Egerton University, Njoro 28 th April, 2009 OER Africa An introduction

Who we are  OER Africa  OER Africa is an innovative new project, headquartered in Nairobi, under the auspices of SAIDE.  Established to play a leading role in driving the development and use of OER in Africa.  Seed funding from the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation to harness African experts and expertise to deploy OER to the benefit of Africa’s higher education systems. Introducing OER Africa 2 28th April, 2009

Why Open Educational Resources? Concept Concept:  Educational resources for use by educators and learners, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence fees.  New licensing frameworks remove copying / adaptation restrictions.  OER hold potential for reducing the cost of accessing educational materials. Introducing OER Africa 3 28th April, 2009

Key Assumptions OER holds potential: 1.To increase availability of high quality, relevant and need-targeted learning materials; 2.To reduce the cost of accessing educational materials; 3.To allow adaptation of materials and possibly contribute to enabling learners to be active participants in educational processes; 4.To achieve collaborative partnership of people working in communities of practice, preferably across/within institutions; Introducing OER Africa 4 28th April, 2009

5.To build capacity in African higher education institutions by providing educators with access, at low or no cost, to the tools and content required to produce high quality educational materials. 6.To be successful and sustainable, development of OER cannot be a sideline activity within a university. 7.OER Africa seeks to facilitate the design of OER that can work immediately and add educational value within the current ICT infrastructure constraints of any participating institutions. 5 Introducing OER Africa Key Assumptions (cont’d) 28th April, 2009

A Vision for Higher Education in Africa:  Vibrant, sustainable  Vibrant, sustainable African higher education 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. Introducing OER Africa 6 28th April, 2009

Why do we exist?  OER Africa  OER Africa believes that OER can positively support development and capacity of higher education systems and institutions across Africa.  OER Africa  OER Africa is concerned that – if the concept and practice of OER evolves predominantly outside and for Africa – we will not be able to liberate its potential. Introducing OER Africa 7 28th April, 2009

What is the OER Africa premise?  To ensure that the power of OER is harnessed by Africans for Africans by building collaborative networks across the continent.  To facilitate the aggregation of information and human expertise that produces knowledge  There is a need to establish, encourage, and promote African communities of practice for OER that support the entire process of educational design, not simply use of external content Introducing OER Africa 8 28th April, 2009

Our Mission vibrant networks of African OER practitionersconnecting  to establish vibrant 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. Introducing OER Africa 9 28th April, 2009

ACTIVITY PLAN Introducing OER Africa1028th April, 2009

institutional capacity  To work systematically with partners to enhance institutional capacity in higher education to design, develop, and deliver quality higher education programs and materials; collaboratively creating sharing  To advocate the merits of collaboratively creating and sharing intellectual capital in higher education as a mechanism to improve quality and enhance long-term cost-effectiveness; supportive policy frameworks  To help higher education institutions to establish supportive policy frameworks that support openness in the development, adaptation, and use of educational resources, and convert this into sustainable business models; Introducing OER Africa 11 28th April, 2009 Proposed Contribution (1)

 To establish an online platform that facilitates African collaboration in OER development and sharing, while inter-connecting this platform with the many OER communities emerging globally;  To facilitate the re-development and reinvention of African higher education program curricula and course materials of exceptional quality and direct contextual relevance, producing world class graduates. Introducing OER Africa 12 28th April, 2009 Proposed Contribution (2)

OER Africa Activities (1) Structured Institutional Engagement:  Initial OER Sensitization & Exploration;  Policy Reviews to support development supportive institutional environment;  Materials Audits;  Proof of Concept Pilots; communication / relationship- building  Regular & ongoing communication / relationship- building. Introducing OER Africa 13 28th April, 2009

OER Africa Activities (2) Creation of collaborative networks via OER domain-focused approach:  Health OER;  ACDE Working Group on Collaboration;  SAIDE projects. Phase 2  Expansion of above networks; Agriculture  Application of similar strategies to other key domain areas, e.g. Agriculture, Engineering, Teacher Education and the Arts and Humanities as the need arises. Introducing OER Africa 14 28th April, 2009

OER Africa’s Activities (3) Ongoing research into OER concepts and practice in Africa:  Aggregating Research Resources.  Coordinating OER Africa Research activities:  Financially and educationally sustainable models for development, adaptation and use of OER in African higher education institutions;  Online discussions leading to research papers on key topics (e.g. remuneration), and;  Research into possible differences in the uptake and effect of OER in different subject domain areas. 15 Introducing OER Africa28th April, 2009

Management and growth of the OER Africa website at  Launched in April 2008; revised in October 2008;  Host to the following CoPs:  ACEMaths ACEMaths  HEALTH OER HEALTH OER  PHEA-ETI PHEA-ETI  OER Africa Research Space OER Africa Research Space  Skills for a Changing World Skills for a Changing World  Meta-data federated with global OER repositories, thereby creating greater visibility for African- created OER. 16 Introducing OER Africa OER Africa’s Activities (4) 28th April, 2009

Thank you Catherine Ngugi Project Director