Open Education Tutorials

OER Africa has developed, and continues to test, innovative alternative approaches to continuous professional development (CPD) for academics. One strategy has been to develop Open Education Tutorials for university academic staff that will empower them to embrace open education. Open education topics range from effective use of existing Open Educational Resources (OER), licensing new materials with an open licence, publishing using open access, communicating research findings to a wider audience, and facilitating online learning.

In contrast to traditional workshop-based professional development, these standalone tutorials are short, informative, engaging, and practical. They can be used for self-study, or for group study, depending on how an institution offers CPD training for staff.

The field of Open Education is exciting, very much in flux and constantly evolving! All tutorials will be updated to reflect new trends and practices. Have a suggestion for an update or revision? E-mail us at info

saide [dot] org [dot] za with suggestions.

Tutorials

Current Tutorials

Adapting Open Content

This short tutorial provides a quick and simple solution to adapting open content for new purposes.

Ideas for CPD interventions
This tutorial would work well as pre-workshop viewing and/or a standalone independent study resource. It is fully contained and works well if used as an introduction or extension exercise.

Profiles of two heads communication with one another

Communicate Research Findings

This tutorial provides guidance on how to change a research paper into an easy-to-read summary which can be shared outside academia.

Teacher in graduation clothing pointing at a projector screen

Design for Learning I: How do we learn?

An online interactive tutorial – Part 1 of 2. This online open tutorial provides an overview of how planning and execution need to align when designing and developing courses. Part 1 looks at learning design principles, learning design models including nine events of instruction, first principles model and the ARCS motivational model. This flows directly into Part 2, which looks at how to ensure the executed design remains faithful to the design priorities.

Teacher standing in graduation clothing with tools in the background

Design for Learning II: Course Building

An online interactive tutorial - Part 2 of 2. This online open tutorial looks at how you take a course design and implement it to ensure alignment between the design and what the students experience. This part looks at implementation models such as Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate (ADDIE), the success approximation model (SAM) and practical considerations.

Magnifying glass showing OER with a man standing beside it reading a book

Finding Open Content

A short, simple tutorial to acquire the skills necessary to search for open content, decipher Creative Commons rights and permissions, and evaluate the usefulness of OER for new purposes.

Man with a book standing next to a magnifying glass showing an image of OER

French version: Trouver des contenus libres

Lady standing in the foreground with a network of smaller people in the background

Online Facilitation

This self-contained interactive tutorial outlines good facilitation techniques for online learning. It uses an approach that sees a facilitator taking on distinct roles at various stages of the learning process: Arriving, Conversing, Facilitating, Creating and Applying.

Ideas for CPD interventions
This online interactive tutorial takes about 40 minutes. It is an excellent self-study CPD intervention which can be handed out to staff to study in their own time. Ideally staff should come together to unpack what they have learned.

Portuguese version: Encontre Conteúdos Abertos

Publish Using Open Access

This is a short tutorial to acquire the skills necessary to publish or advise on publishing research using Open Access.