Annual

Report
FY 2022
This report covers the services rendered to the university
community by the web and apps unit of the ICT Directorate of the
Bolgatanga Technical University

Bolgatanga Technical University – ICT Dir. – Web Unit

0244538883 https://bolgatu.edu.gh
0205173224 albertnaa@boglatu.edu.gh
 Table of Contents

Contents
Web & Apps Unit Report_______________________________________________________1
Introduction_________________________________________________________________1
Administration_______________________________________________________________1
Website Updates (Spanned across the whole year)__________________________________1
Staff Profile Update Exercise (March – May, 2022)___________________________________2
CAMFED Web Development Training (April – October, 2022)___________________________3
Application Development_______________________________________________________3
Committee Meetings / Workshops & Programmes Development_________________________4
University Management Information System________________________________________4
5year Web & Apps Unit Roadmap________________________________________________5
Challenges__________________________________________________________________5
Recommendations____________________________________________________________5
Conclusion__________________________________________________________________6
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Web & Apps Unit Report

Introduction
The Web and Apps unit is a fairly new unit under the ICT Directorate of the Bolgatanga
Technical University. Its core mandate includes management of the university website,
development of applications to ease work at the various departments and faculties of the
university and provide support for vendor applications in the university.

The unit is headed and manned by Naa Bogbire Albert with support from perennial national
service personnel.

Below are the activities embarked on by the unit in the year under review. They are broadly
categorized into administration, website, staff profile update, CAMFED training, application
development, meetings, university management information system, 5year Web & Apps Unit
roadmap, other services, challenges, recommendations and conclusion.

Administration
The unit is barely a year or two old so the administrative structures are not clearly defined. The
unit reports to the ICT Director directly who is responsible for defining, assigning roles and
overseeing the activities of all the unit under the directorate.

Website Updates (Spanned across the whole year)

Website banners, blog posts, flyers and social media engagements
Under the year and review, the unit embarked on giving the university website a fresh look by
updating the information on it and replacing banners and pictures that were old. We also
replaced the previous year’s programme advertisements with new ones.

Working hand in hand with the Public Relations Officer, we captured events and uploaded
blogposts to give the university audience and website visitors an insight into the activities that
were taking place at the university. Notable amongst them are:

1. Matriculation ceremonies
2. Graduation ceremonies
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3. CAMFED, WeeNorth etc Training Partnerships.

4. Investiture of Prof. Samuel E. Alnaa
5. Commissioning of a SynoHydro Project
6. HerStart
7. Social Media Engagement Flyers
8. etc.

Staff Profile Update Exercise (March – May, 2022)

It had become necessary for the university to update its website with current and up to date
pictures and academic profiles of its staff. Since this had to with website updates, the
directorate tasked the unit to undertake this exercise.

The task was divided into:

1. Passport picture taking exercise

2. Passport picture processing exercise
3. Staff profiles collection exercise
4. Uploading of passport pictures and profile to the university website

The photo-taking exercise was supposed to last 3 days. That is from 8 th to 10th March, 2022.
But the busy schedules of staff and staff leave schedules made it impossible for the team to
compile passport pictures of all the staff of the 15 departments whose photographs were to be
taken.

So the team extended the exercise for another 5 days but could not still cover everybody. After
the second period elapsed, it became apparent that some staff may not be captured if we did
not visit them at their departments.

The team went on to visit all the 15 departments and got quite a number but that still was not
able to cover everybody.

While the photo-taking exercise was ongoing, staff were encouraged to send their updated
profiles to the team via email. After the photo-taking exercise, the team proceeded to process
the passport pictures taken and uploaded them together with the profiles received.
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CAMFED Web Development Training (April – October,

2022)
During the year under review, the unit was tasked to provide training for the first and second
cohorts of CAMFED beneficiaries.

The first training started in April and ended in May, 2022. It had 21 participants at the beginning
but 19 graduated. The second training also started in September and ended in October, 2022.
It also had 39 at the beginning and graduated 33.

