Bunda College of Agriculture: Communication Skills OER Textbook
Perceived Needs & Pilot Design
The following needs were identified within the Language & Development Communication Department at Bunda College for Agriculture (BCA) by James Sitima and his staff. There was no set textbook for the Communication Skills syllabus. Lecturers tended to use more than one text to teach the syllabus and students generally did not have access to these titles. Also students could not always access the official syllabus ‘Prescribed texts’ nor ‘Recommended Readings’ that accompany the syllabus outline as the College Library did not have or had insufficient numbers of these texts.
It was decided, therefore, to create a paper textbook from freely available OER that would cover at least 75% of the 1st semester course content and that would be easily replicable for up to 200 students and staff.
It was conceived that two workshops should be held to demonstrate to the Departmental and Library staff how to find and adapt OER to suit the local context and whose outcome would be the textbook. The workshops were also to act as a model for expansion into other departments in the College facing similar needs. The process involved would also help the initial group develop a 2nd textbook for the 2nd Semester Communication Skills course. The final text would be redistributed back to the OER community by being uploaded, tagged, stored and distributed using the OER Africa platform and repository.
Pilot Implementation & Processes
Prior to the first workshop a search was conducted by the IADP for OER associated with language teaching during February and March 2009. A compact disk was compiled with samples and associated web addresses that linked to these language resources. This resource list/sampler was part of the materials that were used at the 1st OER workshop held from Tuesday 31st March to 2nd April 2009. The workshop had a theoretical component that introduced the OER movement and then a ‘hands-on’ approach to searching the digital repositories and adapting the materials. Also as part of the workshop an attempt was made to insert the participants into a wider network of OER practitioners. An OER Africa FaceBook group had been set up with a membership of over 100 international members and the participants were signed up too during the workshop. This initiative was, however, disappointing as many of the questions posed by the participants were not answered.
Between the two workshops the Bunda team re-worked the sourced OER and adapted them to suite the Bunda context and for inclusion into the new textbook. The facilitator also produced a segment of work to act as an example of how to deploy the template developed in the first workshop and track the OER used. This was circulated prior to the second workshop. The second meeting ran June 8th & 9th and was originally intended to focus on quality assurance issues. However, on arrival the facilitator ascertained that writing progress had been slow. Consequently the facilitator changed the workshop to focus on the writing process and identification of gaps that still existed. There was a concern amongst the writing team that the OER available were not as good as the resources they used regularly from out of print copyrighted textbooks. The facilitator agreed to source additional OER to help the move the process forward and was helped in part by the release of Wikipedia materials as OER during this period. A set of new deadlines were developed and over the months of July and August drafts of the various chapters were submitted.
It became necessary, however, to organise a third meeting to coordinate the completion of the text. At the insistence of the writing team, who advocated an environment off campus to eliminate interruptions and distractions, this meeting was held in a small boardroom at the Capital Hotel in Lilongwe on 26th August. The meeting introduced quality control issues, provided an opportunity for further writing and also identified gaps in the text and missing activities. A ten day deadline was also set for all submissions of first drafts.
A first draft of the entire textbook, all chapters integrated, and having undergone a general edit was available at the early October. Once the team saw the first draft of the book, however, they began to request new changes. A series of internal edits was done by the Bunda team. Only early in November was the team happy to release the draft for a final language edit and professional layout. The final text was completed end of November 2009 and a master copy of the laid out materials was forwarded to Bunda College. Also the full textbook and individual chapters were uploaded as OER on the OER Africa site.
Pilot Products & Outputs
The pilot was first a capacity building exercise and appears to have been a success (see Evaluation Findings below). The team reports that they want to develop the second textbook outside of the scope of this project. While it initially proved difficult to wean the writing team off their preferred copyrighted texts the Bunda team now feels that there is a role for OER in the production of university texts and they are also familiar with the OER Africa platform and other tools to search for OER.
The integration of the Bunda team into the OER community was less successful as the FaceBook Group proved to be ineffectual. This was in part because of the lack of input offered by the online community but also because bandwidth is poor at Bunda and the online platform proved difficult to access. However, relationships and connections were made with IADP personnel who had facilitated the writing process. Communication between these group continues. They also became aware of colleagues within Unima who were doing similar OER projects, namely at the Kamuzu College of Nursing.
The 102 page textbook was printed at Bunda and used with the first year students. We are still waiting for feedback on how it was received. These students arrived late in 2009 because of Government legal issues, so the late completion of the text was not a significant drawback in its acceptance.
The Communication Skills textbook which was fashioned exclusively from OER has been offered back to the OER community and is available from both the Bunda College website and the OER Africa repository. The main text and the individual chapters has been licensed, CC: BY-NC-SA.
Evaluation Findings & Lesson Learned
The Bunda team provided monitoring and evaluation input on two occasions. During the first workshop they filled in a baseline study that gauged the extent of their use of computers for their work and also their awareness of OER. A follow up questionnaire was used during the third meeting that monitored changes in behaviours and perceptions. Additional information has been received from the facilitator.
The pilot cannot claim full accountability but access to computers improved, and use of computers broadened, amongst the team during the course of the pilot. Unsurprisingly, awareness of OER improved amongst the group during the pilot. All were in favour of using OER in the future. One respondent claimed they were ‘fantastic’ and ‘helpful in coming up with customised teaching material.’ A more cautious attitude prevailed when asked to consider suitability, cost and availability of OER.
On the issue of suitability one respondent claimed that it ‘depended on the subject matter’. From the facilitator’s notes we also see that he reports certain members writing a chapter on Reading Skills were concerned that the quality of the OER initially accessed for the project were considered inferior to the textbooks the staff had previously photocopied for the students.
On the issues of cost a member of the team claims that while the OER are free there are hidden costs in the time taken to search for appropriate OER as well as time needed to do the adaptations. There are also costs in production.
Comments on availability focused on issues of technology. Bunda has poor bandwidth and the two workshops on campus revealed a slow and frustrating connection. Consequently searching for resources was a protracted affair. This is confirmed by both the team comments as well as those of the facilitator.
In terms of using OERs in future, the team said they were interested but pointed out potential pitfalls. These included, potential lack of interest in stakeholders (Senior Management),Lack of adequate resources for the courses held at Bunda College of Agriculture, lack of funding for the time required to do the searching and adaptations.
There was also some concern that even the trained team were not confident in their abilities. One respondent noted he were still worried about finding the right materials and deciding which to use or not use.