University of Michigan Health Open Educational Resources: Local Capacity Building and Global Sharing African Health OER Network Case Study Ted Hanss University of Michigan UNESCO World OER Congress 22 June 2012 Copyright 2012 The University of Michigan. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/>. 1

Challenges Low budgets, small workforce, high disease burden Scarce, aging, and emigrating teaching staff Insufficient classroom spaces Image CC:BY-NC University of Ghana Crowded clinical settings The Ghanaian government aims to triple the number of healthcare workers, but according to a study by Dr. Frank Anderson from University of Michigan, the Ghanaian medical schools can only admit 30% of qualified applicants due to limited faculty size. 2 minute video interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFjJe8ZJkJU Collection of 19 OER video interviews in Ghana: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF4EC45F2B54D6112 2

When you look in textbooks it’s difficult to find African cases When you look in textbooks it’s difficult to find African cases. The cases may be pretty similar but sometimes it can be confusing when you see something that you see on white skin so nicely and very easy to pick up, but on the dark skin it has a different manifestation that may be difficult to see. -Richard Phillips, lecturer, Department of Internal Medicine, KNUST (Ghana) Image CC:BY-NC-SA Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

The mission of the African Health Open Educational Resources (OER) Network is to advance health education in Africa by creating and promoting free, openly licensed teaching materials created by Africans to share knowledge, address curriculum gaps, and support health education communities. The African Health OER Network is co-facilitated by U-M and the South African Institute for Distance Education/OER Africa. Other founding members include Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana, University of Cape Town, and University of the Western Cape. www.oerafrica.org/healthoer 4

Approach Gather Existing Materials Assist health professionals in finding materials that are free, electronic, and openly licensed (i.e. expressly allow the general public to use, adapt, copy, and redistribute) Approach Facilitate Discussion Foster dialogue between health professionals around pedagogy, policy, peer review, and openness via onsite consultation, discussion lists, conference calls, and newsletters Publicly Distribute Materials Promote the materials worldwide through multiple online and offline methods Adapt and Create New Materials Provide tools and guides for educators and students to design, license, and share learning materials

OER Africa Convening, 2011. Photo by: Saide. Accomplishments 160 individuals trained Student publishing assistants 12 institutions have contributed 135 learning modules, including 339 separate materials 144 videos Over 1 million YouTube views Access from over 190 countries Policy workshops and subsequent implementation of OER-enabling policies OER Africa Convening, 2011. Photo by: Saide. Students work as dScribes: digital and distributed scribes Multiple languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, Afrikaans, Xhosa, …) 6

Visualization of greatest word frequency in YouTube comments – from wordle.com. Developed at Ann Arbor Data Dive http://wiki.datawithoutborders.cc/index.php?title=Project:Current_events:A2_DD 7

OER Examples Midwifery students in Malawi at Kamuzu College of Nursing show off OER course materials on CD-ROM 8

Image CC:BY-NC-SA Saide and University of Botswana Example of re-mixing and re-use, materials from several different institutions collected on a CD for distribution to students. Image CC:BY-NC-SA Saide and University of Botswana 9

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Including assessments in learning modules 13

Challenges and Lessons Learned Intellectual property and faculty reward Technology standards and interoperability Building partnerships and sustainability Best Practices: Institutional level planning Building collaborations with other institutions Planning the big picture Deployment Assessment Sustainability This is all applicable to other regions of the world. Institutional level planning Does this support our mission? Is this the right time? Do we have the right leaders involved at each level of the organization? Building collaborations with other institutions Are there mutual benefits? Is there trust and respect? Who will be the champions to lead and support the process? OR “Have we identified champions that are committed to leading and supporting the process?” Planning the big picture (list this as first item?) What’s the vision of our final outcome? Why does it matter? Deployment Do we have the necessary components (human resources, technical resources)? What existing resources/people can we leverage? What’s most efficient and realistic for local conditions? What can we jump start with modest seed funding? Assessment Do we have a plan to measure our process, and outcomes? Where/who are the key functions/people who need feedback to improve the process/system? Is this process/system effective to reach our goals/outcome? Sustainability How can “new” be integrated into “usual” processes? Are enough of the right people trained in mission critical functions? Are new leaders being groomed? 14

Questions/Discussion

Ted Hanss Chief Information Officer University of Michigan Medical School ted@umich.edu +1.734.998.0086 More information: www.oerafrica.org/healthoer open.umich.edu Acknowledgement: This project is supported by the Hewlett Foundation 16