Friday, 3rd March 2023
Not only do national education policies determine the educational principles and objectives that a sitting government adopts, they can also have a far-reaching effect on a citizen’s quality of and access to education, including whether that access is equitable and inclusive. Effective education policies can be transformative for a country and its people. This applies equally when one considers the potential impact of national Open Educational Resource (OER) policies on learners, educators, and education systems. OER provide possibilities to innovate in teaching and learning, to reimagine how education systems function and the values that they promote, and to expand access to inclusive and equitable quality education as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4. [1]
Policy is a key indicator of OER practice. When an OER policy is well-designed and implemented it can act as a driving force for creating and sustaining vibrant OER ecosystems.[2] It thus follows that one of the OER Recommendation’s five objectives and areas of action is to develop supportive policy. The Recommendation notes that this includes:
"Encouraging governments, and education authorities and institutions to adopt regulatory frameworks to support open licensing of publicly funded educational and research materials, develop strategies to enable the use and adaptation of OER in support of high quality, inclusive education and lifelong learning for all, supported by relevant research in the area."[3]
Work on OER policy has already started in many countries around the world and international bodies such as UNESCO are supporting efforts to develop such policies through, for example, the forthcoming release of guidelines for national governments and institutions on OER policy and capacity building in the first half of 2023. But what progress has been made so far on OER policy development and implementation?
A new report by Neil Butcher & Associates (NBA) sets out to understand the effectiveness of OER policies to date and whether there is evidence of integration between OER policy provisions and other mainstream government policy commitments or strategic goals. The research involved a review of 27 standalone OER policies and 16 policies that contained OER commitments. The research also sought to strengthen understanding of the most effective strategies and approaches to create government policy and regulatory environments that facilitate implementation of UNESCO’s Recommendation on OER and OER more generally.
The report contains three key findings.
1. There were unforeseen challenges with finding OER policies that fitted the research criteria
For a policy to qualify for inclusion in the dataset, it needed to meet three criteria. There needed to be:
- Evidence that the policy had been approved by the government.
- Availability of baseline documentation of what OER activities were already underway in the country before the policy came into effect (where available).
- Evidence of meaningful OER practices that were implemented since the policy was approved.
The research team was only able to identify a handful of policies that met our criteria – 27 national standalone OER policies and 16 policies that contained OER commitments.
2. There was limited evidence of policy implementation in line with the policy provisions of standalone OER policies and other policies that contained OER commitments.
Of the 27 national standalone OER policies, only two fitted all criteria and provided sufficient evidence of meaningful OER practices following implementation. There were four instances of OER commitments in other policies (e.g. Information and Communication Technology policies) that matched the qualifying criteria. However, in most cases, there was limited evidence available of sustained and comprehensive policy implementation in line with the policy provisions.
It was not possible to tell which type of policy (standalone versus a different policy containing OER commitments) was more impactful for various reasons, including that there were too few qualifying policies to draw a meaningful comparison. There was also conflicting information online, and sometimes a lack of information online regarding a causal link between OER practices that occurred as a result of policy commitments.
3. When looking at the relationship between OER policy provisions and national plans or strategies, OER policy is not a precondition for meaningful OER practices, but it does seem to be an enabler in creating a coordinated national effort geared towards OER implementation.
For a coordinated national effort to proceed optimally, there needs to be alignment between OER policy provisions and a government’s strategic priorities. Ideally, this should be consistently expressed in the government’s overall vision for the education system and in the documents that it releases and implements including policies, legislation, national plans, and strategies.
Ultimately, the research provides insight into the global OER policy landscape, outlining successes in OER policy development and implementation. It highlights a need to problematise the idea of educational policy as it relates to the OER movement and interrogate why OER policies are developed, their function, and how they are implemented. The report provides a series of recommendations and areas for further enquiry, centred around the suggestion that until OER policy commitments are directly connected to the attainment of national level policy commitments and the overall vision for the national education system as expressed in government documents, they are unlikely to be impactful.
Other recommendations include allocating more resources to policy review processes to determine the validity, relevance, and progress in achieving policy outcomes. The report also encourages governments to consider possible misalignments between national policy provisions and what is realistic to implement. It concludes with a series of questions that governments might reflect on when starting the OER policy development process.
OER Africa will release a subsequent thought piece on these findings and how to take the recommendations forward.
Related articles
- International Day of Education on 24 January 2023
- The UNESCO OER Recommendation and effective, inclusive, equitable access to quality OER
- Why is 'Open Education' important?
References
[1] See https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4
[2] Miao, F., Mishra, S. and McGreal, R. (eds) Open Educational Resources: Policy, costs and transformation. Retrieved here
[3] See the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources, available here
What's New
Following the adoption of the OER Recommendation in 2019, UNESCO initiated a programme to support governments and educational institutions in implementing it.
One aspect of this programme was the development of a series of five guidelines to inform implementation of each Action Area in the Recommendation.
Image courtesy of Ismail Salad Osman Hajji dirir, Unsplash
As the digital age continues to reshape the global educational landscape in fundamental ways, the need for governments and educational institutions to champion Open Educational Resources (OER) has never been more relevant. Freely accessible, openly licensed educational content can help tackle some of the most pressing needs in education systems, including equity, access, and quality.
Following the adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on OER at the 40th UNESCO General Conference in Paris on 25th November 2019, UNESCO initiated a programme to support governments and educational institutions in implementing the Recommendation.
One such action was the development of a series of five guidelines for governments. These guidelines were developed through a comprehensive consultative process and in cooperation with OER experts worldwide. They draw heavily on in-depth background papers prepared by OER experts from around the world in each of the five Action Areas of the OER Recommendation: Prof. Melinda dP. Bandalaria (building the capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER); Dr Javiera Atenas (developing supportive policy); Dr Ahmed Tlili (encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER); Dr Tel Amiel (nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER), and Ms Lisbeth Levey (facilitating international cooperation).
OER Africa has provided logistical and editorial assistance to UNESCO on this work as part of a formal cooperation agreement with UNESCO to provide support in implementation of the OER Recommendation.
Aimed at governments and educational institutions, each set of guidelines has the following structure:
- An overview of recommendations in the Action Area;
- An introduction to the main issues surrounding the Action Area;
- A matrix of possible actions recommended for governments and institutions to implement each point in the Action Area;
- An in-depth discussion of the key issues surrounding the Action Area; and
- Examples of good practice.
By actively supporting and implementing the OER Recommendation, governments and educational institutions can not only make high quality education more accessible but can also promote transformation in their education systems. This commitment to OER is essential for building resilient, adaptable education systems that can meet the demands of a rapidly changing world.
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With the ever-increasing costs of textbooks, how can university students get access to the resources they need to study? This article examines the benefits of using open textbooks in the Global South.
Image: CC0 (Public domain)
With the ever-increasing costs of textbooks, how can university students get access to the resources they need to study?
Worldwide, university students find it difficult to purchase textbooks for their courses as they are too expensive. Already in 2014 in South Africa[1], and in 2011 in the United States[2], there were reports that students didn’t buy textbooks due to expense. The situation has not improved in recent years; for example, in a study of nearly fifty thousand respondents in South African universities, nearly two thirds indicated that they spent between R500 and R2500 on textbooks, and while 87% of students’ first semester modules had prescribed textbooks, 27% of students did not buy any prescribed books in the first semester of 2020. Students were opting not to purchase textbooks either because of a lack of affordability, because they did not find them contextually relevant, or because a course would only use a small portion of the textbook. [3]
Open textbooks can be regarded as a subset of Open Educational Resources (OER). They are digital textbooks published under an open licence, which means that they are freely downloadable and adaptable to suit a range of contexts (as long as the licence permits adaptation). The right to adapt is particularly important for educators who may want to tailor the textbook to their specific curriculum. An open textbook can be published with different Creative Commons licences,[4] depending on how open or restrictive the author wishes the licence to be. The principal advantages of an open textbook are its accessibility and affordability to the students, as long as they have a digital device, or have access to print at low or no cost. However, open textbooks have other advantages as well. These include:[5]
- Local Contexts: Open textbooks can be regularly updated, and tailored to suit the local context, providing cultural relevance and addressing specific needs of students.
- Partial Use: In some courses, only a portion of the overall textbook content is relevant. Students may hesitate to purchase an expensive textbook when they will only use a few chapters. In contrast, open textbooks allow educators to select and integrate specific sections, reducing unnecessary costs.
