An overview of ROER4D's activities presented to colleagues at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at the University of Cape Town. ROER4D is a Research project on Open Educational Resources for Development in the Global South. The project is funded by the IDRC, Canada and hosted at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa.

1. Overview of the ROER4D project
CILT Brown Bag session
Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams with Rondine Carstens, Tess Cartmill, Glenda Cox,
Thomas King, TinaShe Makwande, Henry Trotter, Sukaina Walji
6 March 2014
Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of Cape Town
9 December 2013

2. Research on Open Educational Resources (OER)
for Development
in the Global South

3. Proposal Process –
Call
• Jul 2012: Targeted by Planning Group
1st round
• Oct 2012: Proposals submitted & evaluated by the
Planning Group
2nd round
• Jan 2013: Invited to present at F-2-F meeting in Jakarta
Proposal
• May 2013: Submit proposal to IDRC
Grant
• Aug 2013: IDRC awards grant with additional funding
from OSF and DFID.

4. Funding: International Development Research Centre, Open Society
Foundation & Department for International Development
 3 year project (27 Aug 2013 - 27 Aug
2016 with an extension to Feb 2017)
 CAD 2.4 million
 3 Regions
 South America
 Sub-Saharan Africa
 South East Asia
 12 projects in 7 clusters
IDRC
OSF
DFID

5. Research on Open Educational Resources (OER) for
Development
in the Global South
 In what ways, and under what
circumstances can the adoption
of OER address the increasing
demand for accessible, relevant,
high-quality and affordable
education and what is its impact
in the Global South?

6. Sub-Project 1: OER Desktop Review
Mariana Eguren
(Lima, Peru)
* 4 countries
Jenny Louw
(Johannesburg, South
Africa)
* 4 countries
Prof Raj Dhanarajan
(Penang,
Malaysia)
* 4 countries
Prof Patricia Arinto
(Manila, Philippines)
DPI, Mentor, AG
AG = Advisory Group
PI = Principal Investigator
DPI = Deputy Investigator

7. Sub-Project 2: OER Survey
Prof Jose Dutra
(Sao Paulo, Brazil)
* 3 countries,
* 12 institutions
Prof Daryono
(Jakarta, Indonesia)
* 3 countries,
* 12 institutions
Dr George Sciadas
(Ottawa, Canada)
Statistician
Judith Pete
(Nairobi, Kenya)
* 3 countries,
* 12 institutions
Prof Stavros Xanthopoylos
(FGV, Rio, Brazil)
Mentor, AG

8. Sub-Project 3 & 4: Academics’ adoption of OER
Prof Sanjaya Mishra
(New Delhi, India)
* 4 institutions
Glenda Cox
& Henry Trotter
(Cape Town, South Africa)
* 3 institutions
Prof Cheryl Hodgkinson-
Williams
(Cape Town, South Africa)
PI, Mentor, AG

9. Sub-Project 5,6 & 7: Teacher educators’ adoption of OER
Prof Mohan
Menon
(Penang,
Malaysia)
Guru Kasinathan
(Bangalore, India)Pilar Saenz
(Bogota,
Colombia)
Dr Savithri Singh
(New Delhi, India)
Mentor, AG

10. Sub-Project 8: OER adoption in one country
Batbold Zagdragchaa
(Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia)
Dr David Porter
(BCampus, Canada)
Mentor

11. Sub-Project 9 & 10: OER Impact Studies – DFID
Werner Westermann
(Santiago, Chile)
* 1 country
Maria Ng
PI – OER Impact
(Singapore)
* 10 projects
Wawasan Open University
(Call for proposals still due)
Prof Fred Mulder
(Netherlands)
Mentor, AG

12. Sub-Project 11 & 12: Educational Expenditure – OSF
Carolina Botero
(Bogota, Colombia)
Rebecca Pursell
(SAIDE)
(Johannesburg, South Africa)
Carolina Rossini
(Brazil/USA)
Mentor, AG

