http://www.oerafrica.orgDesktopModules/BMResources/RSS/LatestResources.aspxThe latest Resources in your OER Africa - Health OER120<p>Since 2002 the «Zurich E-Learning Certificate» offers lecturers and academic staff from the<br /> three main universities in Zurich the possibility to take part in a professional development<br /> program which supports the acquirement of eCompetence. The program is the result of a<br /> cooperation between the University of Zurich (UZH), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology<br /> Zurich (ETHZ) and the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PHZH).<br /> In the near future a reform of the program will be realized in order to represent the increased<br /> significance of Web 2.0 applications for higher education as well as e-research and e-science<br /> for academic staff. Therefore a change of the topics and the different modules of the program<br /> will be necessary. Furthermore the didactical concept of the «Zurich E-Learning Certificate»<br /> offers a good basis for this change because of the flexible structure and the impact of selforganization<br /> for the participants.<br /> Based on the concept of this program and on a course in historical science at the UZH as a<br /> practical example, this article underlines the necessity for a science-based discussion of<br /> adequate didactical concepts how academic staff should become media-savvy and the<br /> importance of reflexive learning methods in further education programs to acquire e-<br /> Competence.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38539/Default.aspx2010-0819<p>Among the many important implications of Houghton et al.’s (2009) timely and illuminating<br /> JISC analysis of the costs and benefits of providing free online access to<br /> peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific journal articles, one stands out as particularly<br /> compelling: It would yield a 40-fold benefit/cost ratio if the world’s peer-reviewed<br /> research were all self-archived by its authors so as to make it OA.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38538/Default.aspx2010-0819<p>John Houghton and Charles Oppenheim have rebuffed many of the claims made<br /> around the prevalent economic model(s) of academic publishing. They support the<br /> contention that there is much to be gained from a shift to open access dissemination<br /> of scholarly research. While the economic case seems clear, unfortunately this is not<br /> the whole picture; there are other costs and benefits related to the publication of<br /> research that are not economic. Therefore, it is worth complementing their useful analysis<br /> by raising some questions about the manner in which the academy in general has<br /> used traditional methods of publishing to maintain and develop certain community<br /> benefits</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38537/Default.aspx2010-0818<p>This research has looked at a variety of initiatives and specifically at their publishing<br /> models, business models and publishing processes. Within these divisions, special<br /> attention has been paid to the nature of the content, the level of Open Access provided,<br /> the peer review and copyright policies and, finally, the strategies of collaboration. The<br /> Open Access book publishing initiatives analyzed in this report have been classified<br /> according to their publishing models, they have thus been categorized into commercial<br /> publishers, presses established by societies or academies, presses established by libraries,<br /> library-university collaborations, university presses, presses established by academics and<br /> press-commercial publisher partnerships.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38536/Default.aspx2010-0818<p>Houghton and Oppenheim’s cost–benefit analysis of different forms of scholarly<br /> publishing is a major contribution in considering the case for open access and for<br /> open institutional repositories as a standard resource in publicly-funded universities.In what follows, I will draw out some specific aspects of Houghton and Oppenheim’s<br /> cost–benefit analysis in order to explore these wider issues.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38535/Default.aspx2010-0818<p>The Houghton and Oppenheim paper and the JISC report focus on three publishing<br /> models: subscription publishing; open access (OA) publishing (often called ‘Gold<br /> OA’); and open access self-archiving. The author responds respond both as an academic who conducts research, writes about it and tries to get it published, and as a researcher interested in scholarly communication, publishing and open access.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38534/Default.aspx2010-0818<p>In ‘The economic implications of alternative publishing models’, Houghton and<br /> Oppenheim summarise a much longer and more detailed report (Houghton et al.,<br /> 2009) published by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in January 2009.<br /> This original report piled assumption on assumption, estimate on estimate, to arrive at<br /> a series of conclusions about the potential economic benefits of open access publishing<br /> which have been widely quoted by proponents of open access, but which are<br /> deeply flawed. This commentary reviews these assumptions and estimates to show<br /> that the conclusions drawn from them about the savings and benefits to be gained from<br /> open access publishing over traditional publishing models are wrong. As the devil is<br /> in the detail, the commentary refers frequently to the original report.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38533/Default.aspx2010-0818<p>Since MIT launched the first OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative in 2002, responses from<br /> the academic community have ranged from exuberance to angst. Some institutions have been<br /> reluctant to adopt a program of open publishing because of concerns about long-term funding<br /> and possible adverse effects on paid enrollment. Money is an issue, forcing some organizations<br /> that initially created OCW programs to furlough them due to funding challenges.<br /> This study examined the cost of converting online distance learning courses to OCW, the<br /> impact of opening these courses on paid enrollments, and the long-term sustainability of OCW<br /> through the generation of new paid enrollments. As part of this study, Brigham Young<br /> University’s Independent Study Program (BYU IS) converted three university and three high<br /> school courses to OCW. BYU IS provided an option for OCW users to pay regular tuition and<br /> enroll in the online course for credit.<br /> The average ongoing cost to convert BYU IS courses to OCW was $284.12 per<br /> university course and $1,172.71 per high school course. The six opened courses generated<br /> 13,795 visits and 445 total paid enrollments in four months. The profit margin on the paid<br /> enrollments OCW generated was calculated to be 3.81% for open publishing to be financially<br /> self-sustaining at BYU Independent Study.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38532/Default.aspx2010-0818<p>This publication draws on discussion papers prepared for the workshop<br /> Policy Coherence in the Application of Information and Communication<br /> Technologies for Development, jointly organised by the OECD and<br /> infoDev/World Bank and held on 11-12 September 2009 in Paris. The work<br /> was launched and co-ordinated by Raili Lahnalampi, Sam Paltridge and<br /> Karine Perset from the OECD and Tim Kelly from infoDev/World Bank.<br /> The workshop examined some of the main challenges in closing the<br /> discrepancies in access to ICTs and use of ICTs between countries. It also<br /> suggested best practices for more coherent and collaborative approaches in<br /> support of poverty reduction and meeting the Millennium Development<br /> Goals.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38531/Default.aspx2010-0818<p>The integration of information communication technologies (ICTs) in education is part of the effort to ensure a better outcome in public education. Other sectors of the society have raised productivity by using technology to augment human labour. However, the teaching profession in Africa has become more labour-intensive due to lack of necessary resources. In line with the goal of raising teacher productivity, and given the shortage of qualified teachers in the system, the Teacher Laptop Initiative (TLI) policy in South Africa aims to bring innovation in the teaching profession by constantly improving the contents and pedagogical skills of teachers. Based on the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge theoretical framework, this study explores the prospects and challenges of the TLI programme. This paper argues that a successful Teacher Laptop Initiative (TLI) in South African schools will go beyond providing teachers with laptop computers. The success will depend on how well the laptops are used by teachers for productive educational outcomes.</p>http://www.oerafrica.org/BMModules/tabid/274/mctl/Details/id/38529/Default.aspx2010-0818