Thursday, 2nd September 2021
African Library and Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, 2019
Image courtesy of AfLIA, CC BY
Report by Leanne Rencken,[1] for OER Africa.
Three inspiring conversations with remarkable African librarians provided me with great hope that our libraries on the African continent are in good hands.
Why did I have these conversations? My mission was to find out more about the ongoing collaboration between the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) and OER Africa.
OER Africa has developed three learning pathways, as part of its grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and, along with AfLIA, is piloting them with university and academic librarians on the continent.
The pilot project focused on three learning pathways:
- Find Open Content is a short tutorial for participants to acquire the skills necessary to search for open content, decipher Creative Commons rights and permissions and evaluate the accuracy and relevance of Open Educational Resources (OER) identified.
- Adapt Open Content provides a rapid solution to adapting open content for new purposes. It covers adaptation options, and how to revise and remix open content.
- Publish using Open Access explains what Open Access is, and why academics might consider publishing in this way. It goes on to discuss publishing options, guidelines, and touches on other Open movements.
I spent a few delightful hours on Zoom calls with Dr Nkem Osuigwe, who is based in Nigeria, but commutes to Accra, Ghana for work, Dr Sarah Kaddu, who is based in Kampala, Uganda and Dr Ayanda Lebele, who is based in Palapye, Botswana.
With their shared vision, curiosity, thirst for knowledge, leadership, and a collection of PhDs, it’s not surprising that I’m in awe of these three women who, in one way or another, are stewards of library science and services on the African continent.
Dr Nkem Osuigwe, who is the Human Capacity Development and Training Director at AfLIA, chatted to me about the pilot, in which 50 librarians across Africa participated, and who, by completing these learning pathways, are testing innovative alternative approaches to continuing professional development (CPD), to reduce dependence on traditional workshop-based professional development.
Dr Osuigwe reveals herself through anecdotes; she is a great storyteller and admits she is driven by curiosity and her love for anything that concerns reading. She is the only librarian in a family of medical professionals, her late father, husband, and children included. She explains that she holds a position of importance in her home, because doctors can’t know everything, and often turn to their in-house librarian for research assistance.
This same thirst for knowledge, and innate hunger to find out more about how the world works led to her appointment at AfLIA and how she approaches her current position.
As she describes it, AfLIA is the platform for all librarians in Africa to come together, learn from each other, and encourage one another. It’s a strong network of different types of libraries, as well as an advocate for better operating environments for libraries on the continent. One of her most vivid memories, from when she first started out at AfLIA, is of a goosebumps-inducing visit to a library in Nakaseke, just outside Kampala. She was struck by how much the humble, two-room establishment influenced and involved the community it served.
"This little library could get news from the radio, TV, newspapers, but also books. They knew when and where it was going to rain, the cost of seedlings, how to get better produce. They were passing this information down to members of the community, so, in turn that made the community go there to find out, ‘where do I sell my bananas today, at what price, how do I sell them, which market will give me higher prices…’ That was the first time I realized that public libraries can really do awesome things when the people that work there understand what it is all about, when they engage their user communities more."
Thanks to this need to know more, see more, and do more, coupled with her networking skills, Dr Osuigwe stumbled across open licensing. She pursued a friendship with Amna Singh of StoryWeaver on Twitter, and, through these interactions was introduced to Pratham Books (India) and its enormously appealing StoryWeaver project. This work sees the creation of openly licensed children’s storybooks that can be translated, copied, and adapted at will, because of the Creative Commons licence used. Once she had made the connection, written a book for the platform, and participated in a StoryWeaver competition to translate children’s stories, Dr Osuigwe had a better idea of the potential for open licensing, what it means for African libraries, and how children can access books in their mother tongue.
And because Dr Osuigwe goes all-in with everything she does, she continued to make fruitful connections, initially via Twitter and then in-person, between AfLIA and Wikimedia, as well as AfLIA and OER Africa. Subsequently, several productive projects have ensued.
For the learning pathways pilot, AfLIA selected potential participants from amongst its tertiary-level librarian community. They received questionnaires to ascertain their knowledge of OER and open licensing, Open Access, and using the Internet to retrieve information. Librarians from nine universities in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda were ultimately selected.
