What's Happening in OER in Africa
What's Happening in OER in Africa
This section provides latest updates to news and events relating to OER in African higher education and will include notices to new policies, research, events/conferences.
Displaying 1 - 55 of 55How can we be sure that OERs – open education resources – are of high quality? Many educators are concerned when it comes to open content as there appears to be no quality control. It also seems counter-intuitive that resources that are free can also be good.
Photo courtesy of Agence Olloweb, Unsplash
How can we be sure that open education resources (OERs) are of high quality? Many educators are concerned when it comes to open content as there appears to be no quality control. It also seems counter-intuitive that resources that are free can also be good. Many educators prefer the ‘safety net’ that commercially published textbooks offer, even though there is obviously no guarantee that, just because a book costs money, it will definitely be good. The logic is that textbooks have been through a rigorous review process. So why bother with OERs?
Of course, there is no international ‘review board’ vetting everything that is released with a Creative Commons licence (but nor is there any such mechanism for all-rights-reserved copyrighted materials). Regardless of licensing conditions, the onus is always ultimately on the planning to use the resource to assess its value; of course, experience helps to determine what that value might be. However, even for those relatively new to the process, quality assuring an OER is not difficult if guided by a suitable set of criteria.
OER Africa has recently released a learning pathway, or online tutorial, that includes a section on evaluating OER. You can access all of OER Africa’s learning pathways here. Our favourite set of OER quality criteria (see below) was created by British Columbia OER Librarians. The list has been released with an open (CC BY) licence and the six criteria are easy to apply. When you have sourced an OER and are wondering if it is good quality, use the checklist below to do a quick review.
Other resources about developing and using OER are available here, while you can find resources focusing on OER research in Africa here.
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For more articles in this series, click on the links below.
- OER Africa COVID-19 Statement (3 April, 2020)
- Understanding OER in a Context that Necessitates Remote Learning (9 April 2020)
- Showcasing OER Platforms: OER Africa (15 April, 2020)
- Online (and offline) reading resources for children (23 April, 2020)
- How to Find Open Content (30 April, 2020)
- OER Repositories in Africa (8 May, 2020)
- Emergency Remote Teaching Webinar Series – All resources available (18 May 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through open African research repositories (29 May 2020)
- Podcast: OER and their Relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic (5 June 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through openly licensed publishing (11 June 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through open data (18 June 2020)
- Adapting Open Content (25 June 2020)
What exactly can you do with OER? In what ways are they different from other resources? The beauty of OER is that most of them can be adapted to better suit your teaching and learning environment. They can be revised. It is also possible to ‘stitch’ multiple OER into a new resource, like a patchwork quilt. We call this ‘remixing’ resources.
What exactly can you do with OER? In what ways are they different from other resources? The beauty of OER is that most of them can be adapted to better suit your teaching and learning environment. They can be revised: you can re-work the language to make them more accessible to students; cut out and replace images with your own; translate into different languages; and add additional content, questions and exercises.
It is also possible to ‘stitch’ multiple OER into a new resource, like a patchwork quilt. We call this ‘remixing’ resources.
However, there is some skill and know-how required to revise and re-mix well. OER Africa has prepared a concise learning pathway (LP) to help you acquire these practical skills quickly.
The Adapt Open Content learning pathway covers the following themes:
Access the learning pathway on the OER Africa website here.
This LP on Adapting Open Content follows a previous LP that focused on Finding Open Content so if you are not clear how to find a good open resource, make sure you look at that LP too. All the LPs can be accessed here.
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For more articles in this series, click on the links below.
- OER Africa COVID-19 Statement (3 April, 2020)
- Understanding OER in a Context that Necessitates Remote Learning (9 April 2020)
- Showcasing OER Platforms: OER Africa (15 April, 2020)
- Online (and offline) reading resources for children (23 April, 2020)
- How to Find Open Content (30 April, 2020)
- OER Repositories in Africa (8 May, 2020)
- Emergency Remote Teaching Webinar Series – All resources available (18 May 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through open African research repositories (29 May 2020)
- Podcast: OER and their Relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic (5 June 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through openly licensed publishing (11 June 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through open data (19 June 2020)
This post is the third in a series on sharing African research outputs, using open licensing. This post concentrates on open data. Open data means that users can make free use of research data without requesting written permission and without copyright or patent violations.
Photo courtesy of Lukas Blazek, Unsplash
This post is the third in a series on sharing African research outputs, using open licensing. This post concentrates on open data.
Open data means that users can make free use of research data without requesting written permission and without copyright or patent violations. The data are typically stored in a non-proprietary format, which allows editing and analysis. Open data are usually given an ‘Attribution and Share-Alike for Data/Databases’ licence. Just as Creative Commons provides licences for educational and research resources, the Open Data Commons provides a set of legal tools for researchers to use when they make their data open to the public.
OER Africa’s open knowledge primer provides background on basic concepts and their pertinence to African researchers. OER Africa has also created a Learning Pathway – an online tutorial – on publishing using open access. Both resources describe the role of open data.
Why is open data assuming such significance today? Quick release of current and verifiable information on COVID-19 is one reason, of course. More generally, many open access journals, research organizations, and donors now require authors to make their data publicly available, usually by depositing them in an appropriate and approved data repository. The journal, Nature, maintains a list of data repositories that it has evaluated and approved.
The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) Open Data Guidelines also lists reputable repositories. The Open Knowledge Foundation gives three reasons why open government data is important: it promotes transparency; it can help create innovative business and services that deliver social and commercial value; and it can lead to participation and engagement on the part of the business sector and civil society.
The Open Data for Africa Portal was developed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) in response to the increasing demand for statistical data and indicators relating to Africa. The Portal provides multiple customized tools to gather indicators, analyze them, and export them into multiple formats. Users can search by region or country and by topic. There is also a COVID-19 Situation Room, with data collected by the World Health Organization.
The Open Data for Africa Portal relies on official statistics from governments and international agencies. Open Africa, on the other hand, is driven by volunteers and aims to be the largest independent repository of open data on the African continent. Although a civil society initiative, some government agencies contribute data, such as the South African National Department of Health. Data are available in PDF, CSV, and XLSX. Note that the dataset in the figure below was updated after its release.
Figure 1: South African health care system’s readiness for COVID-19
Open data does not mean sharing confidential information without protecting privacy. Some data qualify for release without any alterations; others must be altered to protect privacy before release. Still other data should not be released at all. The African Academy of Sciences, for example, gives detailed data guidelines for authors to follow, including a section on instances for which data deposit is not required.
Figure 2: When data deposit is not required for AAS Open Research
Making research and related data openly and widely accessible is an essential component of the Open Science movement, the benefits of which are becoming increasingly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Open science can also promote scientific collaboration between individuals and research centres.
