Participatory Action Research Agenda (PAR)

This grant will be innovative because OER Africa and its partners will integrate a PAR agenda into each of our institutional engagements. For the purposes of this grant, we define PAR as ‘collaborative research, education and action used to gather information to use for change on social issues. It involves people who are concerned about or affected by an issue who take a leading role in producing and using knowledge about it. A PAR approach has the following features:

• It is driven by participants;
• It offers a democratic model of who can produce, own and use knowledge;
• It is collaborative at every stage, involving discussion, pooling skills and working together;
• It is intended to result in some action, change or improvement on the issue being researched.

By its very nature, PAR requires strong engagement with, and leadership from, key participants to be effective. A specific research methodology for the PAR agenda will emerge through specific engagement with our partner institutions.

Our partners

OER Africa recognizes that extensive change in institutional practice is required to transform higher education provision in ways that overcome institutional barriers – policy, regulatory, systemic, and cultural –which inhibit the sustainable adoption of pedagogical practices that take full advantage of the transformative educational potential of OER and ICT. While these barriers remain, mainstream adoption of OER practices is likely to remain on the margins of institutional activity.

We have selected institutional partnerships that represent a diversity of situations and approaches. Our objective is to ensure that the knowledge gained from these engagements leads to a generalizable understanding of these barriers and potential strategies to overcome them, which can then be widely shared with key educational decision makers in African higher education. This will be achieved by implementing a parallel participatory action research agenda (PAR) designed to maximize opportunities for reflection on lessons being learned as the processes unfold at each institution.

Africa Nazarene University – ANU (Kenya)

Africa Nazarene University is a member of the worldwide family of Nazarene institutions founded on the same principles - the development of students in a strong spiritual environment. ANU offers a well-rounded, holistic education.

ANU’s first graduation took place in 1998 and by the last graduation ceremony held on 21st May 2004, 459 students, many of whom have established their own enterprises and become employers, had graduated with degrees, diplomas or professional qualifications from the Departments of Business, Computer and Information Technology, Education, Mass Communication Department, Peace and Conflict and, Religion Department.

In line with an MoU between ANU and OER Africa, and in consultation with the ANU Institute of Open and Distance Learning (IODL) Directorate and Committee, OER Africa will support a process of effecting a gradual pedagogic shift towards resource-based learning and teaching approaches and the mainstreaming of the use, re-use and sharing of OER.

University of Pretoria, Onderstepoort – UP (South Africa)

The University of Pretoria has its origins in the establishment of the Pretoria Centre of the Transvaal University College in 1908. On 10 October 1930, an act of Parliament resulted in its becoming the University of Pretoria. Today, UP currently has over 50,000 students and has become one of the leading higher education institutions on the continent and indeed, in the world. It offers courses in both English and Afrikaans and has transformed from a mainly white, Afrikaner institution to a multicultural, multiracial university that offers quality education to South Africans from all walks of life.

Over the past two years, OER Africa has worked closely with UP’s Faculty of Veterinary Science http://www.up.ac.za/faculty-of-veterinary-science (known as Onderstepoort) to support the launch of its African Veterinary Information (AfriVIP) Portal (see http://www.AfriVIP.org/). This portal is integrated into the Faculty’s Plan for 2012-2016, and is part of a broad vision both to share all of its intellectual property under an open license.

AfiVip will be used to systematically integrate use of OER into both formal educational programs and continuing professional development (CPD) activities at Onderstepoort. OER Africa has commenced a program of work with the Faculty to continue, and expand, this work over the next three years by:

1. Supporting effective design of CPD courses that use openly licensed materials stored in AfriVIP;
2. Working with academics to integrate use of the AfriVIP Portal and its resources into the delivery of both postgraduate and undergraduate programs;
3. Facilitating a wider institutional advocacy process to share the lessons learned at Onderstepoort as a basis for re-development of key institutional policies;
4. Broadening the base of participation in the development and management of the AfriVIP Portal to other faculties of veterinary science in Southern and Eastern Africa.

Open University of Tanzania – OUT (Tanzania)

In 2013, building on a relationship that commenced in 2008, OER Africa and OUT collaboratively took stock of progress and identified current needs, which included the following – and which the two institutions will collaboratively seek to address during this grant period:

1. Support for the review and update of a variety of OUT institutional policies;
2. Development of a new open course for Academic Staff on Digital Fluency, comprising five modules;
3. Support for the further enhancement of the OUT Digital Library Portal.

In consultation with the OUT management team and in collaboration with the OUT Institute of Educational and Management Technologies (IEMT), OER Africa will support processes to meet the needs expressed above. It should also be noted that the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) of which OUT is a core member, is keenly aware of the proposed Digital Fluency Course for Academics and has expressed support for propagating its delivery across several higher education institutions on the African Continent.