Powerpoint presentation by OER Africa to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Nairobi 19th March 2009.

1. OER Africa
Possible Role in Agriculture OER for
Africa
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Meeting
Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi
19th March, 2009

2. AgriOER Shared Vision
To ultimately impact welfare and health of farmers in Africa
 through sustainably empowering MSc students and graduates of
African institutions to achieve change in agriculture
 by leveraging African knowledge using OER processes and products
that are integrated into universities and the global knowledge pool
Objectives:
 MSc curriculum
 Improved learning outcomes MSc
MSc
 Research engagement Curriculum
Students
Farmers (Institutions,
 Sustaining the effort and
policies,
Graduates
 Performance Faculty,)
 Unlock local knowledge
 Unlock global knowledge pool ------------------discoverability---------------

3. A Vision for Higher Education in
Africa:
 Vibrant, sustainable African higher
education institutions that play a critical role
in building and sustaining African societies
and economies, by producing the
continent’s future intellectual leaders
through free and open development and
sharing of common intellectual capital.
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18th March, 2009 3
OER for Africa

4. Measures of Success
TARGETS - ANNUAL & OVER THREE YEARS

The AgriOER Project objectives are successfully attained
(annual)
annual

All new/adapted OER produced through these collaborations
are published on the OER Africa website, and the meta-data is
shared with at least 3 major global OER repositories.

Numbers of students enrolled in programs and courses using
OER (agreed with institutions)
institutions

At least 5 processes of institutional engagement to be
completed during each year of implementation of the project
o

Availability and use of quality OER via OER Africa website and
global OER repositories (including use of African OER in other
parts of the world)

5. Insitutional Policy Engagement
 Initial sensitization and initial exploration with senior
management. Where interest is expressed at either
Faculty or institutional levels we then initiate this
process:
 Participating institutions assemble and supply policy
documentation ( intellectual property / ownership; materials
development and curriculum design; faculty support,
recognition, promotion and remuneration; content standards
and quality assurance; technology/infrastructure; and
financial support and sustainability.)
 OER Africa analyses the above documentation to
determine the extent to which it supports or impedes
institutions in their quest to systematically harness
OER.
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OER for Africa

6. Insitutional Policy Engagement (2)
 Based on this analysis, OER Africa works with the
institution to plan processes to enhance the policy
environment in such areas as:
 Institutional/faculty support and recognition for investment
of time in OER creation, adaptation, and use;
 Intellectual property issues;
 Policy constraints regarding localization, adaptation, and
translation of materials;
 Technology/infrastructure policies and strategies;
 Content standards and quality assurance;
 Financial support and sustainability.
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OER for Africa

7. Objectives of Policy Engagement
 Heighten institutional awareness of the above issues
relevant to the proposed process of collaborative
development and sharing of materials.
 Draw out and address possible reasons for resistance
from faculty and administration to the proposed process of
collaborative development and sharing of materials.
 Introduce the concept of how increased availability of
OER-based learning materials can facilitate a longer-term,
more learner-centred approach to education.
 Work with institutions to turn the results of these focused
processes into policy amendments that are responsive to
their needs and create educationally and financially
sustainable models for development, adaptation, and use
of OER in African higher education.
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18th March, 2009 7
OER for Africa

8. Proposed Contribution (2)
2. Development/Adaptation of OER for Higher Education
Courses and Programmes
Support to RUFORUM institutions as relevant, e.g. :
 Supporting initial design and planning of the proposed
development process;
 Assisting institutions / faculties to complete audits of their
materials in order to catalogue their intellectual property and
the copyright conditions governing those materials;
 Providing ongoing guidance regarding licensing issues;
 Searching global repositories and other appropriate sources
for potentially relevant materials once the curriculum focus
for the project is defined;
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OER for Africa

