This presentation to the Advisory Group discusses key problems experienced in higher education in Africa. It further highlights how OER's can assist in alleviating some of the problems as well as OER Africa's proposed activities in this regard.

1. OER Africa
Into the Future
Advisory Group Meeting
Fairview Hotel, Nairobi
21 & 22nd May, 2009

2. Problem / Theory of Action
 African higher education institutions seriously
structurally under-funded for the core function
they are expected to discharge.
 Therefore, corresponding paucity of
institutional and individual capacity to teach in
many domains of higher education.
 Existing faculty overtaxed in time and ability to
teach, reducing time available for ongoing
program and materials development.
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3. Problem / Theory of Action (2)
 Many higher education programs on the
continent have inadequate funds to run
programmes and meet the educational needs of
enrolled students as well as cover the costs of
faculty time required both to design and run
quality learning experiences.
 Too few learning resources for learners and
lecturers in African universities, and many of
those available are too expensive to be
purchased by universities or students.
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4. Problem / Theory of Action (3)
 Much existing content available to and within
African universities based on weak and largely
outmoded educational design principles.
 Limited ICT infrastructure to gain access to up-
to-date information available on the Internet and
participate in inter-institutional, geographically
dispersed collaborative activities.
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5. Key Assumptions
OER holds potential:
2. To increase availability of high quality, relevant and
need-targeted learning materials;
3. To reduce the cost of accessing educational
materials;
4. To allow adaptation of materials and possibly
contribute to enabling learners to be active
participants in educational processes;
5. To achieve collaborative partnership of people
working in communities of practice, preferably
across/within institutions;
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6. Key Assumptions (cont’d)
1. To build capacity in African higher education
institutions by providing educators with access, at
low or no cost, to the tools and content required to
produce high quality educational materials.
• To be successful and sustainable, development of
OER cannot be a sideline activity within a
university.
• OER Africa seeks to facilitate the design of OER
that can work immediately and add educational
value within the current ICT infrastructure
constraints of any participating institutions.
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7. Why do we exist?
 OER Africa believes that OER can positively
support development and capacity of
higher education systems and institutions
across Africa.
 OER Africa is concerned that – if the
concept and practice of OER evolves
predominantly outside and for Africa – we
will not be able to liberate its potential.
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8. Why Open Educational
Resources?
Concept:
Concept
 Educational resources for use by educators
and learners, without an accompanying
need to pay royalties or licence fees.
 New licensing frameworks remove copying /
adaptation restrictions.
 OER hold potential for reducing the cost of
accessing educational materials.
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9. Dispelling Some Myths
 Content = education
 Good content will overcome institutional
capacity constraints
 OER should be a process of voluntarism
 OER will make education cheaper in the short-
term
 Openness automatically equates with quality
 OER is about e-learning
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10. ACTIVITY PLAN
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11. Proposed Contribution (1)
 To work systematically with partners to enhance
institutional capacity in higher education to design,
develop, and deliver quality higher education
programs and materials;
 To advocate the merits of collaboratively creating and
sharing intellectual capital in higher education as a
mechanism to improve quality and enhance long-term
cost-effectiveness;
 To help higher education institutions to establish
supportive policy frameworks that support openness
in the development, adaptation, and use of
educational resources, and convert this into
sustainable business models;
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12. Proposed Contribution (2)
 To establish an online platform that facilitates African
collaboration in OER development and sharing, while
inter-connecting this platform with the many OER
communities emerging globally;
 To facilitate the re-development and reinvention of
African higher education program curricula and
course materials of exceptional quality and direct
contextual relevance, producing world class
graduates.
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13. OER Africa Activities (1)
Structured Institutional Engagement:
 Initial OER Sensitization & Exploration;
 Policy Reviews to support development supportive
institutional environment;
 Materials Audits;
 Proof of Concept Pilots;
 Regular & ongoing communication / relationship-
building.
building
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14. OER Africa Activities (2)
 Expansion of collaborative networks via OER
domain-focused approach
 Application of similar strategies to other key
domain areas, e.g. Agriculture, Engineering,
Teacher Education and the Arts & Humanities
as the need / opportunity arises.
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15. OER Africa’s Activities (3)
Ongoing research into OER concepts and
practice in Africa:
Aggregating Research Resources.
Coordinating OER Africa Research activities:
 Financially and educationally sustainable models for
development, adaptation and use of OER in African
higher education institutions;
 Online discussions leading to research papers on key
topics (e.g. remuneration), and;
 Research into possible differences in the uptake and
effect of OER in different subject domain areas.
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16. OER Africa’s Activities (4)
Management and growth of the OER Africa
website at www.oerafrica.org
Meta-data federated with global OER repositories,
thereby creating greater visibility for African-created
OER.
Statistics managed???
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17. Thank you
Catherine Ngugi Neil Butcher
Project Director OER Strategist
catherine.ngugi@gmail.com neilshel@icon.co.za