e-Book & OER Learner Support for PHD Aquaculture, Bunda College of Agriculture

Perceived Needs & Project Design

Two new PHD programmes were being readied at the College when visited in November 2008. One in Applied Economics and the other in Aquaculture and Fish Nutrition. A request was made by their coordinators for teaching & learning materials, both e-books and OER materials. The commencement date of these programmes was April 2009.

It was planned that the IADP would attempt to source some of the prescribed textbooks and journals in digital format for distribution through two digital reading rooms that were being set up in both departments. The IADP would also endeavoured to collect a sample of OER materials relevant to the courses.

Pilot Implementation & Processes

This pilot proved difficult to administer because the parameters kept changing.  Firstly, the April commence date was pushed out to June, then September and finally October 2009. This was a consequence of a legal wrangle over the government’s student quota system which was deemed unfair by prospective students, their families and the education community. The case, however, stalled the release of a list of accepted students.

Secondly, the computer centres never fully materialised. An earmarked but unfinished computer room that was shown to the IADP / OER Africa delegation on one trip was being used exclusively for Master’s students on a subsequent visit. This, however, was not seen as a problem when it was heard later that RUFORUM had promised the PHD students their own laptops. The pilot plan was therefore revised so that instead of installing digital materials on institutional desktop machines the laptops would instead be the custodians of the materials and accompanying software. At the time of reporting, a month after the start of the PHD  programmes, these computers have not been delivered nor funds released for their purchase.

A further issue arose when it was ascertained that none of the textbooks in the prescribed list were published by IADP partner publishing houses. Consequently three generic Aquaculture titles were acquired from available sources and made available on the IADP platform. It also transpired that, while the coordinators did not reject Open Access Journals outright, they really wanted digital access to subscription-based periodicals. The IADP was not in a position at that time to start negotiations with periodical publishers for free access for African universities.

In the face of these barriers to progress the OER component, however, progressed well. An initial spreadsheet list of available resources and URL’s to their location was  compiled by the IADP team and both coordinators were requested to vet the materials. Aquaculture responded and requested a more focused search and offered sub categories to help narrow the search:  Economics & Management, Fish Nutrition, Environment & Biostatics, Limnology & Aquatic Ecology, Biochemistry & Bioenergetics and Biotechnology & Genetics. It was also decided at this time to create an OER sampler CD that contained electronic versions of the materials in light of Bunda College’s poor bandwidth.

The PHD programmes were launched in October 2009 and the IADP facilitator was invited to introduce both the e-books and OER during the students’ orientation week. The original intention was to install Adobe Digital Editions on the student’s laptops during this visit and register them on the IADP online platform. Nine students were present for the presentation and all registered on the IADP platform. The installation, however, was not possible because the laptops had not yet been released. The OER sampler was distributed to the students and staff.

Pilot Products & Outcomes

The OER Sampler CD was a product derived from the activities of this pilot. It contained a mix of materials, articles, papers, guides and Open Access Journals organised into seven subject categories.  

Screen from the Aquaculture OER Sampler

A further outcome of the pilot was broadened awareness of digital resources both e-books and the OER movement amongst post graduate students.

Evaluation Findings & Lesson Learned

Evaluation

A baseline study was conducted during the launch of the pilot with the post graduate students. The findings show that this group was well resourced. All the graduates had access to computers and half had their own machines. The follow up survey has not yet been completed because the e-book component of the pilot has not yet commenced in earnest. It is anticipated that this could be done early in 2010

Lessons Learned
Feedback from the facilitator points at two lessons:

1. The fact that it proved impossible to source digital versions of the prescribed textbooks was a problem similar to the Chancellor College pilot (see below). It, therefore, recommended that a preparatory investigation should be done prior to offers being made. Rather alert coordinators of e-books that can be provided and encourage coordinators to incorporate the titles into the student’s courses and reading lists.

2. Also the fact that many months passed before the pilot was made aware of the lack of digital versions of prescribed texts robbed it of much of its momentum. This proved difficult to rectify.

3. This was the only pilot where we ran into hardware problems but in this instance it had serious impact on the success of the pilot. While we want to continue supporting this programme in the new year and provide services to the post graduate students, strictly speaking the e-book component failed. In hindsight we needed to offer an e-book reading device, a ‘Kindle’ or similar,  to facilitate access to the e-books.