In our efforts to support African universities to understand and harness the concept of open educational resources (OER), OER Africa has identified several practical constraints to achieving the widely anticipated potential for OER to contribute to achieving higher degrees of equity across higher education in Africa. Effective harnessing of OER practices depends heavily on the educational skills of participating academics. Our work has suggested to us, anecdotally at least, that generally these skills are at much lower levels than we had assumed, regardless of the subject matter expertise of academics.

This report presents the findings of several interrelated activities that explore the relationship between educationally effective use of OER and continuous professional development (CPD) of African academics. It also examines academic CPD needs, and outlines the processes and outcomes of efforts to  engage with universities to develop and test a range of professional development activities and approaches that might respond to these needs.