9. Development /Adaptation of OER (2)
 Targeting the global OER ‘movement’ to make requests for
materials to broaden the above searches on behalf of African
universities;
 Managing materials development/adaptation processes where
required in order to ensure high quality of the resulting materials;
 Supplying instructional design expertise to support the process as
appropriate;
 Providing management support to materials development
processes where this is required (most often found to be useful when
such processes involve collaboration between two or more higher
education institutions);
 Assisting with generation of meta-data for OER produced
(whether new or adapted) in order to support accessibility; and
 Using the OER Africa platform to make OER produced in Africa
accessible to the global OER community.
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10. Proposed Contribution (3)
3. Other Support – As Required / Requested
Supporting RUFORUM in running sensitization and awareness-raising
activities amongst its members to deepen commitment to OER across
the network;
Facilitating processes to design collaborative OER projects with
RUFORUM;
Managing collaborative projects in the field of OER, where this is
requested by the network;
Assisting RUFORUM members to harness existing platforms such as
Connexions and wiki-educator to ensure that they add practical value
to the work of the Network, as well as providing online tools for
collaboration and sharing through the OER Africa website; and
website
Providing other forms of support as appropriate to help to ensure the
success and sustainability of the network.
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11. Project Sustainability
Collaboration with others in the Group
Willing and able to collaborate with all – just need some clarity on who
comprises the group;
Collaboration will be directed by needs of participating HEIs /
Faculties.
Other Resources Being Leveraged
Seed Funding from Hewlett Foundation
Relationships arising from other ongoing processes
Institutional content developers
Ongoing research into OER concepts and practice in Africa:
 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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12. Project Sustainability
Bottom Line
Project/s are deemed relevant by the participating institutions;
Project/s are integrated into institutional processes – not
something on the side;
Capacity building and financial resources are provided to
participating institutions to enable their meaningful participation;
Project Monitoring and Reporting is done in such a way as to feed
into improving project implementation;
Project Evaluation is positive – i.e. that tangible contributions
have been made to the Vision;
The above is publicised so that the network grows and funding
partners (govt, foundations, etc.) are aware and interested.
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13. OER Africa Partner Network
Collaborative networks via OER domain-focused approach:
 Health OER;
 ACDE Working Group on Collaboration;
 Various SAIDE projects.
Via the OER Africa website www.oerafrica.org, host to the
following CoPs:
 ACEMaths
 HEALTH OER
 PHEA-ETI
 Skills for a Changing World
 OER Africa Research Space
Meta-data federated with global OER repositories, thereby creating
greater visibility for African-created OER.
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14. OER Africa Partner Network (2)
Use of existing Platforms:
 Health OER Group on Face Book
 Ongoing discussions with wiki-educator regarding the
possibility of a financial space within this project (AgriOER)
for site visits to African universities to introduce the
platform and build capacity to harness wikis to support
collaborative OER development.
 Ongoing discussions re development of a methodology for
publishing resources produced in Africa and generated in
local IT systems, into global repositories such as
Connexions.
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15. Possible Roles & Tasks Requiring
Funding
Without a clear schedule of activities and committed institutions,
too soon to generate a budget. The following are possible
allocations: Personnel
 Institutional content developers
(institutional grants)
 OER Africa CoP Facilitator /
Extraordinary items
Content Development
 OER Africa website
 Instructional Designer
hosting/bandwidth cost
 Technical Consultant
 Development and testing of
 Graphic designer
technical standards for content
importing and exporting to facilitate
publications of OER in the OER Travel & workshops
Africa website into Connexions.  Inter-African Air Travel (economy)
 Local Accommodation and
Subsistence
 International tele-conference
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16. Thank you
Catherine Ngugi
Project Director
catherine.ngugi@gmail.com

17. For tomorrow:
 How you contribute to the vision – exactly – what is YOUR
objective
 Your measures of success and impact – impact on the
vision
 What are your 3-year targets?:
 Describe your implementation process include
technologies.
 Describe your partner network (external to this group)
 Other resources you are leveraging
 Financial sustainability
 In what ways will you link to or collaborate with others in
this group.
 What are your gaps? What do you need to succeed?
 Roles and tasks you need funded