1. 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 < 1

2. 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:
Collection of 19 OER video interviews in Ghana: 2

3. 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

4. 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. 4

5. 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

6. 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, Photo by: Saide.
Students work as dScribes: digital and distributed scribes
Multiple languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, Afrikaans, Xhosa, …) 6

7. Visualization of greatest word frequency in YouTube comments – from wordle.com.
Developed at Ann Arbor Data Dive 7

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

9. 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

12. 12

13. Including assessments in learning modules13

14. 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

15. Questions/Discussion

16. Ted Hanss Chief Information Officer University of Michigan Medical School More information: open.umich.edu Acknowledgement: This project is supported by the Hewlett Foundation 16