OER Africa – An Introduction (Kenya Methodist University, Meru) October 2009

OER AfricaOER AfricaAn introductionAn introduction

Kenya Methodist University

Meru, Kenya

8th October, 2009

Who we areWho we are OER Africa OER Africa is an innovative new project, headquartered in

Nairobi, under the auspices of SAIDESAIDE.

Established to play a leading role in driving the development and use of OER in Africa.

OER Africa OER Africa brings together all of SAIDE’s OER-related activities under a common conceptual framework designed to ensure that the full value proposition of OER is unleashed to the greatest possible effect in African education.

Seed funding from the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and a wide variety of projects and partnerships running across Africa, to deploy African experts and expertise to harness the concept of OER to the benefit of education systems on the continent and around the world.

8th October, 2009 Introduction to KeMU 2

What is the Vision of OER Africa?What is the Vision of OER Africa?

Vibrant and sustainable African education systems and institutions that play a critical role in building and sustaining African societies and economies, by producing the continent’s future intellectual leaders through free and open development and sharing of common intellectual capital.


What is the Mission of OER Africa?What is the Mission of OER Africa?

To establish dynamic networks of African OER practitioners by connecting like-minded academics from across the continent to develop, share, and adapt OER to meet the higher education needs of African societies.

By creating and sustaining human networks of collaboration – face-to-face and online – OER Africa will enable African academics to harness the power of OER, develop their capacity, and become integrated into the emerging global OER networks as active participants rather than passive consumers.


What is / are OER?What is / are OER?

The concept : Educational resources that are freely available for

use by educators and learners, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence fees.

OER is not synonymous with online learning or e-learning;

Within an African context, it is anticipated that many of the resources produced – while shareable in a digital format (both online and via offline formats

such as CD-ROM) – will be printable.


The OER Value PropositionThe OER Value Proposition

Whilst OER concept means different things to different people, we believe that it can make the following potential contributions to African education:

1. Increased availability of relevant, need-targeted learning materials can contribute to more productive learners and faculty members.

2. Because OER removes restrictions around copying resources, it holds potential for reducing the cost of accessing educational materials.


OER Value Proposition (2)OER Value Proposition (2)

1. The principle of adaptation contributes to enabling learners to be active participants in educational processes – to learn by doing and creating – not just by passively reading and absorbing.

2. Collaborative partnerships of people working in communities of practice are key: collaborative OER processes built on networks of peer members can lead to increased availability of relevant, need-targeted learning materials


OER Value Proposition (3)OER Value Proposition (3)

1. OER has the potential to build capacity in African education by providing educators with access, at low or no cost, to the tools and content that they need to boost their ability to produce high quality educational materials and complete the necessary instructional design to integrate such materials into high quality programmes of learning.


Requirements for Successful Requirements for Successful ImplementationImplementation Collaborative partnerships within Africa, and

between African education institutions and those from other parts of the world;

Ownership by African educators of resulting OER products – simply importing content into Africa from other parts of the world will do nothing to solve capacity and resource constraints in African education systems.


Requirements for Success (2)Requirements for Success (2)

Development of OER cannot be a sideline activity –dev’t of learning resources should be integrated dev’t of learning resources should be integrated into institutional or systemic processes in order to be successful and sustainable.

PoliciesPolicies, e.g. intellectual property rights, remuneration, and promotion, need to support and sustain licensing of educational materials as OER.

Whilst potential of OER lies within active collaborations and a new economic model for procuring and publishing learning materials, ultimate key will be that OER will help over-stretched educators to manage their work more effectively.


Our Operational ApproachOur Operational Approach

Wherever possible, to try to build relationships with existing networks of African education systems, institutions, and educators, and provide support of different kinds to the networks, to institutions, and to individual educators:


1. Institutional Policy Engagement1. Institutional Policy Engagement Success and sustainability of OER is predicated

upon its meaningful integration into the institutional processes of a university.

OER Africa offers African universities practical support in the mapping and review of their existing policies with regard, for example, to intellectual property rights, materials development, and remuneration.

We facilitate the adaptation of such policies / their elaboration into an over-arching OER policy framework that, in accordance with your particular circumstances, will support and sustain the development and use of OER.


2. Development or Adaption2. Development or Adaption

OER for Higher Education Programmes

Aim is improved quality and more effective management of delivery costs;

Examples range from single modules to processes aimed at developing entire programmes;

Support to HEI program dev’t or adaptation takes 10 key forms;


Development or Adaption (2)Development or Adaption (2)

upporting initial design and planning of the proposed development process;

ssisting in materials audits so as to catalogue their intellectual property and the copyright conditions governing those materials;

roviding ongoing guidance regarding licensing issues;

earching global repositories and other appropriate sources for potentially relevant materials;

roadening searches by targeting the global OER ‘movement’ on behalf of African universities;


Development or Adaption (3)Development or Adaption (3)

Facilitating materials development/adaptation processes where required;

Supplying instructional design expertise to support the process as appropriate;

Providing management support to materials development processes where this is required;

Assisting with generation of meta-data for OER produced (whether new or adapted); and

Using the OER Africa platform – www.oerafrica.org – to make OER produced in Africa accessible to the global OER community.


http://www.oerafrica.org/

3. Support to Collaborative Networks3. Support to Collaborative Networks

Assisting to convene the network (particularly in instances where a need for collaboration has been identified, but no functioning network yet exists);

Facilitating processes to design collaborative projects for such networks;

Supporting development of funding proposals for the network (particularly important as much collaboration is undermined by the limits of available funds to allow institutions to dedicate human capacity to collaborative activities);


3. Support to Collaborative Networks3. Support to Collaborative Networks

Managing collaborative projects in the field of OER, where this is requested by the network;

Providing online tools for collaboration and sharing through the OER Africa website; and

Providing other forms of support as appropriate to help to ensure the success and sustainability of the network.



WORKING WITH PARTNERS: HEALTH OER

OER Africa ActivitiesOER Africa Activities (Summary) (Summary)Structured Institutional Engagement: Initial OER Sensitization & Exploration;

Policy Reviews to support development supportive institutional environment;

Materials Audits;

Proof of Concept Pilots in support of the reinvention of African higher education program curricula;

Regular & ongoing communication / relationship-communication / relationship-buildingbuilding.

A one-stop OER online platform – www.oerafrica.org

208th October, 2009 Introduction to KeMU

http://www.oerafrica.org/

Q & A


Thank youThank youCatherine Ngugi

Project Director

[email protected]

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”

Author unknown

mailto:[email protected]

Thank youThank you

Catherine NgugiProject Director

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

OER Africa – An Introduction (Kenya Methodist University, Meru) October 2009

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Transcript of OER Africa – An Introduction (Kenya Methodist University, Meru) October 2009