Use and Adaptation of Open Source Software for Capacity Building to Strengthen Health Research in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

TL;DR

This paper reports on developing and evaluating an open source video conferencing plugin to improve audio and video quality in resource-constrained health research capacity building settings in Africa and Asia.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel plugin for minisip that enhances video conferencing quality in low-resource environments, addressing technical challenges identified in health research capacity strengthening.

Findings

Improved audio and video streams with the plugin

Addressed technical challenges in resource-constrained settings

Enhanced video conferencing effectiveness for health research

Abstract

Health research capacity strengthening is of importance to reach health goals. The ARCADE projects' aim was to strengthen health research across Africa and Asia using innovative educational technologies. In the four years of the EU funded projects, challenges also of technical nature were identified. This article reports on a study conducted within the ARCADE projects. The study focused on addressing challenges of video conferencing in resource constrained settings and was conducted using action research. As a result, a plugin for the open source video conferencing system minisip was implemented and evaluated. The study showed that both the audio and video streams could be improved by the introduced plugin, which addressed one technical challenge.