Africa is becoming an integral part of Open Science. Following a three-year landscape study carried out by the South African Academy of Sciences and the Association of African Universities, the South African Research Foundation has been selected to host the African Open Science Platform (AOSP). The AOSP Strategic Plan delineates the challenges facing African science as research and communications methods worldwide undergo transformation. AOSP believes that the Platform can meet these challenges:
'The Platform’s mission is to put African scientists at the cutting edge of contemporary, data-intensive science as a fundamental resource for a modern society.'
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For more articles in this series, click on the links below.
- OER Africa COVID-19 Statement (3 April, 2020)
- Understanding OER in a Context that Necessitates Remote Learning (9 April 2020)
- Showcasing OER Platforms: OER Africa (15 April, 2020)
- Online (and offline) reading resources for children (23 April, 2020)
- How to Find Open Content (30 April, 2020)
- OER Repositories in Africa (8 May, 2020)
- Emergency Remote Teaching Webinar Series – All resources available (18 May 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through open African research repositories (29 May 2020)
- Podcast: OER and their Relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic (5 June 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through openly licensed publishing (11 June 2020)
This week, we focus on publishing in high-quality Open Access (OA) journals, with an emphasis on African journals. Open licensing allows for distribution of research literature, primarily online, without cost to the reader.Most OA materials use Creative Commons licences, which lay out the terms under which they can be used and distributed.
Photo courtesy of Patrick Tomasso, Unsplash
This week, we focus on publishing in high-quality Open Access (OA) journals, with an emphasis on African journals. Open licensing allows for distribution of research literature, primarily online, without cost to the reader. Most OA materials use Creative Commons licences, which lay out the terms under which they can be used and distributed. Many OA journals employ a particular Creative Commons Licence, CC BY, which permits distribution, copying, and adaptation without requesting permission. Full attribution is always required, however.
Traditional journals typically meet their costs through subscriptions and selling advertising space, with some charging authors. OA journals usually charge authors a fee, called an Author Processing Charge (APC). The business model thus switches from one in which the subscriber or the advertiser pays the costs to one in which the author must pay. There is also a third mechanism called hybrid publishing. Funders increasingly require their grantees to publish using open access licences. If they publish with traditional journals, because of these donor requirements, these journals permit authors to select a Creative Commons licence for their accepted submissions, but charge a fee for doing so. In addition, some traditional publishers now produce fully OA journals. SHERPA/RoMEO, which is hosted by the University of Nottingham in the UK, maintains a database with information on publisher copyright restrictions and permissions. Note author rights and general conditions, see Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: SHERPA/RoMEO entry for African Journal of AIDS Research
There are two major platforms where you can search for journals. One is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); the other is through African Journals Online (AJOL).
AJOL hosts 526 journals, 264 of which are OA. On a national level, the University of Addis Ababa Libraries hosts Ethiopian Journals Online, a repository of 27 Ethiopian OA journals. The Academy of Science of South Africa also maintains Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) SA, which includes a selected collection of peer-reviewed OA South African scholarly journals and forms an integral part of the SciELO Brazil project.
Publishing research in African journals is significant for several reasons. It can give African scientists better global recognition. All too often African research is not accepted in traditional journals because it is not deemed a priority in Western journals or is considered too applied. African journals fill that gap; their peer review is comparable to their North American or European peers; and they are indexed by the same indexing and abstracting services. In addition, African OA journals charge lower Author Processing Charges or absorb costs in other ways. Moreover, the number of high-quality African OA journals continues to grow.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how well African publishers can speedily disseminate research particularly pertinent to Africa. As an example, the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), which produces AAS Open Research, has a webpage on research and funding opportunities specific to Africa. It also maintains a COVID-19 collection with articles that have been peer reviewed and those that are awaiting peer review. This is an important mechanism to ensure that time-sensitive research becomes immediately available.
Equally timely, the Pan-African Medical Journal has published a special issue on COVID-19 in Africa. The research articles, essays, and commentaries in this issue are specifically relevant to the continent, for example, on the coronavirus in Nigeria, Morocco, conflict-affected areas of Cameroon, and migrant communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) has started to publish weekly COVID-19 situation reports written by researchers associated with APHRC. They cover topics not usually included in traditional publications, for example supporting communities living in urban informal settlements to protect themselves from COVID-19. Although APHRC’s core business is to conceptualize, implement, and publish long-term evidence-based research, the Centre believes that information on the coronavirus pandemic is so urgent that it decided to publish these weekly briefs focusing on Africa.
Resources on Open Access
OER Africa’s open knowledge primer provides background on basic concepts and their pertinence to African researchers. OER Africa has also created a Learning Pathway (LP) on publishing using open access, which defines terms and will help you acquire the skills necessary to publish or advise on publishing research using OA. Both the primer and the LP will enable you to understand how to identify and select peer-reviewed OA journals that meet international standards. Both provide information on how to evaluate open access journals, an important consideration because some OA publishers use deceptive practices.
Our upcoming post on 25 June 2020 will address the significance of open data as a part of OA publishing.
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Click on the links below to access other articles in this series.
- OER Africa COVID-19 Statement (3 April, 2020)
- Understanding OER in a Context that Necessitates Remote Learning (9 April 2020)
- Showcasing OER Platforms: OER Africa (15 April, 2020)
- Online (and offline) reading resources for children (23 April, 2020)
- How to Find Open Content (30 April, 2020)
- OER Repositories in Africa (8 May, 2020)
- Emergency Remote Teaching Webinar Series – All resources available (18 May 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through open African research repositories (29 May 2020)
- Podcast: OER and their Relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic
This week Mohini Baijnath speaks with Neil Butcher, OER Strategist at OER Africa, about OERs and their relevance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Neil speaks about the challenges that COVID-19 poses to education systems, how OER can be used to support educators and students amidst institutional closures, and what role governments can play in promoting the use of OER.
This week Mohini Baijnath speaks with Neil Butcher, OER Strategist at OER Africa, about OERs and their relevance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Neil speaks about the challenges that COVID-19 poses to education systems, how OER can be used to support educators and students amidst institutional closures, and what role governments can play in promoting the use of OER.
Listen to the podcast below.
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Click on the links below to access other articles in this series.
- OER Africa COVID-19 Statement (3 April, 2020)
- Understanding OER in a Context that Necessitates Remote Learning (9 April 2020)
- Showcasing OER Platforms: OER Africa (15 April, 2020)
- Online (and offline) reading resources for children (23 April, 2020)
- How to Find Open Content (30 April, 2020)
- OER Repositories in Africa (8 May, 2020)
- Emergency Remote Teaching Webinar Series – All resources available (18 May 2020)
- Sharing Africa’s knowledge through open African research repositories (29 May 2020)
Open licensing is used for many different kinds of resources – open educational resources (OER), open access research publishing, open data, and more broadly open science. This post discusses developments in access to African research information through repositories that use open licensing.