13. Network Team
Prof Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams
Tess Cartmill
Henry Trotter
Thomas King
University of Cape Town, South Africa)
Maria Ng
(Singapore)
Prof Patricia Arinto
(Manila, Philippines)

14. ROER4D Objectives
1. Build an empirical knowledge base on the use and impact of OER in
education

15. Research into the Social and Cultural
acceptability of Open Educational
Resources (OER) in the Global South
(South Africa)
Glenda Cox
Lecturer, Centre for Innovation in Learning
and Teaching (CILT), University of Cape Town
Henry Trotter
Researcher, CILT

16. Research question/questions
Why do people share or refuse to share OER and what
are the conditions under which OER, sharing and use,
would be considered socially and culturally acceptable?

17. 1) UCT:
Residential,
urban, medium-
size, research
intense, collegial
2) UNISA:
Distance,
dispersed, large,
teaching-focused,
managerial
3) Fort Hare:
Residential,
rural, teaching-
focused, no OER
directory
Institutional Partners in South Africa

18. Collaboration with India
Survey (part of Sub Project 2)
Same study: survey, workshops and interviews conducted
in comparable institutions in India
Workshops in each institution, introducing OER, Copyright
and how to adapt teaching materials
Interviews and/or focus groups with workshop participants
(6-8 individuals).

19. Outcomes
Links to advocacy work around UCT OpenContent
Similar topic to my PhD
International collaboration

20. ROER4D Objectives
1. Build an empirical knowledge base on the use and impact of OER in
education
2. Develop the capacity of OER researchers

21. Research capacitation through
question harmonisation
4 goals:
• Harmonise our research questions, where possible,
with that of other OER studies
• Harmonise our research questions, where possible,
across our 12 projects
• Use this QH process to build the research capacity of
our sub-project researchers and research associates
• Provide a model of best practices for other research
for development projects concerning QH

22. 1. Cheryl consulted 9 major OER surveys to
help develop our own questions

23. 2. Henry consulted other OER studies and
compared numerous proposed questions

24. 3. We discussed question options, chose the
best & recorded the rationale for our decision

25. 4. Shared Qs with researchers, also showing
how they would appear in survey form

26. 5. Will connect with researchers online to
discuss and finalise Q harmonisation

27. ROER4D Objectives
1. Build an empirical knowledge base on the use and impact of OER in
education
2. Develop the capacity of OER researchers
3. Build a network of OER scholars

28. Build Network of OER
scholars
Brief report on the 1st research workshop in Cape Town 9-13 Dec 2013
Tess Cartmill
ROER4D Project Manager

29. 1st ROER4D Research Workshop

30. 1st ROER4D Research Workshop
 5 day workshop
 Stayed at City Lodge, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
 Met at Pavillion, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town
 Needed to be close to 2 other conferences
 GO-GN, Global Network of OER PhD students and mentors
 Global Congress – Intellectual Property – Creative Commons
 About 30 people, comprising of advisory group, some
consultants, lead researchers and some additional
researchers
 From: Colombia, Chile, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, India, Mongolia,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Netherlands, USA,
Canada

31. 1st ROER4D Research Workshop cont.
Advisory Group meetings held at start and finish
Activities and discussions:
• Introductions all round, getting to know each other
• Research questions and research methodologies -
getting to know how best to go about the various
research projects - mentors and groups of researchers
• Quantitative data analysis – expert consultant
• Qualitative data analysis - gender analyst consultant
• Many joined Global Congress on 2nd last morning

32. 1st ROER4D Research Workshop cont.
Good tea breaks and lunches for informal discussions
Evenings at Waterfront to shop and dine – freely or with
others
Trip up Table Mountain – joined by GO-GN group
Final dinner at Groot Constantia, also with GO-GN group
The first of 3 workshops for the wide-spread research
team

33. ROER4D Objectives
1. Build an empirical knowledge base on the use and impact of OER in
education
2. Develop the capacity of OER researchers
3. Build a network of OER scholars
4. Curate and communicate research to inform education policy and practice

