EDULINK - SideCAP Project Progress Report – Dec 08 Louise Vakamocea & Alanieta Lesuma-Fatiaki

Overview  About the SideCap Project  Other institutions  Core & Other Activities  Mauritius Workshop – Outcomes  Way Forward  Recommendations  Many thanks…

About the SideCap Project SideCap stands for, Staff Improvement in distance education for Carribean, African and Pacific universities EU funded project – 32 months 5 institutions; OU, UHI, UM, UWI & USP Led by Professor Robin Mason, OU

About the SideCap Project Overall objective –Promote multilateral activities amongst European and ACP partners through practical activities, networking and hands on exercises to improve the quality of teaching and support for students. Specific objective –Repurpose existing Open Content teaching material and adapt it to local contexts using appropriate technologies

Defining OER OER – Open Educational Resources First adopted at UNESCO Forum of Open Courseware for HE in Developing Countries educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute. –Learning Content –Tools –Implementation resources ( Source:

OER Sites

Project Activities 1 - Project website setup & maintenance (UHI) 2 - Preparation of background reports (All) 3 - Kick-off meeting at the OU 4 - Establish ACP Researchers Network 5 - Open Content activity 6 - Open Content in DE workshop in UM 7 – Technology Training 8 – Drafts of Teaching Material 9 – QA Workshop in UWI 10 – Cascading Activity 11 – Final Dissemination Event in USP 12 – Final Evaluation Report

Other institutions University of Mauritius (UM) –Participants; Prof. Alain Senteni & Mohammad Santally –Heavily involved in setting up of technology based applications University of the West Indies (UWI) –Participants; Roger Powell & Stewart Marshall –Setting up of Open Campus University of Highlands & Islands (UHI) Millenium Institute –Co Principal Researcher - Frank Rennie OU –Lead Researcher - Prof. Robin Mason

Core & Other Activities

Mauritius Workshop - Outcomes Presentation by each partner on material they have written, repurposed published Documentation of each stage of developing the course In-depth discussion on a process framework/lifecycle for OER courseware development. (14 steps from USP – 5 Steps lifecycle from UoM/UHI-OU which were quite similar) Collaboration with African region (WGDEOL)

Way Forward Complete pilot courses by proposed deadline June 2009 Dissemination of information about project through cascading events Write a chapter towards the book on 'how to repurpose Open Content for distance education in developing countries.' ‘Prototype-run’ at least one from each partner with a few students and peers to evaluate and see responses etc in each partner’s context.

Way Forward UHI – Technology Training (June 2009) UWI – Quality Assurance (September 2009) USP – Final Dissemination Event (Jan 2010?)

Recommendations The process towards the signing of the MOU be executed as soon as possible as a lot of man hours and finances have been put into the project thus far The planning for the final dissemination event begin in early 2009 (February) with a committee set up to oversee this process. Our workloads are reviewed to enable us to fulfill the objectives of the project by the deadline. That an invitation be made through the Commonwealth of Learning for Mr Paul West to present on Copyright Issues.

Many thanks… The EU The USP The Project team leaders; Professor Robin Mason of the Open University, UK and Professor Frank Rennie, University of Highlands and Islands (UHI), Scotland Our Project partners; University of Mauritius and the University of the West Indies.

Web links SideCap Project site: SideCap Group hub: SideCap Project blog: OpenLearn site: –Cohere: OU site: UM: –UM, VCILT: UWI: –UWI, Open Campus: UHI: –UHI, Lewis Castle College: OIL site: