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Effective is crucial for building knowledge, enhancing educational praxis, and improving student outcomes in higher education. OER Africa’s CPD framework space offers:

  • academics and academic librarians a structured,
  • resource-rich pathway to professional growth,
  • and impactful teaching and learning experiences.

This space is designed to help you explore comprehensive and access curated resources that correspond to the frameworks. Each resource provides suggestions for how it might be deployed in a CPD intervention.

What is CPD?

CPD refers to the activities and learning that professionals undertake to enhance their skills and knowledge. In higher education, CPD is about more than individual growth; it is about cultivating changes in teaching practices that lead to improved student learning outcomes. CPD can empower academics and academic librarians to adapt to the evolving demands of higher education, stay informed of best practices, and continuously build their expertise.

What are CPD Frameworks?

A CPD framework is a structured planning guide designed to support the career development of higher education professionals. While CPD can often happen informally, a framework helps make the process more intentional and focussed, ensuring that academic and academic librarian CPD aligns with institutional goals. CPD frameworks are particularly valuable for navigating the growing complexity in higher education, where professionals face pressures from massification, digitalization, and the need for career advancement (Inamorato, Gausas, Mackeviciute, Jotatutyte, & Martinaitis, 2019).

CPD Frameworks

Academics

CPD Framework for Academics

The framework consists of domains and capability descriptors.

There are 11 domains, of which OER Africa is developing four key domains initially. These are: 

  • Course Design
  • Materials Development
  • Facilitating Learning
  • Effective Assessment and Feedback.

Each domain contains capability descriptors that break the domain down into smaller units.

Download FrameworkView All Resources

Academic Librarians

CPD Framework for Academic Librarians

This CPD framework is for academic librarians in all African tertiary institutions. Using the framework can bring about planned, ongoing, and continuous learning for African academic librarians for improved service delivery, better engagement with knowledge trends, and increased ability to integrate useful technology into information provision.

The framework consists of ten domains and corresponding capability descriptors.

Resources will be available shortly.

Download Framework
CourseDesign MaterialsDevelopment FacilitatingLearning EffectiveAssessmentand Feedback LeadershipandManagementin HE LearningAnalytics CurriculumQualityAssurance Research Outreach Post-GraduationSupervision SubjectKnowledge for Academics CPDFramework OpenKnowledge Copyright andLicensing DigitalKnowledgeManagement LibraryExcellence LibraryDataManagement UserCommunityEngagement E-Learning Partnerships andCollaboration Library Grants Advocacy for AcademicLibrarians CPDFramework

Academic Librarians Key Domains

Open Knowledge

Domain

The democratization of knowledge boosts innovative solutions to development challenges.

Capability descriptors. Academic Librarians can...

  • Explain the concept of openness and knowledge as a public good.
  • Propagate the principles of Open Science, open data, Open access, Open Education, Open knowledge and implications for knowledge creation, scholarly communication, storage, dissemination and libraries
  • Explain the characteristics and advantages of open knowledge across different disciplines in order to support decision-making for adoption
  • Create clear pathways for library users to understand how to adopt Open science, open licensing, open data, open access, open educational resources, and other open knowledge practices
  • Find, use and contribute to repositories of open resources
  • Define indicators and keep track of progress for awareness, adoption and use of open knowledge practices within the institution
  • Advocate and make inputs into institutional policies that support Open knowledge

Copyright and Licensing

Domain

Understanding the different pathways for managing access and use of intellectual properties of authors and creators.

Capability descriptors. Academic Librarians can...

  • Apply copyright and licensing developments in the knowledge universe including the application of such to contemporary knowledge formats.
  • Explain local implications of relevant treaties administered by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization).
  • Assist their user communities to understand the principles and application of Open licensing, and the entire spectrum of Creative Commons licenses (CC).
  • Show an understanding of how the technologies and licenses within Digital Rights Management operate
  • Lead their user communities to understand ethical copyright and licensing issues as pertains to generative Artificial Intelligence

Digital knowledge management

Domain

Organizing, processing, preserving and creating access points for digital knowledge in different formats.

Capability descriptors. Academic Librarians can...

  • Show a firm grasp of the different levels of digital literacy skills and how to facilitate the acquisition of such skills for library users.
  • Understand how to create comprehensive (structural, descriptive, and content) metadata for digital resources and objects.
  • Acquire curation and sharing techniques for digital resources and objects.
  • Display basic repository management skills.
  • Display basic understanding of the implications and applications of Artificial Intelligence authoring, knowledge assistance and learning
  • Review features, accessibility and usability of applications that provide digital access to books, journals and reference sources eg R Discovery, Scrib’d, Headway, Researcher, Zotero, Blinkist, etc
  • Explore integration of knowledge and e-books apps into regular library service eg Leganto (ProQuest), ePlatform Digital libraries, Libby, Ex Libris, Bookshelf, etc
  • Provide resources and basic technical skills to users who create digital content as standalone resources or to be integrated into other resources e.g podcasts , videos, blogs, ebooks, memes, GIFs (Graphic Interchange Format), interactive presentations, newsletters, infographics etc.
  • Secure migration and transfer strategies for digital resources.
  • Show familiarity with technologies and skills for digital preservation including web crawling and archiving tools, and digital content management systems.

Library Excellence

Domain

Benchmarking library services and librarian’s skills for excellence in academic library services.

Capability descriptors. Academic Librarians can...

  • Map out and then develop critical metrics and indicators for skills and services that reflect the goals, resources, and context of their libraries which are aligned to institutional goals.
  • Delineate and continuously update the expected outcomes of library services for each stratum of the user community taking into account their perceived and actual knowledge needs.
  • Integrate quality assurance processes to ensure that library services produce positive results which accurately relate to the expressed or noted expected outcomes of the library and institutional goals.
  • Do SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of internally generated data in comparison with peer institutions to benchmark library excellence.
  • Work with relevant human resources sections to align performance indicators to globally or nationally accepted standards for excellent academic library services.

Library Data Management

Domain

Planning, of outcomes, learning resources and content, for a course or unit.

Capability descriptors. Academic Librarians can...

  • Describe the rudiments of developing a data management plan (DMP).
  • Drive procedures and use tools that enable methodical and consistent research data collection.
  • Develop inclusive metadata for describing and creating access points for research data.
  • Understand the roles of Persistent Identifiers in Data Management and the part organizations such as ORCID, Datacite, Crossref, etc play.
  • Create or identify viable storage options for library research data that will take cognizance of large volume files including discoverable and accessible repositories.
  • Understand research security measures and subsisting management policies, regulations, and guidelines concerning data management.
  • Understand data management and how to help library users with making their own research data openly accessible.
  • Advocate and practise ethical sharing of research data including linking, reuse, citations and authenticity.
  • Advocate for, promote policies and provide support services that highlight responsible data management practices

Academics Key Domains

Course Design

Domain

Planning of outcomes, learning resources, and content for a course or unit.

View Domain Resources

Capability descriptors. Academics can...

Materials Development

Domain

Planning, development, and preparation of learning activities, learning resources and materials, for a course or unit.

View Domain Resources

Capability descriptors. Academics can...

Facilitating Learning

Domain

Mediating and facilitating content and resources guided by sound pedagogical practices.

View Domain Resources

Capability descriptors. Academics can...

Effective Assessment and Feedback

Domain

Designing and implementing assessment tasks that are aligned with learning outcomes and the provision of appropriate and timely feedback.

View Domain Resources

Capability descriptors. Academics can...

How to use the Framework

Here, we suggest two ways in which you or your institution can use the framework, but institutions and individuals are free to use it to suit their own purposes.

Academics

  • A university department may decide to conduct a workshop on assessment for its academic staff. It can narrow the focus by choosing one or more of the capability descriptors for the effective assessment and feedback domain.
  • An institution may wish to foreground some overarching themes for CPD based on their own context. For example, a university in southern Africa might focus on workplace skills, entrepreneurship, social justice, and inclusion. An institution could integrate the theme of workplace skills for example, into one or more of the domains in the framework.

Download the academics framework document for more information.

Academic librarians

  • An academic library may decide to conduct a workshop on Open Knowledge or Digital Knowledge Management for its academic library. It can narrow the focus by choosing one or more capability descriptors for the corresponding domains.
  • An institution may wish to conduct CPD programmes for different professionals based on their own context. For example, a university in Kenya might adopt the framework for academic librarians and focus on domains such as Copyright and Licensing, E-Learning, and Partnerships and Collaborations, recognizing the library's crucial role in supporting the launch of a distance education programme for select faculties. The institution could integrate the theme of distance education, for example, into one or more of the domains in the framework.

Download the academic librarian framework document for more information.

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