Dr Lebele and Dr Kaddu were two of the participants selected to participate in the pilot project, which consisted of an introductory Zoom call, followed by a call for participants for each learning pathway. The librarians had two weeks to complete the learning pathway(s) they had chosen. Participants also received pre- and post-pilot questionnaires and a user experience survey.
For Dr Kaddu, who works as a lecturer at the East African School of Library and Information Science at Makerere University, CPD is critical, because she’s got to stay relevant to her students, who are a lot more digitally savvy than she was when she studied for the same degree. As she explains it:
"When you look at the information landscape today, you’ll see that it’s characterized by plenty, there is a lot of information available out there, so the question is, how do I navigate all this information?"
She also says that the webinars AfLIA has provided, as well as the digital skills it is supplying to support educators in their daily work, have been well received.
"They raise awareness of existing trends that we might otherwise take a while to get to know. AfLIA, being a continental voice, has been key in unifying all that is needed on the continent, there is one place to go for guidance on curricula, for example, and it’s been very useful."
In fact, Dr Kaddu, who completed the Adapt Open Content and Publish Using Open Content learning pathways, has taken these resources and worked them into her own curriculum, so when her publishing seminars with the masters and doctoral students come up, she is teaching them a lot of what she’s just learnt.
While Dr Osuigwe believes that much of what librarians learn during their formal education can become obsolete in five to ten years, Dr Kaddu reckons that sometimes it feels like three to six months. To counter that, she says:
"You must continuously learn and discover what is out there to make your work better, something that is going to complement what you are doing, to make your work appreciated, otherwise your learners will challenge you. Acknowledge that there is a gap, while you are teaching, and challenge your students to help."
Prior to the pilot project, Dr Kaddu had a vague awareness of OER, and the symbols representing the various Creative Commons licensing options. However, following these tutorials, she says a lot has now been clarified for her, and in turn for her students.
‘They were really awesome, they were well designed, the information was easy to find, the materials were very, very clear,’ she says of the tutorials, and although she only had to complete two of the three, she’s working on learning pathway one in her free time.
Like many others in her line of work, Dr Kaddu is mindful of the fact that ‘academics are supposed to publish’. She says knowing what she now knows, she plans to publish more and is advocating for open content.
"I really want people to put their content out in the public domain, so that it can be utilized. If we publish to a greater audience, who are available to comment on our work, we can only improve. When info is in the open, it attracts many benefits. I no longer want to have it ‘closed’ – that’s selfish, and it’s not taking Africa anywhere. We need to add on to the existing literature, content, and data we have. We want to promote our scholars."
It’s going to take some convincing though. Dr Kaddu says the initial reaction, amongst her students, to publishing using open access, is negative. She says, ‘we need to be into it, to participate in it and promote it, then they will appreciate it’.
Dr Ayanda Lebele is the Director of Library Services at the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST). She tells me that it’s impossible to talk about her professional self separately from her private self because ‘I’m passionate about librarianship, it’s generally who I am.’ While she has this in common with her colleagues from Nigeria and Uganda, there are other similarities in their approaches to work.
‘For it to be functional, and effective, it’s the people that matter the most,’ says Dr Lebele, describing her team of librarians or, as she sees them, her work family, at BIUST.
To this end, she has entrusted a lot of the processes around CPD to her team, directing them where necessary, but also letting them find their own way. That way, she’s constantly learning as well.
With regards to the learning pathways, she had 16 members of her team sign up for the tutorials. It was a challenge, as they were just going into lockdown in Botswana at the time, so there was the related anxiety, difficulty in adapting to working from home, and data and device limitations.
But she’s pleased to report that they succeeded and are still reaping the benefits. One of her team members, Winnie Jamara, was the self-appointed champion for the completion of the course work, while another, Barulaganye Hulela has taken the knowledge on board and applied it specifically to podcast development.
‘She adapts content we get from the open access platforms and uses it to suit the BIUST context, and to disseminate information to our audience, who we no longer interact with face to face due to COVID-19,’ Dr Lebele explains. ‘Through the pathways we did, we’re able to enhance our service delivery.’
Just as Dr Kaddu admitted that there was some hesitancy in her students adopting the idea of open publishing, Dr Lebele has seen a similar attitude from teaching academics at her own institution. She believes that, as librarians, they have some responsibility towards changing this mindset.
‘We see ourselves as knowledge workers,’ she says.
"We don’t just manage giving people information, we also manage how they participate in knowledge creation. We have a responsibility to help those who don’t have the awareness, to know their role is not just to be reading knowledge created by other people; they also have to package their own knowledge, so that somebody else may benefit from it in a context that best suits their environment."
Having completed the Adapt Open Content and Publish Using Open Content learning pathways, Dr Lebele is a great believer in the subject matter, but would like to see a more basic introduction to open licensing and OER. She explains further, saying we need to take a step back to where people are, bring them on board and build their interest. She’s concerned that ‘people don’t see the need’.
Dr Osuigwe shares this sentiment:
"People inherently want to learn, but the point is that sometimes you don’t know that something exists, and so, you don’t hunger for it. Once you’re curious to know what’s happening in your field, and you dig into it, you stir up that hunger to learn."
Finally, Dr Osuigwe chatted to me about motivation, what will drive librarians to complete these tutorials, and thus embrace this unique opportunity for CPD.
With reference to open licensing and OER, she says:
"This is an area that people do not know much about, and it’s also an area that will help librarians generate more resources for their user communities. Where they can go and learn how to collaborate with others and to create resources if needs be. That’s the motivation for me! I believe that in everybody there’s a curiosity quotient, there’s that element in everyone born in this world to find out what’s next. But you know, life kind of puts out the fire in almost everyone, so what we are trying to do is to reignite that fire to find out what’s next, what can be done, how can this be achieved. This is the adventure!"
If you’d also like to get in on the adventure and find out more about open licensing and OER, you can complete the learning pathways available here on the OER Africa website.
Related articles:
- How has COVID-19 highlighted the need for open access?
- How do I create a Community of Practice for Open Educational Resources?
- Do you want to communicate your research more widely?
- Access the OER Africa communications archive
[1] Leanne Rencken is an enthusiastic, happy person with years of experience in content creation, curation and publishing. She has travelled extensively across Africa, from Botswana where she grew up, to Nigeria, Kenya, Angola and beyond. She believes in the transformative power of great content, no matter the platform or product. Most recently this love of story-telling has led to her to pursuing travel, teaching English as a foreign language, and freelance writing and editing on a wide-range of topics.
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Funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Saide OER Africa embarks on an impactful project to support the effective development and use of Open Education Resources in higher education systems in selected sub-Saharan African countries. Ashton Maherry, reports on recent travels to Beira, Mozambique, to establish a strategic partnership with UnISCED.
Figure 1: Representatives from OER Africa and UnISCED
As part of Saide’s OER Africa initiative, Ashton Maherry (Saide) and Neil Butcher (Neil Butcher & Associates) recently visited UnISCED to establish a partnership to promote the use of Open Education Resources (OER) at UnISCED. UnISCED (translated as Open University Institute of Sciences and Distance Education) is a Mozambican private higher education institution dedicated exclusively to open and distance education and was established in 2014.
The current William and Flora Hewlett Foundation grant in support of OER Africa, continues its focus of supporting effective development and use of OER in higher education systems in African universities. The project has four outcomes:
1. Development of comprehensive Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Frameworks for academics, senior management and academic librarians.
2. Development of an online collection of Continuous Professional Development Open Education Resources in higher education
3. Collaboration with at least four African universities
4. Establishment of a Continuous Professional Development network
The visit to UnISCED forms part of a planned collaboration with at least four Universities including, Botswana Open University, the University of Namibia and UnISCED and hopefully one other, still to be determined.
Several areas of the strategic partnership were identified during the UnISCED visit, these include the development, implementation and evaluation of policies that support the use of OERs, capacity building of senior management, academics and academic librarians to use OERs to strengthen teaching and learning, the identification of possible free or commercial online resources that can help academics with their teaching and learning materials, such as simulators and virtual labs, and the exciting challenge of translating predominantly English resources to Portuguese. In addition, the possibility of UnISCED becoming a member of the African Association of Librarians (AfLIA) was explored and will be taken forward in the next three months.
UnISCED and Saide are in the process of finalising the Memorandum of Understanding. OER Africa and UnISCED are planning a survey for UnISCED staff to identify focus areas for professional development in relation to OER. A second visit to UnISCED is planned in the next few months to finalise the CPD framework, conduct an awareness-raising session on open licensing to Senior Management and facilitate a training session on how to find, use and adapt OER for academics.
