2014 e learning innovations conference

1. Open Education Resources and
Opportunities for Research
By Chao Charity Mbogo
Panel Presentation at e-learning
innovations conference, Nairobi.

2. A bit of my background
• Bsc Mathematics & Computer Science –
KeMU.
• Msc Computer Science - University of Oxford.
• Head of Department, Computer Information
Systems, KeMU.
• PhD Computer Science - University of Cape
Town (Grad 2015).
• Google Anita Award Winner – Europe, Middle
East and Africa (2014).

3. Current research
Scaffolding new learners of Java
programming to write programs on a
mobile phone

4. What is OER?
OER describes any educational resource
that is openly (freely) available for use
and permits re-use by educators and
learners.

5. Examples of OER
• Learning content: MIT Open Courseware
• Tools: Open Source Software
• Implementation Resources: Intellectual
property licenses promoting free
publishing.

6. Why get involved in OER?
• ‘What you give, you get back improved.’
• Can be used as PR to attract new
students.
• Lowering education cost.
• Generate revenue through Ads.

7. Challenges of OER
1. Compromise on quality.

8. Opportunities for research: Quality
• Opportunity 1: Develop /Use Plagiarism
detection systems at our institutions.
• Opportunity 2: Study the impact on use
of current plagiarism detection systems.
• Opportunity 3: Devise internal quality
checks that can be documented and
published.

9. Opportunities for research: Quality
• Opportunity 4: User evaluation
•

10. Opportunities for research: Quality
• Opportunity 5: Peer review systems.
• I would wish to see full paper submissions in
future eLearning innovations conferences.
• Indexed access to Google Scholar etc.

11. Challenges of OER
2. Sustainability
• How useful is your resource?
• Interoperabilty
• Funding

12. Opportunities for research:
Sustainability
• User-Driven research.
• From design to evaluation

13. Opportunities for research:
Sustainability
• Good research is one that kicks the door
open for another researcher to go
through.
• Originality is the only kick hard enough
to open the door for further research.

14. Opportunities for research:
Sustainability
• Writing grant proposals
• Involve learners to design payment
models: For example, the conversion
model.
• Follow the community model (involving
targeted stakeholders).

15. Conclusion
• OER provides numerous research
opportunities.
• ELearning is the right platform to be
involved in OER.
• Let us not compromise on quality for
quantity.
• Users, Users, Users.

16. Thank you!
@evangelinechao
chaombogho@gmail.com