Open licensing is used for many different kinds of resources – open educational resources (OER), open access research publishing, open data, and more broadly open science. This post discusses developments in access to African research information through repositories that use open licensing. All of the resources are freely available and usually carry a Creative Commons or equivalent license.
OER Africa’s open knowledge primer provides a background on basic concepts and their pertinence to African researchers. OER Africa has also created a Learning Pathway on publishing using open access, which defines terms and will help you acquire the skills necessary to publish or advise on publishing research using Open Access (OA).
Like their global counterparts, many African research institutions and universities are increasingly using open licensing to make their research available and visible globally. The number of open access repositories is growing so quickly that it is difficult to keep track of them. The UK International African Institute (IAI) maintains a list that is frequently updated. IAI, in collaboration with AfricarXiv, has created an interactive map of African digital research literature repositories. You can also search on Google or the search engine of your choice by entering the name of an institution or country and repository (though this would require you to know better what you are looking for).
University open access repositories collect student theses and dissertations, case studies, conference papers, and sometimes journal articles. There are also continent-wide repositories. Three are discussed below. One focuses on university research output; one is a pre-print service; and one is discipline specific.
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Database of African Theses and Dissertations
The Association of African Universities maintains the Database of African Theses and Dissertations, including Research (DATAD-R). At this writing, universities in six countries contribute to DATAD-R. There are over 29,000 theses and dissertations and 4,700 research articles.
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AfricArXiv African Preprint Service
The AfricArXiv African Preprint Service is a part of the worldwide ArXiv movement in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. ArXiv has become an important vehicle to speedily pre-publish scientific research and data on the coronavirus. The platform is maintained by Cornell University. Although contributions are not peer reviewed, ArXiv relies on a strong team of scientists as moderators and advisors.
Launched in 2018, AfricArXiv is an initiative of the Project for Open Science. This service allows African scientists to mount preprints of their research for review and discussion by peers in the international scholarly community before publication in a scholarly journal. AfricArXiv, which does not peer review submissions, sees itself as a way for African scientists to circulate their research quickly and freely in order to communicate with others in their field. It does not replace publication in a peer-reviewed journal. AfricArXiv is collaborating with Science Open to collect COVID-19 research in and about Africa.
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Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM)
RUFORUM, is a continent-wide consortium in 126 African universities and 38 countries. It operates an open access knowledge repository in the broad-based agricultural sciences, with copies of theses and dissertations, journal articles, case studies, briefing papers, policy briefs, posters, presentations, and conference papers from RUFORUM member universities and RUFORUM staff.
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Click on the links below to access other articles in this series.
- OER Africa COVID-19 Statement (3 April, 2020)
- Understanding OER in a Context that Necessitates Remote Learning (9 April 2020)
- Showcasing OER Platforms: OER Africa (15 April, 2020)
- Online (and offline) reading resources for children (23 April, 2020)
- How to Find Open Content (30 April, 2020)
- OER Repositories in Africa (8 May, 2020)
- Emergency Remote Teaching Webinar Series – All resources available (18 May 2020)
As the spread of COVID-19 continues around the world, face-to-face lectures have ceased in many countries and academics are trying to find practical ways of delivering curricula remotely. In response to this, the Association of African Universities (AAU) and OER Africa presented a series of four webinars on Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) strategies.
As the spread of COVID-19 continues around the world, face-to-face lectures have ceased in many countries and academics are trying to find practical ways of delivering curricula remotely. In response to this, the Association of African Universities (AAU) and OER Africa presented a series of four webinars on Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) strategies. In contrast to online learning, which is an experience that is planned from the beginning to be delivered online, ERT refers to ‘a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances.’[1]
The webinars were intended to assist academics to implement ERT effectively. They covered a broad range of topics, including how to teach remotely; what content to cover; how to ensure that students are learning effectively; and how to communicate with students. We targeted academics with limited knowledge of online learning, aiming to provide a simple and practical guide to help them implement effective ERT for their students.
Recordings of all four webinars, along with their downloadable resources, are accessible here. To access information for individual webinars, click on the links below.
Webinar 1: Teaching effectively during the campus closure – Tips and tricks
Webinar 2: What to teach during campus closure
Webinar 3: How to know if learning is happening during campus closure
Webinar 4: Communicate effectively during campus closure
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To further support educators and students, OER Africa is also publishing regular communications on Open Educational Resources (OER) and their relevance within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Click on the links below to access articles in this series.
• OER Africa COVID-19 Statement (3 April, 2020)
• Understanding OER in a Context that Necessitates Remote Learning (9 April 2020)
• Showcasing OER Platforms: OER Africa (15 April, 2020)
• Online (and offline) reading resources for children (23 April, 2020)
• How to Find Open Content (30 April, 2020)
• OER Repositories in Africa (8 May, 2020)
For more, sign up to the newsletter here.
OER courseware is also available on the website. Follow us on social media for links to our news and events.
[1] Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T. and Bond, A. (2020). The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning. Educause Review. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, most African higher education institutions have halted face-to-face classes. But learning can continue, so OER Africa would like to share resources to help you to keep the doors of learning open.
Photo courtesy of Trust Katsande, Unsplash
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, most African higher education institutions have halted face-to-face classes. But learning can continue, so OER Africa would like to share resources to help you to keep the doors of learning open. In contexts with limited educational means, Open Educational Resources (OER) can contribute to the accessibility of education and can encourage a culture of flexible and collaborative learning, particularly if the learning materials are reused, customized, and shared.
A useful way of accessing such resources is via online knowledge repositories. A knowledge repository is an online database that systematically captures, organizes, and categorizes knowledge-based information. A few examples of OER repositories for the African context are:
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) OER – KNUST OER seeks to promote open learning through an open exploration that enables faculty, students, and the global academic community to access open licensed educational resources to maximize the impact and reach of their scholarly work through open sharing.
FundaOER, an initiative of VVOB, provides a repository of OERs to advance teaching and learning in Initial Teacher Education and Continuing Professional Development in South Africa. Articles, factsheets, videos, and other types of materials, covering different themes and phases, are freely and openly available on the platform.
The African Veterinary Information Portal (AfriVIP) contains materials pertaining to veterinary science. All its course materials, videos, animations, and images carry an open licence.
OpenUCT is the open access institutional repository of the University of Cape Town (UCT). It makes available and digitally preserves the scholarly outputs produced at UCT, including theses and dissertations, journal articles, book chapters, technical and research reports, and OER. These resources are organized into collections that are mapped against the university's organizational structure.
University World News recently published a list of South African OER, available here
For higher education courseware, the following resources are useful:
- AgShare Pilot and Planning Project
- African Teacher Education Network
- Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA)
- OpenStax
- MERLOT
- Middle East Technical University Open Courseware
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Courseware
Following adoption of the UNESCO Open Educational Resources (OER) Recommmendation, UNESCO launched the Dynamic Coalition for the OER Recommendation on 2 March 2020
Following adoption of the UNESCO Open Educational Resources (OER) Recommmendation, UNESCO launched the Dynamic Coalition for the OER Recommendation on 2 March 2020.