- Collective Authorship: Open textbooks encourage collaborative authorship strategies. Locally produced open textbooks can involve input from multiple experts, resulting in richer and more contextually relevant content with diverse perspectives.
- Flexibility: Open textbooks can be accessed in different formats and stored digitally, so that they are easy to share and adapt.
Of course, open textbooks also have some disadvantages, namely:
- Availability: We provide examples of open textbook repositories below, but educators may find that there is limited selection for certain subjects or specialised topics.
- Quality: There may be inconsistencies in writing style, accuracy, and depth of content but these can be easily mitigated by evaluating the textbooks prior to use, as should be done for all resources to be used, including commercial textbooks.
- Author incentives: Authors of traditional textbooks normally receive royalties from publishers as their books are sold. The open licence by which open textbooks are released means that other forms of incentive may be needed, for example in the form of grants, that may not be sufficiently enticing for many potential authors.
Research on open textbooks
Most research has been carried out in the Global North. For example, a meta-analysis of 22 studies of 100,012 students found that there were no differences between open and commercial textbooks for learning performance.[6] A research study Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South[7] had similar findings, with open textbooks being more effective that traditional ones in several instances. However, the studies reported that careful pedagogical scaffolding, including a mix of OER, produced the most effective learning. Within Africa, research findings from the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) Project[8] found that open textbooks addressed economic, cultural, and political injustices faced by their students, issues not considered by traditional textbooks. Summarising the research overall, we can say that open textbooks have several advantages over traditional ones, as listed above, and in terms of learning, they are equivalent.
Examples of African institutions who have benefited from using open textbooks
Probably the best example of collaborative development of open textbooks is the University of Cape Town’s DOT4D Project. If you want to learn about the experiences of their staff and students, read UCT Open Textbook Journeyswhich documents the stories of 11 academics at the University who embarked on open textbook development initiatives to provide their students more accessible and locally relevant learning materials.
Other African universities’ libraries list sites where open textbooks and other OER are available, usually from outside the continent. Finding open textbooks for your own institution is not always easy. Here we list three sites where you can search for open textbooks. Bear in mind that, if you choose an American or European textbook, you may need to spend time adapting it for your own context.
University of Cape Town Catalogue
26 textbook titles ranging from medical texts, through sustainable development to marketing, but also many other titles on OpenUCT.
Based at the University of Minnesota in the United States, this repository has 1,403 titles. The view shown here groups the titles by subject.
This LibGuide lists 17 platforms where you can search for open access textbooks and other free books.
Resources on developing and using open textbooks
Below is a list of resources to help you explore this growing field. The first three assist you to develop an open textbook, while the last two guide you to adopt or modify an existing open textbook.
- Commonwealth of Learning Guide to Developing Open Textbooks
- Open Education Network: Authoring Open Textbooks
- Rebus Community: A guide to making open textbooks with students
- BC Campus: Steps to Adopting an Open Textbook
- Open Education Network: Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know
Finally, although they are not designed for higher education, the open textbooks developed by Siyavula for high school mathematics, technology, and sciences may be useful for colleges and access courses in universities.
In summary, there are considerable benefits to using open textbooks, but with a few exceptions, African institutions have not yet taken on the challenge of producing open textbooks themselves. Clearly, funding is required for the development of open textbooks, and institutions might consider making funding applications to create (or adapt) these highly useful open education resources for the benefit of more African students.
Related resources:
- Researching OER initiatives in African higher education
- The Revised Open Knowledge Primer for African Universities
- Self-Publishing Guide: BC Open Textbook
Access the OER Africa communications archive here
[1] Nkosi, B. (2014). Students hurt by pricey textbooks. Mail & Guardian. Retrieved from https://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-03-students-hurt-by-pricey-textbooks/
[2] Redden, M. (2011). 7 in 10 Students Have Skipped Buying a Textbook Because of Its Cost, Survey Finds. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/7-in-10-students-have-skipped-buying-a-textbook-because-of-its-cost-survey-finds/
[3] Department of Higher Education. (2020). Students’ Access to and use of Learning Materials—Survey Report 2020. Retrieved from https://www.usaf.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/DHET_SAULM-Report-2020.pdf
[4] See https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/#:~:text=Creative%20Commons%20licenses%20give%20everyone,creative%20work%20under%20copyright%20law.