A note on OER Africa's CPD frameworks
This work builds on a series of CPD frameworks we are developing at OER Africa in collaboration with our partners. A CPD framework is a planning guide that supports the career development of higher education professionals. In the case of academics, a framework aims to empower and encourage staff, enhance and develop their pedagogical skills, assist them to reflect, and contribute to quality assurance of the student learning experience (adapted from National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education [2016]).
We have used a wheel structure (Figure 1), with wedges showing the professional development domains and levels of progress (foundation, established, and advanced) aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy (Armstrong, 2020). Each domain is being elaborated with indicators of attainment to align with levels of progress, as well as available openly-licensed materials that can support individual higher education professionals and institutional structures with the CPD. When they are completed, we hope that institutions will (with the support of OER Africa) customise the domains for themselves, develop CPD policies, assess their staff competencies, and provide training to capacitate their staff.
Figure 2: Framework for academics showing possible domains to be supported.
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In conjunction with OER Africa, AfLIA is hosting a panel discussion on the role of Artificial Intelligence and African libraries on 24 April 2023. This webinar is the second in a series of activities that will help build understanding, adaptable knowledge and skills.
Register now
AfLIA has recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with OER Africa of Saide to build a sturdy CPD framework that will project African librarians into a new era as change agents and leaders in driving open education, open access and open licensing as critical components for driving quality education and creativity in the continent.
In conjunction with OER Africa, AfLIA is hosting a panel discussion on the role of Artificial Intelligence and African libraries. This webinar is the second in a series of activities that will help build understanding, adaptable knowledge and skills. The first 100 participants can register and join the panel discussion on Zoom. Additional participants will be able to follow it live on YouTube.
Date: Monday, 24th April, 2023
Time: 9.30am UTC | 10.30am WAT | 11.30am CAT | 12.30pm EAT
Registration
This is a free webinar. After completing the registration form, you will receive notification via email with details of how to join the webinar.
Carefully read the section on Technical Requirements to help you prepare adequately for this webinar.
Resource persons
Just as the introduction of personal computers revolutionized access to computing power for everyone, AI technology such as ChatGPT, has made advanced language models widely accessible to a broader audience. The conversation about the implications of such AI has been re-ignited since the launch of ChatGPT. Indeed, AI powered technologies, when embraced, can play a vital role by improving access to information and refining the quality of services provided to patrons. As with every other technology, AI may have some undesirable implications on library education, research and service delivery. The global conversation is an interesting mix of divergent views on AI but not so much has been discussed in the area of its impact on Librarianship, especially within the African context. Stanley will briefly highlight general issues of awareness, perception, adoption and the implications of AI on African library education, research and service delivery.
Stanley Boakye-Achampong is the AfLIA Research Coordinator
English is the dominant language in most OER repositories. The same is true for open access journal literature; many more scientific journals are published in English rather than in other languages. The two noteworthy exceptions are African Storybook (ASb) and StoryWeaver that focus on African languages and Southern Asian respectively.
It has been demonstrated that if children are to be successful in learning to read with comprehension, they should start out in their mother tongue. Adults, too, would benefit by reading content in their own languages. This is particularly true of scientific terms and concepts. The use of language, therefore, has great significance when considering how to make education truly inclusive and equitable—one of the goals of the UNESCO OER Recommendation.
AI can assist authors and readers to read research in their own languages. Liz will discuss efforts to make science inclusive and equitable in African languages, with a focus on research literature and the role of AI in translation.
Liz Levey is an independent consultant and expert in the field of openness and languages
Drs. Nkem Osuigwe and Tony Lelliott will facilitate the discussion.
Technical Requirements
Upon registration, reminders will be sent to all registrants periodically. This webinar will be hosted on the Zoom Conferencing Platform. Participants, who do not have Zoom on their mobile devices and or computers, need to download, install and create an account on Zoom ahead of time. Webinar attendees are encouraged to join early, preferably 15 minutes before the start of the webinar, as one may need time launch the application. The speaker will use a webcam to connect with attendees. Audio and video for the session will be streamed over computer speakers. Attendees are therefore encouraged to connect with a headset or earpiece for maximum utility. Please note that this webinar does not involve a certificate of participation.
The webinar will also be live-streamed on YouTube.