34. Curate research
Thomas King

35. Open Research – ROER4D intentions to share
Conceptual
Framework/s
Methods
Instrument
questions
Data
Analysis tools
Findings
Proposal
Literature
Review
Research
process
OER
Asia
NEW
Open
project


36. Sharing in Social Science Research
Why share?
• Replication
• Verification
• Extension
• And because it encourages good research practise.
How do I share?
• It’s gotta be (properly) open
• It’s gotta be (properly) findable
• It’s gotta be (relatively easily) understandable
• It’s gotta be …
No, seriously, HOW do I share?
• Subject repositories, institutional repositories, open repositories…
But these decisions can’t be made after completion of research

37. Data Planning in Open Social Research
Planning Performing Preservation
The demands of open sharing require the performance of open research which
requires appropriate open planning.
Or, in lay terms:
“I want to share the products of my research openly. So I have to ask participants
if I can share what they say openly. So I need to:
1. Make sure I know who owns the data.
2. Make sure I make provision on my consent forms.
3. Make sure I make provisions for storage.
4. Make sure I know what I want to publish, and when.
5. Make sure I make the data findable after publication.
6. Make sure the data is in accessible formats and contains sufficient granularity.

38. Data Sharing in the Social Sciences
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
Data Format
Metadata
Storage and Backup
Security/
confidentiality/
anonymity
Intellectual
property rights
Audience
… and many, many more.
DATA PLAN

39. Communicate research
Sukaina Walji

40. ROER4D Communication and Evaluation
Ricardo Ramirez
Dal Brodhead
Wendy Quarry
(IDRC DECI-2 Project)
Julius Nyangaga
(Kenya)
Charles Dhewa
(Zimbabwe)
Mthunzi Nxawe
Sukaina Walji
(South Africa)

41. ROER4D Communications
Communications to support ongoing operations of the
project.
Communicate the research – both process and
outputs.
Communicate research openly.
Supported by another IDRC-funded project DECI-2 to
support, mentor and develop Research
Communications aka #ResCom
We are part of THEIR RESEARCH 

42. ROER4D Process of developing
communications strategy – 12 steps

43. ROER4D Process of developing
communications strategy
 Developing a communications strategy with DECI-2 team at Feb 2014
workshop

44. ROER4D Defining purposes, objectives,
methods and media already using
Purpose
Media

45. ROER4D Clarifying audiences and matching
purpose and media
Media
Audience
Purpose

46. ROER4D Communications
Draft Communications Strategy available at:
http://goo.gl/qR16KY
Also documenting the process
Will be evaluating the research communication
Formulating specific questions

47. Current communication - Vula
 Use our UCT Learning
Management System (Vula =
“Open” in isiXhosa and is built on
open-source software – Sakai) as
a project site for:
 Internal communication
 Announcements – general
info
 Email -
roer4d@vula.uct.ac.za
 Research questions
 Curation of documents
 Internal outputs –
presentations from
workshops
 Resources – readings,
articles, reports, briefings
Internal
Network & Sub-projects
External
Links to specified
documents

48. Current communication - Website
http://roer4d.org/new/

49. Current Communication – Slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/ROER4
D
Internal
Network & Sub-projects
External

50. Current Communication – Twitter
Internal
Network & Sub-projects
External

51. Evaluate research
Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams on
behalf of Mthunzi Nxawe

52. Utilization Focused Evaluation
http://evaluationandcommunicationinpractice.ca/

53. Questions & queries?

54. Written by Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams
cheryl.hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za in
2013 and adapted in 2014 by
Tess Cartmill, Glenda Cox, Thomas King,
Henry Trotter and Sukaina Walji
Graphics by Rondine Carstens
rondine.carstens@uct.ac.za

55. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License.
Website: www.roer4d.org
Contact author:
cheryl.hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za
Follow us: http://twitter.com/roer4D
Presentations: www.slideshare.com/roer4D