Neil Butcher

This study was commissioned by the Commonwealth of Learning as an input to the World OER Congress organized by UNESCO in June 2012.  The authors, Neil Butcher and Sarah Hoose situate the contribution of OER in the wider context of the challenges facing education at all levels in an era of economic stringency.  They relate OER to the realities of the teaching-learning process, arguing that greater reliance on resource-based learning, rather than large-group teaching, will be essential if wider access to education of quality is to be achieved.

This report, based on a desktop review, unpacks the possibilities of opennes in African higher education, launching the discussion with a presentation and explanation of the concepts and icons associated with various tenets of open practice. The discussion then moves on to explore the factors leading to the rise of openness, including a social inclination towards opennes, government involvement, and technological innovations that have encouraged and facilitated openness.

The data makes it easy to apply a deficit model to project planning, but we need to start with what we have and how we can build off it OER projects must work with what is available now, not demonstrate what would be possible if only the constraints were d

African higher education institutions seriously structurally under-funded for the core function they are expected to discharge. Therefore, corresponding paucity of institutional and individual capacity to teach in many domains of higher education. Too few

A document that shows sections headings to guide the writing of institutional education technology strategy documents.

This presentation is used to help build capacity in writing funding proposals for education technology projects in Higher Education institutions