The multi-stakeholder coalition aims to expand and consolidate commitments to actions and strategies, as well as reinforce international cooperation among all stakeholders in the four areas of the Recommendation:
1. Building capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER;
2. Developing supportive policy;
3. Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER; and
4. Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER.
The work of the Dynamic Coalition has become more pertinent amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, as countless educational institutions have closed in response to various lockdown requirements. Millions of students and educators are required to study and work from home, thus necessitating greater use of freely available open and online learning resources.
In support of this, UNESCO has issued a call to support learning and knowledge sharing through OER amidst the COVID-19 crisis. Details about the call are available here.
In recognition of the importance of digital technologies, UNESCO has also launched a page featuring initiatives that it and its partners are involved in to harness the potential of digital technologies against COVID-19. You can access the page here.
While many educators appreciate the value of openly licensed content, the issue is how to find these resources. OER Africa has prepared an interactive, multimedia rich, learning pathway on just this topic. It identifies a suggested simple set of procedures to find open resources that align with your curriculum requirements.
While many educators appreciate the value of openly licensed content, the issue is how to find these resources. Many educators and developers struggle to search for and identify useful resources.
OER Africa has prepared an interactive, multimedia rich, learning pathway on just this topic. It identifies a suggested simple set of procedures to find open resources that align with your curriculum requirements.
The learning pathway is short, concise, and comprises eight segments of approximately 20 minutes each.
The eight segments in the Find Open Content learning pathway cover:
- Why find and use open content?
- What is open licensing?
- Identifying different types of open content
- How to search for open content using Google
- Search for open content using Creative Commons search
- Search for open content on YouTube
- Search for open content in open repositories
- How to evaluate the open content discovered.
Access the learning pathway here
Trying to work out how to best teach your students during university shutdowns due to the COVID-19 crisis? Sign up for a webinar series on Emergency Remote Teaching, hosted by the Association of African Universities (AAU) and OER Africa. Register here.
Trying to work out how to best teach your students during university shutdowns due to the COVID-19 crisis? Sign up for a webinar series on Emergency Remote Teaching, hosted by the Association of African Universities (AAU) and OER Africa.
Register here https://forms.gle/wToc2YCa6QnAQUw37
World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April is a celebration to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. Now that so many of us are at home with our children because of COVID-19, we can explore the virtual world of children’s stories – all free to read and many openly licensed. Some wonderful book and reading resources are listed below.
World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April is a celebration to promote the enjoyment of books and reading. Now that so many of us are at home with our children because of COVID-19, we can explore the virtual world of children’s stories – all free to read and many openly licensed. Some wonderful book and reading resources are listed below.
With more than 7,200 children’s stories in 190 African languages, African Storybook has something for every child, from the very young ones just learning to read to older children. It’s possible to search in various ways, including by language and reading level, and to download freely and print. Most of the storybooks are created or translated by local educators and reflect African contexts. There is also an excellent guide for parents, teachers, and librarians on Preparing to Use African Storybooks with Children. Over 4,000 of these storybooks can be found on the ASb reader app. Selected books can be downloaded onto a personal library for offline use.
There are more than 19,000 stories in 234 languages on the StoryWeaver platform. StoryWeaver has created a special page on Reading at Home during the Coronavirus school closures. This page links to: learning resources from grades one to eight; StoryWeaver’s special collection on science, mathematics, and technology; its local-language digital libraries, including African languages; and more.
Book Dash believes that every child should own one hundred books by the age of five. This South African non-profit gathers creative professionals who volunteer to create new, African storybooks that anyone can freely translate, print and distribute. It creates beautiful, high-quality books for young children in all South African languages. They currently have over 100 titles. Book Dash also has a short guide on Tips for Reading with Young Children.
African Storybook, StoryWeaver, and Book Dash use a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence, which means that you can download, print, share, translate, and adapt all of the stories in their collections.
Nal’ibali (isiXhosa for “here’s the story”) believes that well-established culture of reading can be a real game-changer for education in South Africa. Literacy skills are a strong predictor of future academic success in all subjects – and children who regularly read and hear engaging stories, in languages they understand, are well equipped and motivated to learn to read and write. Nal’ibali promotes reading and writing in mother tongue languages.
Nal’ibali has free to download stories and reading resources for children and teenagers, accessible here
Audible (by Amazon) is a platform that allows you to stream audiobooks. While schools are closed, Audible is allowing free access to stream an incredible collection of stories for children and teenagers, including titles across six different languages. All stories are free to stream on your desktop, laptop, phone or tablet. Note that these titles are currently freely available, but they are protected by full copyright.
The Early Literacy Resource Network
The Early Literacy Resource Network provides links to research and resources on licensing, policies, creation, and use of high-quality children’s materials in the global South. The Teaching Literacy page provides information for teaching reading and literacy skills. For more early literacy resources and information on how Creative Commons licences are used, access Good Stories Don't Grow on Trees: A Guide to Effective Costing of Storybooks in the Global South.
This week, OER Africa shares some resources we consider useful for institutions in the midst of current restrictions of movement and the requirements to introduce remote teaching in many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have selected resources for universities, school management teams, mathematics, reading and writing, as well as our most popular downloads over the past six months.
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Most of these resources have been produced in sub-Saharan Africa for our context.
Resources for universities
- The Commonwealth of Learning’s Guide to Blended Learning
- Policy documents on OER
Resources for School Management Teams
- The Creating a Caring School Series: A Guide for School Management Teams
Resources for Mathematics; Reading and Writing
Although the following resources are not new, their approach to activity-based learning for teachers is still relevant.
- Exploring What It Means To ‘Do’ Mathematics
- Exercises on Teaching Data Handling
- Reading Skills
- Writing Skills
Most popular downloads
Finally, OER Africa’s most downloaded resources include the Being a Teacher series; the Household Food Security programme; and the Farmers Agribusiness Training course.
These resources are a small selection of what is available on the OER Africa website. The website concentrates on Health, Teacher Development, Agriculture and Foundations in Higher Education.
You can search for resources at the top of any page on the website.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread, millions of learners and educational institutions globally have had to make rapid, unforeseen changes to how they run their learning programmes. Face-to-face teaching and learning have become impossible in many countries and there is uncertainty over when educational institutions will reopen their doors. This may have long-term effects on school programmes, examinations, and most importantly, learning.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread, millions of learners and educational institutions globally have had to make rapid, unforeseen changes to how they run their learning programmes. Face-to-face teaching and learning have become impossible in many countries and there is uncertainty over when educational institutions will reopen their doors. This may have long-term effects on school programmes, examinations, and most importantly, learning.
