Learning from the Network Beneath the University

From 24 to 27 March 2026, approximately 400 student members of the UPSA Developers Hub participated in an educational exploration of the network infrastructure of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA). The engagement was delivered across four separate sessions, with one session held each day for different groups of participants. Together, the sessions covered selected aspects of the University's network infrastructure and the digital systems supporting institutional services.

The majority of the participants were students undertaking the course Networking Development and Management during the second semester of the 2025/2026 academic year. The theme was "Exploring the Infrastructure Behind Software and Digital Systems in Practice." The engagement combined technical instruction with guided demonstrations, supervised practical activities and exploration of selected aspects of the University's network infrastructure and supporting digital systems.

The engagement was facilitated by Mr. John Haizel-Commeh, Deputy Director of Infrastructure in UPSA's Information Technology Services Department. The activity formed part of a wider learning pathway that later included engagements with telecommunications and other organisations. It also raised a question with wider relevance to computing education: if students are prepared to learn from external technical environments, what can they first learn from the infrastructure of their own university?

Students participating in a technical instruction session on the University's network infrastructure and supporting digital systems.

Learning from the University's Network Infrastructure

Students routinely connect to university networks and use digital services for learning and other institutional activities. Regular use does not necessarily reveal how those services are supported. A student may repeatedly use a campus network without exploring how access is organised or how traffic reaches the services being used.

For computing education, the campus can also serve as a live technical learning environment. This is consistent with situated learning, which draws attention to the context in which knowledge is encountered and used. The idea also shares a basic premise with campus living laboratories, where parts of an institution's operating environment are deliberately used for learning and inquiry. Within this framework, technical instruction established the conceptual foundation upon which the guided demonstrations, observations and supervised practical activities were built.

Students interacting with the live university network during a guided practical session facilitated by Mr. John Haizel-Commeh and coordinated by Dr. Augustina Dede Agor.

Within the UPSA environment, key networking concepts were presented through technical instruction and reinforced through guided demonstrations that illustrated their application within the University's live infrastructure. Supervised practical activities then enabled students to engage with network information, connectivity behaviour, networking devices and communication media while relating their observations to the infrastructure supporting institutional digital services. The engagement also extended to the server environment and addressed network architecture, device functions, segmentation, address allocation, connectivity, network management, reliability and the relationships between network infrastructure and digital services.

The systems explored formed part of the digital infrastructure supporting the students’ own university. Concepts previously encountered in their technical studies could therefore be related directly to a live institutional network. The university's network served not only as infrastructure the students used, but also as a technical environment in which selected networking concepts could be studied.

Dr. Augustina Dede Agor with selected students holding some networking devices and communication media explored during the session.

Reading a Live Network as an Engineered System

Recognising routers, switches, access points, communication media and servers represented only one aspect of the learning experience. The greater educational value lay in understanding how these components interacted within a functioning institutional network to support connectivity, digital services and operational continuity.

A live network also presents observable states and responses. Network information, configuration states and connectivity outcomes can provide evidence of how parts of the system are functioning. In this setting, segmentation was related to network organisation, redundancy to service continuity, network management to service availability, and capacity to the demands placed on the network.

Using live institutional systems for learning requires clearly defined boundaries. University digital infrastructure primarily supports institutional operations, and educational use must respect security, confidentiality, access control and service availability. Selected components and network states can be studied through technical instruction, guided demonstrations, supervised practical work and observation, while maintaining appropriate safeguards for operational systems.

A student using network commands to interact with the live university network during the practical session.

Investing in University Infrastructure and Learning from Its Technical Professionals

Universities invest in digital infrastructure because teaching, administration, communication, security and institutional growth increasingly depend on reliable digital systems. For institutions that teach computing, the scope and development of that infrastructure can also influence the live technical contexts available for student learning. Continued investment may widen the range of architectures, devices, service relationships and operational conditions that students can encounter under controlled circumstances.

Internal and external exposure serve complementary purposes. Telecommunications companies and other technology-intensive organisations introduce students to different scales, architectures and operational demands. A university can provide an immediate technical context from which students learn before and alongside wider professional experiences.

The engagement underscored the educational value of drawing on the expertise of professionals who operate university systems. Their work encompasses architecture, capacity planning, service continuity, security and fault management within live environments. The sustained interaction between Mr. John Haizel-Commeh and the students led to a proposal for an ongoing mentorship relationship.

Dr. Augustina Dede Agor, Mr. John Haizel-Commeh and some participating students during the guided server architecture exposure.

The combination of technical instruction, demonstration, guidance and supervised practical activities is consistent with the logic of cognitive apprenticeship, through which aspects of expert practice become visible to learners. The lecturer structures disciplinary knowledge and the sequence of learning activities, while the technical professional can contribute operational experience from systems under active management. These forms of expertise can help students connect networking concepts with the realities of maintaining institutional digital services.

Decisions about capacity, resilience, security, maintainability and future growth shape the services an institution can sustain. Purposeful educational access can help students recognise the operational consequences of those decisions.

There is also a longer institutional relationship to consider. Students who understand aspects of the systems supporting their university may leave with more than routine familiarity with its digital services. As graduates progress into computing and technology roles, that understanding may support a more informed appreciation of their alma mater's digital development and the importance of continued infrastructure investment.

The UPSA experience demonstrated the educational value of integrating technical instruction, guided demonstrations, supervised practical activities and engagement with institutional systems managed by experienced professionals. External industry exposure remains important, but the university itself can also provide a live technical context. Under appropriate controls and with deliberate academic design, university infrastructure can help computing students understand how components, services and operational decisions function together within an institutional system.

Dr. Augustina Dede Agor and Mr. John Haizel-Commeh with participants at the end of one of the institutional network infrastructure exposure sessions.

Acknowledgements
I thank the University of Professional Studies, Accra for authorising this educational engagement. I also thank the Information Technology Services Department, particularly Mr. James Tetteh Ami-Narh, Director, and Mr. John Haizel-Commeh, Deputy Director of Infrastructure, for their support. I also acknowledge the UPSA Developers Hub student leadership team for their coordination and organisational support during the engagement. I further thank the participating students of the UPSA Developers Hub for their professionalism and active participation.

About the Author
Dr. Augustina Dede Agor, PhD (Computer Science), is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Technology Studies at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), with over a decade of experience in computing education, research and tertiary instruction. She has supervised and examined undergraduate and postgraduate research across universities in Ghana in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Interdisciplinary Project Work and Business Management Studies. Her instruction spans diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Ghana, alongside international instruction experience in Europe, with expertise in programming, design and analysis of algorithms, systems analysis and design, data structures, databases, mobile computing, online education strategies and related computing disciplines. Her research, published in international peer-reviewed journals, spans artificial intelligence, optimisation and metaheuristics, computer networks and communications, biometrics and automated fingerprint identification systems, neural architectures, cybersecurity, and algorithmic design and analysis. She is Patron of the UPSA Developers Hub, an academic initiative advancing supervised system development, engineering capability and structured academic-industry engagement. Alongside her scholarly research, she contributes to national discourse through media writing on computing education, software engineering capability and the transformation of university computing education in the AI era.

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