Explore the dynamic world of Open Educational Resources and discover how OER Africa is driving the movement forward. This page is divided into two sections:
Articles: Our articles aim to deliver insights on OER-related themes that inform, spark conversation, and engage with the developing open education landscape, with a particular focus on Africa.
Updates: Below, the articles, you'll find updates on OER Africa’s latest initiatives, activities, and contributions to the OER community.
Articles
This section features targeted articles crafted specifically for educators, students, and the global Open Educational Resources (OER) community. The articles examine themes related to OER, offering insightful perspectives and information. The content seeks to inform, prompt discussion, and actively engage with the dynamic landscape of open education, particularly within the African context.
Interactive Report Provides Progress on Research into CPD Models for Higher Education
Are academics at your institution struggling to find the time and space to invest in their own continuing professional development (CPD)? With so many competing priorities, many academics find it difficult squeeze CPD in among their other daily responsibilities.
In this week’s article, Leanne Rencken delves into the ongoing collaboration between the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) and OER Africa. OER Africa has developed three learning pathways, as part of its grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and, along with AfLIA, is piloting them with university and academic librarians on the continent.
Empowering Youth to Transform Food Systems: The Role of OER
Sustainable food systems and climate change are pressing global issues that go hand in hand. Will these challenges be left to the youth because they will be most affected? This article will explore what role OER can play in empowering youth to transform food systems.
The Open Access (OA) movement has gained even greater traction over the past 18 months, in an effort to make research on COVID-19 more widely available and to make research in other fields accessible to remote teachers and learners. But what is OA? Why is it increasingly important and how has COVID-19 advanced the OA cause?
Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the OER Space
OER Africa has been grappling with the complexities surrounding diversity promotion. We have written this article in the hope that it contributes to an ongoing conversation – within our initiative and beyond – on diversity in the OER space.
Updates
This section provides updates on OER Africa’s initiatives and activities. Stay informed about our contributions to the OER community and how we are driving the open education movement forward.
OER in and as MOOCs
The ROER4D project being managed through the University of Cape Town is releasing chapters from their forthcoming online publication. In this chapter the authors report on an investigation into the production and rollout of four MOOCs at UCT in South Africa, and on the experiences of the educators involved in their production.
OpenMed Consortium Course Materials Review
The OpenMed Consortium has recently released materials that form part of a capacity building course entitled "Open Education Fundamentals and Approaches - A Learning Journey to Open Up Teaching in Higher Education". Neil Butcher provides a review.
Launching OER Degree Pathways
Launching OER Degree Pathways: An Early Snapshot of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative and Emerging Lessons is a formative evaluation report prepared by SRI International that was released in June, 2017.
2nd World OER Congress
Jenny Glennie and Neil Butcher recently attended the 2nd World OER Congress in Slovenia. South Africa was represented by the Honourable Minister Angie Motshekga, Minister of the Department of Basic Education. Ministers present reaffirmed their committment of the important role of OERs in the attached Ministerial Statement.
Supporting Distance Learners
We have created a PDF of our Supporting Distance Learners online resource that will be used at a workshop to be conducted at the University of Lesotho which others may find useful too.
OER Policy Development Toolkit for Higher Education
Amanda Coolidge, Senior Manager , Open Education at BC Campus, and Daniel De Marte, Chief Academic Officer at Tidewater Community College have released an interactive toolkit to support institutions develop open policies. The toolkit is licensed CC BY and institutions are free to reuse it, remix it, revise it, and/or redistribute it.