EDULINK - SideCap Project Louise Vakamocea & Alanieta Lesuma-Fatiaki
Overview About the SideCap Project Other institutions Study Skills package Delivery formats Where to from here? Progress so far 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
Study Skills Package Priority areas based on majority student need –Assignment writing –Reading –Note taking ^& Summarising –Referencing Based on the project time-frame, refocused on intergrating the above skills into one module OER material – University of Otago
Delivery formats Online (facilitator led & self-paced) Links to all courses & Future consideration –DVD –Blended; F2f & Online
Progress so far Each institution tasked to repurpose one course each; –UWI – Masters level course in ID –UM – Masters level course in Research Methods –USP – Study Skills Package Repurposing OER Manual Content outline & list of OER materials used By 1 August st draft of repurposed material By early/mid November 2008
Many thanks… EU Lead Researcher – Professor Robin Mason CEDT for its vision and support USP – host for the Final Dissemination Event
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: