The Use of ICT at Africa University brochure is one of a series that aims to showcase good practice in African higher education. It is intended for higher education decision-makers on the Continent and overseas. Each institution in this series has taken simple steps to solve basic fundamental problems and improve the level of education and service delivery in a context of limited resources.
Since MIT launched the first OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative in 2002, responses from
the academic community have ranged from exuberance to angst. Some institutions have been
reluctant to adopt a program of open publishing because of concerns about long-term funding
and possible adverse effects on paid enrollment. Money is an issue, forcing some organizations
that initially created OCW programs to furlough them due to funding challenges.
This study examined the cost of converting online distance learning courses to OCW, the
impact of opening these courses on paid enrollments, and the long-term sustainability of OCW
through the generation of new paid enrollments. As part of this study, Brigham Young
University?s Independent Study Program (BYU IS) converted three university and three high
school courses to OCW. BYU IS provided an option for OCW users to pay regular tuition and
enroll in the online course for credit.
The average ongoing cost to convert BYU IS courses to OCW was $284.12 per
university course and $1,172.71 per high school course. The six opened courses generated
13,795 visits and 445 total paid enrollments in four months. The profit margin on the paid
enrollments OCW generated was calculated to be 3.81% for open publishing to be financially
self-sustaining at BYU Independent Study.
Reviews the range of sustainability strategies of OER mentioned in literature, plots the results of a small-scale OER sustainability survey against these strategies and explains how these findings and other papers on OER initiatives were used to inform an in-house workshop at UCT to deliberate the future strategy for the sustainability of OER at UCT.
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. Creating high-quality learning resources ab initio is expensive, but the authors present compelling evidence that using OER can reduce this cost substantially. They also present some startling analyses of the economics of textbook production, which again show that systematic processes of investing in OER can create huge savings for governments and students. The commercial publishing industry can play a part in this process.
What have been the experiences of African Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives focussed on higher education? What can we learn from these experiences? Although the concept of OER initially gained publicity in the Global North, OER are gaining traction in Africa, with an increasing number of OER initiatives focusing on areas such as OER advocacy, practice, and research. Today, the concept has been mainstreamed around the world, as exemplified through the unanimous adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on OER in 2019.
OER Africa researched several African OER initiatives to assess their long-term contribution to establishing sustainable OER practices in African higher education. This work explored their effectiveness and identified lessons to enable better development and support of OER practices. It also helped to deepen OER Africa’s understanding of professional development needs amongst African academics to enable more effective OER practices.
To do this, we developed case studies on eleven African OER initiatives in higher education to gain an understanding of the effectiveness of each initiative, followed by an analytical summary report. The report collates the findings from the OER initiatives , highlighting the implications of the findings for better development and support for effective OER practices.
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) networks can provide a useful platform to share knowledge, improve professional praxis, and facilitate collaboration and peer support. As part of its current grant, OER Africa aims to advance the professional competences and skills of stakeholders in African higher education institutions. A key aspect of this is the development of a CPD network, which will provide a platform for institutional stakeholders to engage in meaningful dialogue about their CPD practices, share valuable insights and lessons learned, and offer ongoing peer support. By facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experiences, OER Africa’s CPD network will endeavour to enhance the professional growth of its members – academics, academic librarians, and senior managers in Africa universities – driving innovation and excellence in educational practices across the network. There is a significant opportunity for a network of this kind, as our desktop review suggests that nothing similar appears to exist within the African context for this target audience.
This is a research article that champions the need for early feedback from students to help enhance student success in a course. The resource also gives insights into approaches for evaluating the effectiveness of assessment from students' perspectives.
Ideas for CPD Interventions
The resource can be used by individual academics or the CPD coordinator to ask staff to create an effective assessment environment in a course. It can also form the basis for assessment guidelines for use in a course.
A valuable research article on effective methods for managing large classes, specifically highlighting team-based learning and spaced learning strategies.
Ideas for CPD Interventions
The paper can be used in a workshop environment to train participants on team-based and individual (spaced) learning.
Librarians cannot play an active role if they do not fully understand the significance of open licensing to their work. This overview explains the pertinence of open licensing and the OER Recommendation, providing examples on ways in which the Recommendation can be used by librarians.
To present copyright as simply as possible this book breaks the topic into 12 chapters. The first chapter explains how modern copyright began and why countries agreed on international copyright protection. Chapter Two describes the international agreements that apply to copyright and the organisations that administer them. Chapters 3-7 look at how countries have implemented international copyright agreements in their domestic legislation. Chapters 8 - 11 deal with open licences, digital rights management, software protection and protection of traditional knowledge. The book ends with a chapter on the future of copyright.
The main purpose of this research is to establish whether ICT models as implemented in distance education do help to render desirable results (increment in throughput, meeting clientele expectations, and reduction in learner drop-outs). If it is not the case, what could be done to overcome the established hindrance?
The main objectives of this study were to: * To provide an analytical review, drawn from current research, state-of-the art knowledge of IPR issues in Africa; * To review current IPR practices and to identify the conceptual issues and challenges for policy formulation and implementation of an effective IP regime in selected countries, in the light of evolving international policies and practices; * To contribute to the design of instruments, processes and procedures that allow African countries to better profit from global opportunities.
The term Open Educational Resources (OER) was adopted at a UNESCO meeting in 2002 to refer to the open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes. The participants expressed “their wish to develop together a universal educational resource available for the whole of humanity” and “the hope that this open resource for the future mobilizes the whole of the worldwide community of educators”.1
To a significant extent, copyright law governs the production, dissemination and consumption of knowledge and culture. In an “information society” it is particularly important to ensure that the gates of learning are kept wide open. It is in this context that an examination of copyright law with respect to education becomes crucial.
Sharing educational and research materials is high on the agenda of Dutch higher education and research institutions. It must be possible to use and reuse materials produced or collected at the institutions for educational and research purposes, or as the basis for the development of new materials.
UNESCO's international Community on Open Educational Resources has been active since 2005. It connects some 900 individuals in 109 countries to share information and discuss issues surrounding the production and use of Open Educational Resources ? web-based materials offered freely and openly for use and reuse in teaching, learning and research.
The community returned to the issue of access in a new discussion, held in February and March 2009. The new discussion took up the issues first raised in June 2008, and explored access challenges and some of the potential solutions at hand. It was an opportunity to share creative responses from different situations. Broadly speaking, the discussion was conducted in three phases:
In this report the Committee for Economic Development examines higher education through the lens of openness. Their goal was to understand the potential impact of greater openness on colleges and universities. Like other service industries such as finance or entertainment, higher education is rooted in information?its creation, analysis, and transmission and the development of the skills required to utilize it for the benefit of individuals and society. But finance and entertainment have been transformed by greater openness while higher education appears, at least in terms of openness, to have changed much less. Their aim, in this report is to identify some of the potential gains from making higher education more open. They also make a series of concrete recommendations for policy makers and for institutions of higher education that should help harness the benefits of greater openness.
This primer is a guide to understanding the relationship between your rights as a copyright owner using Creative Commons licenses (particularly CC BY) and your trademark rights within the context of open educational resources (?OER?). Many people in the OER community are under the mistaken impression that copyright is the only tool at their disposal to protect and control their work and that content alone is the only valuable commodity associated with OER production. Although Creative Commons (CC) believes that copyright should be the principal means used by authors to control their creative works, this primer explains another, secondary set of rights you may have to protect your work ? trademark rights ? while still allowing for the downstream adaptation, translation, and localization of your work that are so central to the goals of OER.
Lack of access prevents many from benefiting from educational resources. Digital technologies now enable educational resources, such as books, to be openly available to those with access to the Internet. This study examined the financial viability of a religious publisher?s putting free digital versions of eight of its books on the Internet. The total cost of putting these books online was $940.00. Over a 10-week period these books were downloaded 102,256 times and print sales of these books increased 26%. Comparisons with historical book sales and sales of comparable titles suggest a positive but modest connection between this increase and the online availability of the free books.
The Student PIRGs conducted this study to evaluate the long-term potential of new lower-cost options for college textbooks which include cost-reducing options for traditional text books, such as e-Books, e-Readers, rentals and alternative publishing models. In 2010 a survey was conducted with students from 10 campuses and an analysis of text book prices for 10 common college subjects. This report highlights findings and makes recommendations for the diverse preferences of students.
