An interactive resource database platform for citizenship projects in Ashesi University

Abstract

Ashesi University is a globally recognized higher institution that operates in Ghana and is among West Africa’s top twenty universities. Its core values include scholarship, leadership, and citizenship. Hence, the university’s activities are centered on these three principles. The Ashesi community undertakes several dozens of citizenship projects per year but does not have an existing database containing information on the organizations the community has engaged with for these projects. Citizenship projects are characterized by service to external communities by students and staff of the university which include the service-learning projects undertaken by the Leadership IV class, civic engagement projects, and others by student clubs and organizations. The purpose of the study is to identify the gap in citizenship projects undertaken at the university to determine whether the university has a system for recording previous and current citizenship projects. To also determine whether there is a relationship between the amount of technical project management resources available to students for citizenship projects and the structure internal community members adopt as they engage the external communities on their projects. The final objective is to enable the creation of a fitting solution to the gap identified. Frameworks such as the Active Citizenship framework and the breakaway community engagement structure are explored to better understand the problem sphere. The final deliverable consists of a proposed technology-based solution and some recommendations to address the identified problem and improve the current situation on the management of information on citizenship projects for the university.