The all-female participants were taken through following modules:

1. Website design, using HTML, CSS & JS. No framework or library was used.
2. Application development using PHP
3. Database design and administration using MySQL

From the ground up, the young ladies were learnt software development methodologies, how
the internet differ from the web, web technologies and how to setup a development
environment for a successful web development career.

They were also taught how to start a web development business and how to cultivate and
maintain clients, pricing models and hosting.

Application Development
The unit initiated the ‘ticketing app’ project in 2021 and is still working on it. The app when
completed will enable service directorates to receive service requests in a more coordinated
manner. The app will make it easier for university staff to request for services by just taking a
10 second video, a snapshot or writing just a few texts to describe their problems.

The receiving directorates will be alerted of the service request and dispatch a team to attend
to it. The data generated through the request and response trail will enable the service
directorates:

1. To keep track of all the services they render

2. To analyze the data to see patterns that will otherwise be hidden
3. In the case of the ICT directorate, we will have concrete evidence to make appropriate
recommendation for the need for UPSs, projectors, audiovisual equipment etc.
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4. Propose appropriate training sessions for staff.

5. Make forecasts and predict the future to make appropriate preparations to restore our
systems to normalcy in the case of any disruption.

The system will also shorten the time it takes for problems to be resolved.

It will also make supervision of directorate service delivery easy thereby increasing efficiency in
the usage of directorate resources.

The unit also developed an asset registration system to help keep track of all assets used in
the university.

Committee Meetings / Workshops & Programmes

Development
The unit within the year under review attended a GARNET workshop in Tamale from 18 th to
20th August, 2022 with unit head of Networking and Connectivity. At the programme, member
universities were briefed on the financial state of the organization, distribution schedule of the
network, rights and obligations of member institutions and other matters.

The team from BTU at the workshop inquired when the networking and connectivity devices
promised the university will come. The organization responded that they were waiting for the
next consignment and assured us that we will be considered among the first batch.

We also make a plea to the organization to facilitate professional training for member
institutions to help upgrade the skills of their technical personnel.

The unit participated in the development of programmes during the year under review.

University Management Information System

During year under review, the unit played a pivotal role in the university’s quest to adopt
technoble’s student information system.

The unit also participated in a series of meetings to discuss the procurement of the student
information system and worked hand in hand with the developers to fine tune the application.
We also participated in a system orientation programme and have prepared the relevant
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departments for a full or partial adoption of the system in the next academic year in January,
2023.

5year Web & Apps Unit Roadmap

The unit has developed a 5year roadmap to guide the university in adopting the appropriate
technology and tools to ensure that it achieves its goal of becoming the University of Northern
Ghana.

In the roadmap, unit laid down the critical infrastructural needs for the university. These
include; server computers, upgrading the intranet to departments that are currently not the
university campus network, a unified University Management System, more staff etc.

Challenges
The unit in the year under review, faced several challenges in its attempts to serve the
university community. Some of such challenges are enumerated below:

1. Under Staffed. The staff strength of the Web & Apps unit under the ICT Directorate of
the University is woefully low. The unit is tasked with the responsibility of
a. Application Development
b. Managing the University Website & Multimedia
c. Social Media Engagement
d. Participation in ICT programme Development
e. Any other assignment from the ICT Director
The unit had only one (1) full time staff and two (2) national service personnel in 2022.
Going forward into 2023, there is no sign that this will change.
For a lone staff to execute all the above with just two national service personnel has
been a very big challenge.
2. During photo-taking exercise, some staff were unwilling to update and share their
academic profiles.
3. Staff unavailability to have their passports taken was also a problem.

Recommendations
Going forward, the unit recommends the following:

1. More permanent staff with skills in programming, database management, mobile app
development should be employed.
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2. A clear mandate for the Web & Apps Unit

3. A staff profiling system for the HR department

Conclusion
In a nutshell, 2022 has been a great year. Several lessons were learnt, new connections
created, especially working the technoble team brought its own ups and downs and the
GARNET workshop in Tamale also deepened our understanding about the university and its
development partners.

The unit is looking forward to a brighter 2023 where most of the recommendations in this report
will be adopted and worked on.