Supporting innovation in educational technology by enabling

open educational practicesMichael Paskevicius

Reporting from: Centre for Educational Technology

University of Cape Town

International Week at VIU 2012

2005-2008

2009-2012

2012

Learning Technologies Application DeveloperCentre for Innovation and Excellence in LearningLearning Technologies Application DeveloperCentre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning

Agenda

The case for open education in Southern Africa

Open education at the University of Cape Town

Unintended benefits, unforeseen consequences

Other interesting open initiatives in the South

University of Cape Town : from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Cape_Town

Informal Settlement : from - http://www.flickr.com/photos/54357435@N00/1093665713 Author: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en_CA

http://www.equaleducation.org.za/sites/default/files/Equal%20Education%20Costing%20Booklet.pdf

Access to Libraries in Schools

http://www.bluelightdistrict.org/wp/2011/03/equal-education-march-to-parliament/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16496892

“There’s been no significant break in relations of knowledge production between the colonial and post-colonial eras. African universities are essentially consumers of knowledge produced in developed countries.”

Blade Nzimande, Minister for Higher Education and Training UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education 2009

CC-BY Eve Gray: http://www.slideshare.net/evegray/open-access-week-2009-university-of-the-western-cape

Global Science Research Outputs - 2001

http://www.worldmapper.org 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

What’s different about Africa now?

• 100x improvements in both international and national bandwidth

• TENET/SANREN bandwidth 10Gbps (coming soon)

• Enables new possibilities, especially for audio, video and rich media

• Africa coming online

CC- BY Steve Song http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables/

Did You Know - Mobile Stats for Africa 2011, Compiled by Praekelt Foundation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kamlf-uAHU

Mobile revolution

The penetration of mobile phone networks in many low and middle-income countries surpasses other infrastructure such as paved roads and electricity, and dwarfs fixed Internet deployment.http://www.who.int/goe/publications/goe_mhealth_web.pdf

The penetration of mobile phone networks in many low and middle-income countries surpasses other infrastructure such as paved roads and electricity, and dwarfs fixed Internet deployment.http://www.who.int/goe/publications/goe_mhealth_web.pdf

CC-BY Eve Gray: http://www.slideshare.net/evegray/scholarly-publishing-in-africa-namibia

What can be done with this onslaught of bandwidth and access to knowledge?

http://www.capetowndeclaration.orghttp://www.capetowndeclaration.org

Open education projects at UCT

http://www.teachout.co.za/

http://ubunye.org.za/

http://www.shawco.org/

Open education technology projects at UCT

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Content / Open educational resources (OER) / Open Courseware are educational materials which are discoverable online and openly licensed that can be:

OER UCT Project• Funded by Shuttleworth Foundation from March 2009 –

February 2010, total value R800,000 ($97,000 CAD)• Activities:

– Survey existing teaching & learning resources with potential to be open educational resources

– Provide support to open educational resource creators– Facilitate the publication of 5 exemplar OERs– Create an OER Directory for UCT– Document the OER UCT process as a case study

• Encourage and support the production and sharing of South African open educational resources

Building an open referatory of OER

• Reduce duplication and maximise the use of existing infrastructure

• Directory allows– Lecturers to upload or remove

resources– Lecturers to capture metadata– Search, browse and discover

resources by category or keywords

  by  Marcus Hansson 

Open Source - Drupal

• Use Open Source Software + Drupal modules customised by CET team

• Specialist programming and theming done by consulting company

• Uses same authentication as other UCT sites

http://drupal.org

Resource-based OERIncludes:• entire courses• individual

resources– e-books– Manuals– Presentations– Podcasts– Lecture notes– Animations

Academic agency• Decentralised uploading

– Individuals academics upload and maintain their resources directly

• Pride of authorship– Quality assurance with the

individual not the system– Quality assurance part of broader

teaching and learning systems, not separate

• Minimal moderation– Copyright compliance only

Metadata standard for OER

Users add Dublin Core metadata which increases the discoverability of a resource

This particular resource is hosted in the LMS, but described and shared in OpenContent

Marketing the initiative

• Seminars & workshops• Blog – OER@UCT• Facebook / Twitter• Social events• Button on UCT homepage

Innovation grants

• 9 small grants in 2011• £800 ($1,200 CAD) each• Health Science, Engineering,

Law, CHED, Science• To create and/or adapt OER • From entire curriculum to

small media intensive teaching and learning resources

OpenUCT• Aims to make freely available scholarly

resources which can be shared, including research, teaching and other scholarly resources

• Engage the UCT community in open education and open scholarship issues in the broader sense

• Participate in global open education and open scholarship discussions from a developing country perspective

http://openuct.uct.ac.za/

Growth of OER at UCT

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Resources addedmonthly

Growth of total content

Measuring influence: Alternative metrics

WHY GO OPEN? WHAT ARE THE POSSIBILITIES?

  by  ryancr 

Computer Literacy in the Community

IEEE UCT chapter use the openly licensed computer literacy guides to support training in a computer lab donated to a local high school

http://www.ebe.uct.ac.za/usr/ebe/staff/april2010.pdf

Studying at University: A guide for first year students

• Used by Venda University and the University of the Western Cape with new students

• Stellenbosch University uses some of the illustrations• The guide has been accessed over 3800 times via the

directory and over 600 physical printed guides have been sold!

http://opencontent.uct.ac.za/Centre-for-Higher-Education-Development/Studying-at-University-A-guide-for-first-year-students

OpenContent becomes a Journal Article

• Materials published as OER on OpenContent

selected for publishing in the Journal of Occupational Therapy of Galicia, an open access journal for occupational therapists in the Spanish speaking world

http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uct/2010/12/06/sharing-knowledge-leads-to-opportunities

OTHER INTERESTING OPEN EDUCATION INITIATIVES IN SOUTH AFRICA

http://www.fundamaths.com/http://www.fundamaths.com/

http://projects.siyavula.com/http://projects.siyavula.com/

Collecting OER in Africa: OER Africa

http://www.oerafrica.org/http://www.oerafrica.org/

Closing note:

"When you learn transparently (and openly) you become a teacher“

Siemens, 2010

Siemens, G. & Matheos, K. (2010). Open Social Learning in Higher Education: An African Context. VI International Seminar of the UNESCO chair in e-learning; open social learning. Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oexie4cwpf8

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of this license,

visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San

Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Prepared by: Michael Paskevicius michael.paskevicus@viu.ca

OpenUCThttp://openuct.uct.ac.za/

OpenContent Directory: http://opencontent.uct.ac.za

Follow me: http://twitter.com/mpaskevi

Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/mpaskevi