Motivations for OER: Lessons from the U.S., Ghana, and South Africa / August 2009 / University of Cape Town / University of the Western Cape Except where.

Motivations for OER: Lessons from the U.S., Ghana, and South Africa/ August 2009

/ University of Cape Town

/ University of the Western Cape

Except where otherwise noted, this work is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.© 2009 Regents of the University of Michigan

Kathleen [email protected]

Open.Michigan OER TeamUniversity of Michigan

Introduction

Definition of OER

• Learning materials that are freely available for use, redistribution, and adaptation.

• See also: http://opened.creativecommons.org/Overview

Examples of OER

The first in the field: MIT OpenCourseWare

CC BY NC SA MITSource: http://ocw.mit.edu/

A Huge Array Of OERs Exist TodayAcross Different Populations Of Learners

K-12 Higher Education Life-Long Learning

Courses

Lesson plans

Teacher training

Video lectures

Courseware

Podcasts

Journals

Books

Images

Applications

Games

Slide from Presentation CC BY William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Presentation at University of Michigan, October 23, 2008

Motivations for OER

https://open.umich.edu/education/

U-M Medical School• Institutional reputation -> Showcase high

caliber of faculty and courses.• Global nature of health issues -> a significant

portion of students do clinical training abroad• Curriculum development -> improving medical

education standards through increased access to teaching materials.

• Professional development -> OER as a medium for continuing medical education.

Source: http://www.factotem.com/openmed/

U-M College of Engineering

• Professor Peter Woolf's experiment with a senior Chemical Engineering course

Slide CC BY Peter Woolf

Slide CC BY Peter Woolf

Slide CC BY Peter Woolf

Slide CC BY Peter Woolf

Slide CC BY Peter Woolf

U-M School of Information

• Open source mentality -> more eyes on the material leads to improved learning

• Information economics -> there's little if any commercial value for lecture materials, why not share

• Personal and institutional reputation -> news article about SI 519/PubPol 688!

• Archival sake -> specialized courses should be preserved

U-M School of Information

• Some dScribes are altruistic students

U-M Dentistry Project: First Dental School in Liberia

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Kumasi, Ghanahttp://web.knust.edu.gh/oer/

University of Ghana

University of Ghana: College of Health Sciences

• Large classes = less personal attention -> OER offers scalability and efficiency gains

• Teaching styles within medicine are changing -> OER allows self-learning and electronic media shows close-up detail that students cannot always see during surgeries or demonstrations

• Capitalize on student technical know-how: Students are able to distribute materials easily among themselves and are used to burning and sharing CDs. With OER, that would be legal!

• OER at UCT - within Centre for Educational Technology

• Health OER• Cape Town Open Education Declaration

• http://www.cet.uct.ac.za/OpeningScholarship• http://vula.uct.ac.za/portal/site/openuct/

UCT

• "A number of individual champions or groups of students and academics supporting the notion of increased openness of teaching and learning materials and/or processes."

• "...opening scholarship..."• "...enhanced communication..."• "...more effective knowledge dissemination..."

- Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams. Sketching the terrain: Open educational resources for teaching and learning at the University of Cape Town. August 2009

Report CC BY NC SA, available http://www.cet.uct.ac.za/OpeningScholarship

http://free.uwc.ac.za/ Motivations from the UWC audience?

Summary of Motivations for OER

• Improvement of teaching materials• Efficiency gains• Professional development• Institutional reputation• Altruism For health:• The global healthcare worker crisis• The global nature of health issues

Closing Remarks

• Differing levels of support for OER within these institutions - at administrative and faculty level

• OER awareness campaigns in progress• Sometimes eLearning or open access are

stepping stones to OER adoption• Resources available determine the motivation

but shouldn't prevent participation

Questions?