the pillars. This article also identifies technology features that address the challenges in each pillar, creating a more impactful system and alliance for collaboration and excellence within the NREN and beyond. The UbuntuKMS Model signifies the importance of appropriately identifying technology features that ease or address the prevailing deterring challenges that are looming across the NRENs at different levels.

In this regard, technology is sought to impact the technology infrastructure pillar through its new capabilities for effective streaming, cloud-based resources provision and remote admin, and bandwidth-sensitive resources that can be rendered flexibly without losing quality. It can also impact the process/product pillar through user-friendly, reliable and accessible, low cost, secured features and new capabilities, while demonstrating the comparable values such resources can provide as compared to those commercial alternatives. As also discussed in detail by Centobelli, et al. [52], the advancing innovation in the field of ICT increasingly offers new low-cost opportunities and ease-of-use solutions; hence, this promotes the symbiotic process in the regional alliance for the mutual benefit of members.

Moreover, the proposed technology solution can impact the community/people pillar by raising awareness and capabilities through techno-literacy programs, personalizing services, and providing a flexible design to fit the institutional level and needs for ease of access. The UbuntuKMS Model for the NRENs of the region provides the following unique concepts integrated into the solution:

• Developing technology-augmented solutions to the identified contextual challenges in the NRENs;
• Promoting identified modes of knowledge sharing and collaboration that are appropriate to their context, in a unified regional level platforms provision;
• Providing not only enabling technology solutions, but also raising awareness and building techno-literacy to make the best use of the enabling features of advancing ICTs;
• Providing personalized access to services and knowledge resources as per the status and needs of the user or knowledge actor.

Results show that all NRENs have respective sets of challenges, which may also be unique to each member institution in the NRENs. The UbuntuKMS Model intends to provide a general framework that would coordinate the development of functional KMS facilities in the NRENs.

It is also evident that UA could have a wider responsibility beyond the currently limited service-providing internet connectivity infrastructure to NRENs. It can act as a hub for the NRENs, providing regional cloud services for the tailored facilities to promote quality education and research in the region and interconnecting members with corresponding organizations across the world. The UbuntuKMS Model accommodates the need for contextual integration of new knowledge exchanges from the advanced counterparts in other regions.

This research provides a comprehensive understanding of the current challenges of the NRENs in sharing resources and playing their role in the regional alliance. It also identifies the current demands for their internal structuring and possible services from the regional alliance that would promote a more effective regional collaboration and knowledge sharing. Consolidating the findings on the ground, we developed the UbuntuKMS Model to coordinate their activities to better utilize the knowledge resources within and across NRENs in the region. It considers easing the overhead burden NRENs would carry, and that could ensure more equitable access to educational and research resources at a regional level, which could be less influenced by local policies and capabilities. It also highlights that government policies need to be oriented towards promoting equitable access to knowledge resources and empowering local initiatives than limiting and controlling in nature, which is prevalent in many developing economies. These policies need to be contextual, aiming at enhancing the local endeavors with guidelines enabling and promoting the initiative in line with the respective national interests, considering that the prevailing environment already poses several challenges and limitations anyway. The core contribution of this research to the body of knowledge in KMS development is that it presents a thorough understanding of the regional knowledge resources ecosystem and provides the contextually relevant UbuntuKMS Model that aims to ensure equitable access to quality educational and research resources at a regional level.

6.1. Implications for Further Research

The research explores the prevailing facilities for the institutions and initiatives to promote resource sharing and collaboration in research and education. We identified the challenges faced in striving to fulfill the demands of each member institution in the NRENs. It was evident that every NREN member institution may have unique capabilities, challenges and demands that require contextualizing the solution to ensure the best utilization of the resources and playing the expected role in the community. Moreover, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Hence, the results open a new conceptual model to consider, and subsequent research may focus on further building contextualized platforms and solutions that promote knowledge sharing and collaboration among member institutions that could span the region and through inter-regional networks.

6.2. Implications for Practice

The research was based on the findings from the realities on the ground in the UA member NRENs. It identified the common challenges the NRENs have in terms of connectivity, reachability, and affordability of services, which deter the ultimate need they have for networking and sharing in the wider community. Many of the member NRENs are yet to build their infrastructure and connect to services as per the demand of their member institution. Moreover, they are yet to reach all the potential member institutions that the services are developed for and enable them to play their roles in the community. UbuntuKMS Model may serve as a guide for the NRENs to build their initiatives and efforts towards a unifying regional KMS. This research, therefore, provides high-level guidance for the prevailing and new efforts to build a more robust regional network of knowledge resources and promote a unifying approach towards the same mission that all the NRENs share.