Building Open Educational Resources from the Ground Up: South Africa's Free High School Science Texts
Partly because the development of open educational resources (OER) is a relatively new field that is just now receiving more widespread attention and study, there have been few opportunities to share knowledge across program, organizational and national boundaries. This paper presents a study of the OER project Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) as the first of a series of steps meant to... more
A Rationale for Health OER in Africa - Health Symposium 3rd September, 2008
OER Africa believes that OER can positively support development and capacity of higher education systems and institutions across Africa and is concerned that if the concept and practice of OER evolves predominantly outside and for Africa, we in SSA will not be able to liberate its potentialry year. more
The Relevance of Open Educational Resources to Higher Education in Africa
Higher Education Institutions in Africa increasingly find themselves trapped in an ineluctable impasse: To remain relevant they must satisfy the diverse and often contradictory demands of various stakeholders while doing so with severe limitations to their budgets and other resources more
The Potential of Open Educational Resources Concept Paper Prepared by OER Africa
This study commences with a brief overview of the historical context in which current higher education systems in Sub-Saharan Africa have evolved. Without an understanding and appreciation of how higher education (HE ) evolved on the continent it may be all too easy to equate the complex challenges faced by HE institutions today with a lack of resources, motivation or capacity on the part of... more
Open Textbooks: Why? What? How? When?
The cost of traditional textbooks has skyrocketed. The effect of this increase in cost, and the reasons for it, are somewhat different in higher education than in K-12 education. The cost of textbooks in higher education is usually borne directly by the students and their parents, and it is now a noticeable fraction of the total and rapidly increasing cost of higher education. The average... more
Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources
Learning resources are often considered key intellectual property in a competitive higher education world. However, more and more institutions and individuals are sharing their digital learning resources over the Internet, openly and for free, as Open Educational Resources (OER). This study, building on previous OECD work on e-learning, asks why this is happening, who is involved and what... more
Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models: Exploring the Costs and Benefits
The aim of this project was to examine the costs and benefits of three alternative models for scholarly publishing (i.e. subscription publishing, open access publishing and selfarchiving). In so doing, it seeks to inform policy discussion and help stakeholders understand the institutional, budgetary and wider economic implications. The project involved two major phases: • Phase I:... more
Global Debate on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights and Developing Countries
The aim of these two studies is to bring greater clarity and intelligibility to the discussions on IPRs enforcement by improving the understanding of the issues at hand and their implications. The firs study is entitled "Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights: An Economic Perspective" by Carsten Fink. The second study by Carlos M Correa is entitled "The Push for Stronger Enforcement Rules:... more
Action Research for Professional Development: Concise advice for New Action Researchers
This text aims to provide some general answers for the many people who ask, ?What exactly is action research?? A number of excellent books are available to give more detailed responses, and you can find some of them in the ?bibliographies? section of this web site. Here I am hoping to give a brief gloss about what action research is, and how helpful it can be in our hopes to improve the... more
F/LOSS is Commercial Software
Many people mistakenly use the term "commercial software" as if it was the opposite of Free/Libre Open Source Software (F/LOSS). This is in spite of: i) the rise in commercial development and support for F/LOSS; ii) the goal of most F/LOSS projects to incorporate improvements, which is actually a form of financial gain; iii) official definitions of "commercial item" that include F/LOSS; and... more
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