There have been several recent calls for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) to take a more prominent role at the higher education level. OER Africa is in the process of developing three CPD frameworks to structure capacity building for academics, academic librarians, and senior management in higher education institutions.
Continuous professional development (CPD) frameworks for professionals in Higher Education
The need for CPD in higher education
CPD is ‘professional learning that results in changes to [academics’] knowledge and practices, and improvements in student learning outcomes’ (after Darling-Hammond et al. 2017). There have been several recent calls for CPD to take a more prominent role at higher education (HE) level (e.g. Mihai, 2021; Bruzga, 2022), that highlight the following:
- Professional development planning should be strategic: it should become a fundamental part of the academics’ annual activities, and not a mere “extracurricular” undertaking for a few interested staff.
- Institutions should consider developing a system of incentives and rewards that encourages staff to focus on their teaching.
- Institutions that already offer CPD should evaluate their offerings to determine whether they are the right fit for the current needs of the institution.
- Where feasible, faculties and schools should encourage communities of practice so that professionals can share their experiences, and support and empower each other
Barriers to participation in CPD
Despite the needs, there is evidence that higher education professionals rarely participate in CPD due to barriers such as:
- A reluctance to renounce teaching practices with which they are familiar. Similarly, innovative teaching practices are not normally a requirement for appointment, or for career progression.
- The absence of inducements for self-development in higher education institutions (HEIs).
- A lack of time.
- HEIs’ lack of pedagogical expertise and institutional capacity to develop effective CPD schemes.
Since the need for CPD is great, and many institutions either lack the capacity to provide it or carry it out in an ad hoc manner, OER Africa is in the process of developing three CPD frameworks to structure capacity building for academics, academic librarians, and senior management in HEIs.
CPD frameworks
A CPD framework is a planning guide that supports the career development of higher education professionals. In the case of academics, a framework aims to empower and encourage staff, enhance and develop their pedagogical skills, assist them to reflect, and contribute to quality assurance of the student learning experience (adapted from National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education [2016]).
The CPD frameworks we are developing at OER Africa, in collaboration with our partners such as the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA), are adapted from the British Council’s CPD framework for teacher educators. We have used a wheel structure (Figure 1), with wedges showing the professional development domains and levels of progress (foundation, established, and advanced) aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy (Armstrong, 2020). Each domain is being elaborated with indicators of attainment to align with levels of progress, as well as available openly-licensed materials that can support individual HE professionals and institutional structures with the CPD. When they are completed, we hope that institutions will (with the support of OER Africa) customise the domains for themselves, develop CPD policies, assess their staff competencies, and provide training to capacitate their staff.
Figure 1: Framework for academics showing possible domains to be supported.
The initiative is in its early stages. OER Africa is currently collaborating with a few African universities to tailor the framework to their own needs, and discuss policy development and implementation. Concurrently, we are identifying and evaluating relevant CPD OER available worldwide, with a view to making them available in a repository to support institutions that would like to develop their staff. Once completed, a full set of frameworks will be made available on the OER Africa website, together with associated OER to allow institutions to modify them to suit their own contexts. We welcome comment on the initiative as it develops; you can email us on the form available at https://www.oerafrica.org/contact.
Related research report: Continuous Professional Development strategies in Higher Education Institutions
The following publications were drawn on to create this blog post:
British Council. (nd). Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Framework for teacher educators https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/4204_BritishCouncil_CPD_Teacher_Educators_FINAL_040222.pdf.
Bruzga, L. (2022). Why Professional Development in Higher Ed Requires Regular Revisions. EdTech Focus on Higher Education. https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2022/03/why-professional-development-higher-ed-requires-regular-revisions
Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., Gardner, M. (2017). Effective Teacher Professional Development. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.
Inamorato dos Santos, A., Gaušas, S., Mackevičiūtė, R., Jotautytė, A., Martinaitis, Ž. (2019). Innovating Professional Development in Higher Education: An analysis of practices, EUR 29676 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, ISBN 978-92- 76-00580-3, doi:10.2760/26224, JRC115622.
Mihai, A. (2021). This pandemic must bring faculty development to the fore. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/pandemic-must-bring-faculty-development-fore
National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2016). National Professional Development Framework for all staff who teach in Higher Education. Dublin. https://hub.teachingandlearning.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NF-2016-National-Professional-Development-Framework-for-all-Staff-Who-Teach-in-Higher-Education.pdf.
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