OER Africa AfLIA Webinars Series for Librarians
On Wednesday 3 April 2019, Neil Butcher of OER Africa conducted a webinar for librarians, hosted by the African Library & Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA). The webinar was the first in a series of three on open education resources (OER) for librarians. In the webinar, Butcher introduced librarians to OERs, and described the Creative Commons licences licensing conditions. Butcher explained that librarians need to spend time understanding the licences to be able to explain them to library users, so that these users can get maximum value from OERs and also create and share their own work. Butcher discussed the opportunities presented to librarians, students, and academics through the use of OER, as well as various OER repositories to be found online. These OER repositories provide a platform for content creators to show African content to the world, and ensure that African content creators are active in global knowledge networks. Butcher presented examples of African OERs in practice, and explained how institutional policies on OER use and Internet access are essential for African academic libraries. The webinar was well received, and over 100 librarians participated.
In Webinar 2 in the series, held on 17 April 2019, Lisbeth Levey introduced Open Access (OA) publishing and licensing models. Lisbeth described how to determine reputable OA publishers. Dr Tony Lelliott explained how OER and OA intersect, and how good research can help educators prepare up-to-date and relevant learning materials. He identified African institutional repositories and discussed the importance of institutional OA policies and repository management. By the end of this webinar, librarians understood the ramifications of high-cost journal subscriptions, how they can help researchers identify high-quality OA journals, and how to manage institutional repositories. Librarians should be able to situate themselves as champions of OA within the university community. Webinar participants responded with many questions for the presenters, indicating deep engagement with the topic.
Webinar 3, on 2 May 2019, closed out the series by contemplating the implications of OER for librarians. In the first two webinars, librarians learned how to find and assess openly licenced resources. In the final webinar, presented by Kirsty von Gogh, librarians discovered how to integrate what they learned about openly licences resources into their work. With access to openly licenced resources, librarians need to establish processes for managing this content and to find ways of supporting academics and students to access and use high-quality research and resources.
For more on the webinars series, visit: http://web.aflia.net/open-educational-resources-oer-webinar-series-for-african-librarians/
The webinars are available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPaQeggWf7gVPSkLhYl9_8g