The pandemic has forced many educators and learners to explore new modes of learning provision such as online learning. It also places much greater emphasis on students being able to engage with educational resources as a primary mode of learning. Fortunately, over the last decade, a growing number of open educational resources (OER) have been made available by people in the education space for others to use. These OER offer great promise in ensuring that a range of educational materials are accessible to learners and educators.
What are OER?
There are many definitions of OER, one of the most comprehensive being:
Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property licence that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. (Hewlett Foundation, OER Defined)
The Cape Town Open Education Declaration states that OER should be freely shared through open licences that facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement, and sharing by anyone. The materials need to be published in formats that allow for both use and editing, while accommodating manipulation and adoption on various technical platforms. It also requires that materials be made available in formats that are accessible to people with disabilities and people who do not yet have access to the Internet, where possible.
Creative Commons Licences
The most common mechanism to share educational resources openly and legally is by using Creative Commons (CC) licences. Creative Commons ‘provides free, easy‐to use copyright licences to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work – on conditions of your choice’ (Creative Commons, nd).
CC licences provide a wonderful opportunity to translate materials into other languages and use them for varying purposes. This is illustrated in the World Bank’s recent rapid response note, Remote Learning and COVID-19:
A quick inventory of content that can be easily made available via remote learning is a first order of business. Freely available, ‘open education resources’ are plentiful in some languages; in languages where digital learning content is limited, translating existing open education resources from other languages may be worth considering, together with partners. (World Bank, 2020).
Over the years, countless educational materials have been available as OERs and released online. Because they are openly licensed, OERs can be rapidly aggregated and deployed in remote learning contexts to substitute for the loss of face-to-face teaching time caused by institutional shutdowns. With most proprietary educational materials locked behind paywalls and not free to copy or use, OERs can provide educators and students access to free, high quality resources, offered with no threat of litigation from overzealous copyright lawyers.
In our upcoming series of communiques, we will share tutorials designed to provide users the skills to find and adapt OER. We will identify excellent open reading resources for your children while at home, and even how to start to assemble OER into a learning design.
Our next installation will be on showcasing OER platforms. We will look at OER Africa’s activities and highlight some of the useful resources and sections on the website.
Image Credit: Bandita, CC-BY-SA 2.0
We hope that you are doing well and staying safe as South Africa and many other Sub-Saharan African countries adapt to closure of schools and other educational institutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As people practise social distancing and implement new routines at home, OER Africa would like to reiterate its support for African educators and students to harness the power of open content.
We hope that you are doing well and staying safe as South Africa and many other Sub-Saharan African countries adapt to closure of schools and other educational institutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As people practise social distancing and implement new routines at home, OER Africa would like to reiterate its support for African educators and students to harness the power of open content. Open content provides a unique opportunity to take advantage of digital learning and to make educational materials accessible.
Open educational resources (OER) include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, videos, assessments, software, tools, materials, and techniques used to support access to information. OER Africa’s website provides information on understanding OER, how to access OER, links to OER initiatives in Africa, and actual OER that can be used by academics, teachers, and learners.
In the coming weeks, OER Africa will publish bi-weekly communications on OER and their relevance within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Take care.
Warm Regards,
The OER Africa Team
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected 363 million learners worldwide (UNESCO, 2020). The Commonwealth of Learning's (COL’s) experience shows that open, distance and online learning, if done well, can have the same outcomes as campus education without requiring teachers and learners to be in the same place at the same time. COL has compiled a selection of resources and tools as a first response to this crisis.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an inter-governmental organisation headquartered in Burnaby, Canada, is committed to promoting learning for sustainable development. It does this through the use of distance learning and online learning technologies. For more than 30 years, COL has used innovative approaches to open the doors of learning not just for formal education but non-formal and informal learning that is accessible, affordable and available to the last person in the queue.
With an increasing number of states, provinces and even whole countries closing institutions of learning as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 363 million learners worldwide are being impacted (UNESCO, 2020). How can we ensure that valuable time is not lost and our learners at all levels continue to learn wherever they are?
Many countries are planning to offer online learning as an alternative. COL’s experience shows that open, distance and online learning, if done well, can have the same outcomes as campus education without requiring teachers and learners to be in the same place at the same time. However, we recognise that not all schools, colleges and universities are currently well-prepared to fully utilise these approaches, and COL stands ready to share its expertise and resources to enable stakeholders to keep the doors of learning open for all.
In this time of crisis, a suitable response requires a renewed commitment to sharing and re-using open educational resources (OER); exploring novel ways to enable interaction between learners and other learners, learners and teachers, learners and content using online platforms; and to use appropriate technologies so that no one is left behind.
Some guidelines to consider include:
- Institutions should take emergency policy decisions to adopt alternative ways of teaching, including online learning.
- Ensure that learning is delivered using ICT tools such as radio, TV, mobile devices so that no learner is disadvantaged.
- Identify and use existing OER to provide quality learning.
- Develop and implement strategies for synchronous/asynchronous approaches.
- Encourage teachers to use free resources such as MoodleCloud to conduct online classes.
COL has compiled a selection of resources and tools as a first response to this crisis. The resources can be accessed below.
The eLearning Africa Report 2019 is a leading source of news, information, and analysis about ICT, EdTech, digital technology, learning and development.
The Report looks at the state of education, training, development and technology at this moment of unparalleled change.
The eLearning Africa Report 2019 is a leading source of news, information, and analysis about ICT, EdTech, digital technology, learning and development.
As African leaders seek to make a reality of the African Union's vision of a ‘transformed continent’ by 2063, setting their sights on the creation of the largest single market in the world and, as businesses assess the implications of a ‘fourth industrial revolution,’ the eLearning Africa Report looks at the state of education, training, development and technology at this moment of unparalleled change.
Founded in 2013 by the Open Education Global (previously Open Education Consortium), the goal of Open Education Week is to raise awareness and showcase impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. Open Education Week has become one of the most foremost global events recognizing high achievement and excellence in open education.
What is Open Education Week?
Founded in 2013 by the Open Education Global (previously Open Education Consortium), the goal of Open Education Week is to raise awareness and showcase impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. Open Education Week has become one of the most foremost global events recognizing high achievement and excellence in open education.
The week-long event spotlights amazing work from over a dozen categories including live, face-to-face events, webinars, projects, and resources.
For more information, visit the Open Education week website: https://www.openeducationweek.org/
For resources and projects, see: https://www.openeducationweek.org/resources
For Open Education Week 2020 online and offline events, check out: https://www.openeducationweek.org/events
Is your organization hosting any events for OE Week? Let us know in the comments below or let us know on Twitter: https://twitter.com/oerafrica
Open Education Week (OEW) aims to raise awareness and showcase the impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. It spotlights amazing work from over a dozen categories including live, face-to-face events, webinars, projects, and resources.
Open Education Week (OEW) aims to raise awareness and showcase the impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. It spotlights amazing work from over a dozen categories including live, face-to-face events, webinars, projects, and resources.
This year, OEW is taking place on 2-6 March 2020. You can submit an Open Education Week entry in two easy steps Follow the link to find out more.
This report assesses students’ access to educational materials in select institutions within Commonwealth countries. The findings indicate that learners are now engaging with a complex ecosystem of learning materials, both print and digital, in a multitude of differing forms and formats, with various terms of use and durations of sustained access.
This report assesses students’ access to educational materials in select institutions within Commonwealth countries. The findings indicate that learners are now engaging with a complex ecosystem of learning materials, both print and digital, in a multitude of differing forms and formats, with various terms of use and durations of sustained access.
OER Africa was very pleased to note that UNESCO OER Recommendation (40 C/32) was adopted at the 40th UNESCO General Conference in Paris on 25th November 2019. The formal Recommendation is yet to be posted online by UNESCO but the text can be found here. Approval of the Recommendation represents a significant recognition of the concept of open educational resources (OER) and its potential in education by governments around the world.
OER Africa was very pleased to note that UNESCO OER Recommendation (40 C/32) was adopted at the 40th UNESCO General Conference in Paris on 25th November 2019. The formal Recommendation is yet to be posted online by UNESCO but the text can be found here. Approval of the Recommendation represents a significant recognition of the concept of open educational resources (OER) and its potential in education by governments around the world. While 34 Recommendations have been adopted since UNESCO’s inception in 1945, only seven of these pertain to education, so this represents a rare achievement for the OER movement.
This paper demonstrates how the features and affordances of open learning have been developed in new and productive ways to provide school-based continuing professional development for teachers in Zambia.
This paper demonstrates how the features and affordances of open learning have been developed in new and productive ways to provide school-based continuing professional development for teachers in Zambia. It presents and critically reviews data from 200 teachers who have taken part in phase 1 of the Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST) – a project which, over the next three years, will be scaled-up across Zambia. The project is underpinned by the belief that knowledge about teaching is co-constructed through participation in, and reflection on, practice. Thus, the emphasis is on empowering teachers to work together to develop practices appropriate to their context – open practices. In the study, we describe an on-going process of realist evaluation which enables us to establish at an early stage what works in which contexts and informs on-going project planning. It concludes that this approach to evaluation has the potential to be helpful in understanding open practices and how they can be developed.
A big barrier to lifelong learning can be the cost of resources. There are worldwide initiatives to change this, though, and it’s helpful to know how to use these resources legally.
One such arrangement is Creative Commons, considered to be the global standard for open licences. These were written by legal experts around the world and dedicated to the public domain. They enable teaching and learning resources to be made available in the public domain. This is usually in their digital form under an open licence and without cost other than the cost of access to the internet. Users of the resources may use, adapt and redistribute them with no or few restrictions.
This article looks at how Creative Commons works, and why it enables access to knowledge.
The guidelines describe the whole process for designing and implementing OER policy in seven chapters, each representing a clear phase in the whole process. The chapters introduce the purpose of the phase and provide background information and references with practical examples for illustration.
The guidelines describe the whole process for designing and implementing OER policy in seven chapters, each representing a clear phase in the whole process. The chapters introduce the purpose of the phase and provide background information and references with practical examples for illustration. At the end of each chapter, specific tasks are set for the policy-maker, which will help with formulating of the final OER policy. The guidelines start with an introduction to the potential of OER and then ask the policy-maker to determine the vision of the OER policy she or he has in mind. This policy needs a framework, which determines on what level of the education system the policy will be set (scale) and which sector of the education system the policy will cover (focus). This sets out the first part of the theory of change – i.e., it determines what change is envisaged through the policy.
A gap analysis is then necessary to provide a realistic picture of the challenges and the opportunities that the current educational system, its infrastructure, its key members and the overall policy context present for the new OER policy. This can be used as a backdrop for designing the masterplan, which takes the building blocks present in a standard OER policy and specifies them for the specific policy context. These building blocks indicate what is going to be changed. An implementation plan adopts a strategy for how to realise the masterplan effectively and to ensure that all key stakeholders are involved. This phase includes setting up an evidence base and monitoring framework so that the policy can be adjusted during the implementation phase. Finally, the policy developed needs to be launched, so streamlining and checks against the reality of the context should be carried out. This is where the policy-makers have to focus on the outreach of the policy. In this phase, a policy needs to be officially endorsed by someone in an authoritative position – for example, the cabinet, education minister or president of a country – and by educational leaders, to ensure that it can have an impact on the education system. Moreover, it is important to ensure that the policy has been understood by those it is hoping to influence – i.e., the actors and institutions using OER to make teaching and learning better. Finally, a policy should be ambitious and aim to reach the mainstream in the future. Therefore, a review of implementation and its impacts should lead to a discussion of what shape the next-generation policy should take and how the scope and scale of this policy can be extended.
The key readers of this publication are those directly involved in policy design. The aims of these guidelines are to help these people to:
- Understand essential subject-matter knowledge on OER through a learning-by-doing process
- Develop a set of procedural knowledge on OER policy planning, working through key steps necessary for designing a comprehensive OER policy
- Reinforce the contextual knowledge needed to leverage OER in achieving SDG 4 through assessing the policy context and needs for OER, planning institutionalised programmes and drawing up a contextualised masterplan
- Ensure the commitment to policy adoption and implementation through integrating stakeholder engagement into the policy-planning process and determining adequate policy endorsement and implementation strategies
- Enhance the quality of policy implementation by planning a mechanism for monitoring and evaluation, and working towards an evidence based policy-planning and updating cycle.
The UNESCO Chair on Open and Distance Learning (ODL) at UNISA organised a seminar on Open Education Resources for staff in the university, held on 12th June, 2019. Ephraim Mhlanga and Kirsty von Gogh from Saide and Neil Butcher & Associates respectively facilitated the workshop, which was attended by about 25 participants.
- The World Open Educational Resources Congress (2012), organised by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and UNESCO with the generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation which attracted over 400 participants from 70 countries. The purpose of this Congress was explained to participants, which was to support government support for OER. The Congress adopted the Paris OER Declaration which encouraged governments to openly license educational materials developed with public funds.
- The second World OER Congress that was hosted by the Government of Slovenia in Ljubjana, Slovenia on 18–20 Sept 2017, which aimed at making the transition from commitment to action. Participants were informed that at this conference, the global community identified strategies to harness the potential of OER for achieving inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030.
- 2019 UNESCO OER recommendations, which provide an opportunity for the open education community to work with national governments to help them understand and implement open education recommendations in their countries.
This study by John Hilton III synthesizes results from sixteen efficacy and twenty perceptions studies involving 121,168 students or faculty that examine either (1) OER and student efficacy in higher education settings or (2) the perceptions of college students and/or instructors who have used OER.
Although textbooks are a traditional component in many higher education contexts, their increasing price have led many students to forgo purchasing them and some faculty to seek substitutes. One such alternative is open educational resources (OER). This study by John Hilton III synthesizes results from sixteen efficacy and twenty perceptions studies involving 121,168 students or faculty that examine either (1) OER and student efficacy in higher education settings or (2) the perceptions of college students and/or instructors who have used OER.
COL President and CEO Professor Asha Kanwar delivered a keynote at the eighth Distance Education and Teachers’ Training in Africa (DETA) Conference at the University of Lagos, Nigeria on 24 July 2019.
COL President and CEO Professor Asha Kanwar delivered a keynote address at the eighth Distance Education and Teachers’ Training in Africa (DETA) Conference at the University of Lagos, Nigeria on 24 July 2019.
In her address, ‘Educating the African Learner in an Era of Crises: What are the options?’ Professor Kanwar explored five crises that impact education: climate change, migration and displacement, out-of-school youth, the ‘learning crises’ and the challenge of pedagogy.
On Wednesday 3 April, 2019, Neil Butcher of OER Africa conducted a webinar for librarians, hosted by the African Library & Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA). The webinar was the first in a series of three on open education resources (OER) for librarians.
On Wednesday 3 April 2019, Neil Butcher of OER Africa conducted a webinar for librarians, hosted by the African Library & Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA). The webinar was the first in a series of three on open education resources (OER) for librarians. In the webinar, Butcher introduced librarians to OERs, and described the Creative Commons licences licensing conditions. Butcher explained that librarians need to spend time understanding the licences to be able to explain them to library users, so that these users can get maximum value from OERs and also create and share their own work. Butcher discussed the opportunities presented to librarians, students, and academics through the use of OER, as well as various OER repositories to be found online. These OER repositories provide a platform for content creators to show African content to the world, and ensure that African content creators are active in global knowledge networks. Butcher presented examples of African OERs in practice, and explained how institutional policies on OER use and Internet access are essential for African academic libraries. The webinar was well received, and over 100 librarians participated.
In Webinar 2 in the series, held on 17 April 2019, Lisbeth Levey introduced Open Access (OA) publishing and licensing models. Lisbeth described how to determine reputable OA publishers. Dr Tony Lelliott explained how OER and OA intersect, and how good research can help educators prepare up-to-date and relevant learning materials. He identified African institutional repositories and discussed the importance of institutional OA policies and repository management. By the end of this webinar, librarians understood the ramifications of high-cost journal subscriptions, how they can help researchers identify high-quality OA journals, and how to manage institutional repositories. Librarians should be able to situate themselves as champions of OA within the university community. Webinar participants responded with many questions for the presenters, indicating deep engagement with the topic.
Webinar 3, on 2 May 2019, closed out the series by contemplating the implications of OER for librarians. In the first two webinars, librarians learned how to find and assess openly licenced resources. In the final webinar, presented by Kirsty von Gogh, librarians discovered how to integrate what they learned about openly licences resources into their work. With access to openly licenced resources, librarians need to establish processes for managing this content and to find ways of supporting academics and students to access and use high-quality research and resources.
For more on the webinars series, visit: http://web.aflia.net/open-educational-resources-oer-webinar-series-for-african-librarians/
The webinars are available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPaQeggWf7gVPSkLhYl9_8g
This new publication has been put together by the OER Africa team in partnership with UNESCO IITE. The aim of the research was to shed light on economic and pedagogical value of investing in OER.
This new publication has been put together by the OER Africa team in partnership with UNESCO IITE. The aim of the research was to shed light on economic and pedagogical value of investing in OER.
This free online course on OER from the Commonwealth of Learning has recently been updated. It is interactive and on completion you can download a certificate of participation.
This free online course on OER from the Commonwealth of Learning has recently been updated. It is interactive and on completion you can download a certificate of participation.
Participant Experiences and Financial Impacts: Findings from Year 2 of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative.
Participant Experiences and Financial Impacts: Findings from Year 2 of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative. This report expands on last year’s report with updated course and enrollment data as well as new findings about students’ perceptions of their OER courses and the institutional costs and actual student savings of OER degree pathways.
We are excited to announce that the Partnership for Enhanced and Blended Learning project, a collaborative project to develop blended learning courses with university partners across East Africa, will be using our platform to showcase these OER.
We are excited to announce that the Partnership for Enhanced and Blended Learning (PEBL) Project, a collaborative project to develop blended learning courses with university partners across East Africa, will be using our platform to showcase these OER.
As the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) 14-strong portfolio of open online courses continues impacting internationally, six have been singled out as world class by global MOOC monitoring website Class Central, based on participants’ reviews.
As the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) 14-strong portfolio of open online courses continues impacting internationally, six have been singled out as world class by global MOOC monitoring website Class Central, based on participants’ reviews.
Open Praxis has partnered with the Open Education Consortium for the publication of selected papers among those presented in the 2018 Open Education Global Conference.
For a fifth consecutive year, Open Praxis has partnered with the Open Education Consortium for the publication of selected papers among those presented in the 2018 Open Education Global Conference. The conference theme was Transforming Education Through Open Approaches. This latest issue is now available on the Open Praxis website.
The latest JL4D features three articles on OER Research in Africa, including "Learning for Development in the Context of South Africa
The latest JL4D features three articles on OER Research in Africa, including "Learning for Development in the Context of South Africa: Considerations for Open Education Resources in Improving Higher Education Outcomes" by Narend Baijnath CEO of the Council on Higher Education. Kirk Perris of the Commonwealth of Learning reviews the CILT research "Adoption and Impact of OER in the Global South".
The African Virtual University (AVU) has released 1,335 Open Educational Resources (OERs) under the Creative Commons license CC BY 2.5.
The African Virtual University (AVU) has released 1,335 Open Educational Resources (OERs) under the Creative Commons license CC BY 2.5. The new materials include 234 open textbooks or modules, 83 videos and 945 learning objects extracted from the modules. All resources are freely available online at OER@AVU http://oer.avu.org, an initiative launched in 2011 with some 288 open resources. OER@AVU has been a great contribution to the African and global OER communities; as of July 2018, it hosts a total of 1,623 resources available in English, French and Portuguese.
Saide's OER Africa consultant, Brenda Mallinson, will be running a session together with Shadrack Mbogela from the Open University of Tanzania on "Exploring the Digital Fluency course for Academic staff Professional Development" at the e/merge Online Festival.
Saide's OER Africa consultant, Brenda Mallinson, will be running a session together with Shadrack Mbogela from the Open University of Tanzania on "Exploring the Digital Fluency course for Academic staff Professional Development" at the e/merge Online Festival. The workshop was a live stream session on Tuesday 17th July (15:00-17:00) and the materials will be open for at least a week afterwards for participants to engage with the DF courses on the OUT Moodle.
Discover ten key facts about open educational resources (OERs) in an easy to digest format. Each fact is supplemented with links to worldwide resources extending and deepening the core idea.
Discover ten key facts about open educational resources (OERs) in an easy to digest format. Each fact is supplemented with links to worldwide resources extending and deepening the core idea. Learn how OERs help make quality learning accessible, relevant and equitable. Ten Key Facts About OERs is the second in a series by Contact North on current and emerging tools influencing and shaping online learning such as Blended Learning, Learning Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Online Proctoring.
Exploring Aspects of Digital Fluency for Blended Teaching and Learning. Workshop presentation by Brenda Mallinson to The First Annual Teaching and Learning Conference 2018 at North West University, South Africa. The workshop was on the digital fluency course developed together with the Open University of Tanzania.
Exploring Aspects of Digital Fluency for Blended Teaching and Learning. Workshop presentation by Brenda Mallinson to The First Annual Teaching and Learning Conference 2018 at North West University, South Africa. The workshop was on the digital fluency course developed together with the Open University of Tanzania.
London School of Economics Press has launched the latest in a succession of new university press initiatives and one that will support the development of high-quality, academic-led, open access publications in the social sciences. Kieran Booluck provides details of the first LSE Press journal and outlines plans for the press to pursue more innovative publications and experiment with new types of content.
London School of Economics Press has launched the latest in a succession of new university press initiatives and one that will support the development of high-quality, academic-led, open access publications in the social sciences. Kieran Booluck provides details of the first LSE Press journal and outlines plans for the press to pursue more innovative publications and experiment with new types of content.
COL has identified the development of OER as a potential answer to the challenges of access to relevant learning resources to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. Provincial/regional OER policies and guidelines were developed in Sri Lanka, Botswana, and Cameroon involving provincial/regional education policymakers.
COL has identified the development of OER as a potential answer to the challenges of access to relevant learning resources to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. Provincial/regional OER policies and guidelines were developed in Sri Lanka, Botswana, and Cameroon involving provincial/regional education policymakers. The innovation of this project lies in the collaborative approach adopted for OER policy/guideline development.
The Open Pedagogy Notebook has been set up by Rajiv Jhangiani from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia and Robin deRosa from the Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. They are encouraging online submissions of examples of open pedagogical practices from practioners throughout the world.
The Open Pedagogy Notebook has been set up by Rajiv Jhangiani from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia and Robin deRosa from the Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. They are encouraging online submissions of examples of open pedagogical practices from practioners throughout the world.
This volume examines aspects of educator and student adoption of OER and engagement in Open Educational Practices (OEP) in secondary and tertiary education as well as teacher professional development in 21 countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
This volume examines aspects of educator and student adoption of OER and engagement in Open Educational Practices (OEP) in secondary and tertiary education as well as teacher professional development in 21 countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
The BCcampus Open Education Self-Publishing Guide is a reference for individuals or groups wanting to write and self-publish an open textbook. This guide provides details on the preparation, planning, writing, publication, and maintenance of an open textbook. This looks like a very useful resource for the OER Africa partners.
The BCcampus Open Education Self-Publishing Guide is a reference for individuals or groups wanting to write and self-publish an open textbook. This guide provides details on the preparation, planning, writing, publication, and maintenance of an open textbook. This looks like a very useful resource for the OER Africa partners.
An important new resource has just been timeously released during Open Education Week. The question of “what makes a good actor or not” in OER is one that Lisa Petrides, founder and CEO of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, has addressed in a new guide for OER stewardship.
An important new resource has just been timeously released during Open Education Week. The question of “what makes a good actor or not” in OER is one that Lisa Petrides, founder and CEO of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, has addressed in a new guide for OER stewardship.
Ten Year's since the Cape Town Declaration, Melissa Hagemann of the Open Society Foundation reflects on OER developments.
Ten Year's since the Cape Town Declaration, Melissa Hagemann of the Open Society Foundation reflects on OER developments.
The ROER4D project being managed through the University of Cape Town is releasing chapters from their forthcoming online publication. In this chapter the authors report on an investigation into the production and rollout of four MOOCs at UCT in South Africa, and on the experiences of the educators involved in their production.
The ROER4D project being managed through the University of Cape Town is releasing chapters from their forthcoming online publication. In this chapter the authors report on an investigation into the production and rollout of four MOOCs at UCT in South Africa, and on the experiences of the educators involved in their production.
The OpenMed Consortium has recently released materials that form part of a capacity building course entitled "Open Education Fundamentals and Approaches - A Learning Journey to Open Up Teaching in Higher Education". Neil Butcher provides a review.
The OpenMed Consortium has recently released materials that form part of a capacity building course entitled "Open Education Fundamentals and Approaches - A Learning Journey to Open Up Teaching in Higher Education". Neil Butcher provides a review.
Launching OER Degree Pathways: An Early Snapshot of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative and Emerging Lessons is a formative evaluation report prepared by SRI International that was released in June, 2017.
Launching OER Degree Pathways: An Early Snapshot of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative and Emerging Lessons is a formative evaluation report prepared by SRI International that was released in June, 2017. It is a preliminary report that shares findings from initial surveys and interviews of an initiative to launch ‘OER degrees’ in 38 community colleges across the United States of America, which is being led by Achieving the Dream.
Jenny Glennie and Neil Butcher recently attended the 2nd World OER Congress in Slovenia. South Africa was represented by the Honourable Minister Angie Motshekga, Minister of the Department of Basic Education. Ministers present reaffirmed their committment of the important role of OERs in the attached Ministerial Statement.
Jenny Glennie and Neil Butcher recently attended the 2nd World OER Congress in Slovenia. South Africa was represented by the Honourable Minister Angie Motshekga, Minister of the Department of Basic Education. Ministers present reaffirmed their committment of the important role of OERs in the attached Ministerial Statement.
We have created a PDF of our Supporting Distance Learners online resource that will be used at a workshop to be conducted at the University of Lesotho which others may find useful too.
We have created a PDF of our Supporting Distance Learners online resource that will be used at a workshop to be conducted at the University of Lesotho which others may find useful too.
Amanda Coolidge, Senior Manager , Open Education at BC Campus, and Daniel De Marte, Chief Academic Officer at Tidewater Community College have released an interactive toolkit to support institutions develop open policies. The toolkit is licensed CC BY and institutions are free to reuse it, remix it, revise it, and/or redistribute it.
Amanda Coolidge, Senior Manager , Open Education at BC Campus, and Daniel De Marte, Chief Academic Officer at Tidewater Community College have released an interactive toolkit to support institutions develop open policies. The toolkit is licensed CC BY and institutions are free to reuse it, remix it, revise it, and/or redistribute it.
Everyone talks about OER Policy, but what does it mean? What do OER policies look like in practice? How do they impact OER initiatives? How does our government and our world perceive Open policy?
Everyone talks about OER Policy, but what does it mean? What do OER policies look like in practice? How do they impact OER initiatives? How does our government and our world perceive Open policy?