[5] Digital Open Textbooks for Development. (2021). ‘Open Textbooks in South African Higher Education’ Roundtable Report. University of Cape Town. Retrieved from https://open.uct.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/3a7e1a09-0617-4ba4-b6dd-4572bd870d60/content
[6] Clinton, V. and Khan, S. (July 2019). ‘Efficacy of Open Textbook Adoption on Learning Performance and Course Withdrawal Rates: A Meta-Analysis’ AERA Open. 5 (3): 233285841987221. doi:10.1177/2332858419872212. ISSN 2332-8584.
[7] Hodgkinson-Williams, C. & Arinto, P. B. (2017). ‘Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South’. Cape Town & Ottawa: African Minds, International Development Research Centre & Research on Open Educational Resources. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1005330
OER Africa is honoured to have contributed two chapters to the recently published book ‘Does Distance Education in the Developing Context Need More Research? Building Practice into Theory’. Edited by Dr Folake Ruth Aluko and Prof. Daniella Coetzee, the book explores the reciprocal relationship between theory and practice in distance education.
Research can have a transformative impact on any field, and distance education is no exception. It can, for example, contribute to more effective use of new educational strategies, provide insights into technological advancements, and contribute to our understanding of the key successes and challenges in distance education delivery.
While the concept of distance education dates back more than a century, research in this area is relatively nascent when compared to the development of educational research in general.[1] The body of literature on the practice, influence, and impact of distance education is therefore limited, and even more so when considering developing world contexts. This, combined with the fact that distance education is experiencing significant shifts in terms of new demands and evolving technologies that provide new potential and pitfalls alike, mean that the recently published book Does Distance Education in the Developing Context Need More Research? Building Practice into Theory is a critical addition to the distance education research literature.
The book explores the reciprocal relationship between theory and practice in distance education, and OER Africa is honoured to have contributed two chapters to it. Edited by Dr Folake Ruth Aluko and Prof. Daniella Coetzee, the book is divided into two volumes which explore various themes:
Volume 1 focusses on the history, approaches and paradigms in distance education; building frameworks in distance education research; and praxis in this area.
Volume 2 moves on to address regional trends and gaps in distance education research; scholarship in this area; and quality assurance.
The two chapters that we contributed focus on the intersection of distance education and catalysing open education praxis, with each chapter approaching this intersection from a different angle. Each is outlined below.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the importance of professional development on effective teaching and learning for university academics into sharp relief. Universities found themselves having to close their campuses and were unable to teach their students face-to-face. Universities in Africa resorted to various strategies to reach students, ranging from no teaching taking place, through emergency remote teaching (ERT) with some form of online teaching, to fully implemented e-learning. Whatever form the teaching has taken, academics have found that traditional lecturing has not been effective when implementing ERT or online teaching. Those who are experienced in adult pedagogies have been expressing the inadequacies of the lecture mode for many years, and the realities of the new forms of teaching required have brought such shortcomings to the fore. Several recent opinion pieces have expressed the need for continuing professional development (CPD) of academic staff, especially with respect to their teaching competence, arguing that it needs to be a central strategy within higher educational institutions (HEIs) around the world, supporting academics with digital teaching and communities of practice.
This chapter opens with a review of successful and innovative CPD models and approaches used in HEIs around the world. It examines recent CPD activities created by OER Africa and describes their development, piloting, and deployment, together with the implications the pilot findings have for ODL institutions and research in the field.
Chapter 13 - Measuring implementation of UNESCO’s OER Recommendation: A possible framework
Drawing on a comprehensive literature review of best practice in OER measurement, as well as experience of working with UNESCO to support implementation of the Recommendation, this chapter presents an initial framework for the measurement of the effectiveness of the OER Recommendation and proposes indicators that regions, countries, and/or institutions could adopt or adapt to rigorously measure both how OER is used and its effectiveness for improving learning. Putting in place shared understandings of what counts as effectiveness for OER is critical to inform ongoing developments and improvements in the field. Such measures can also provide an evidence base that can be used for advocacy work around the importance of OER for quality open and distance learning.
Access both volumes below:
Related articles
- How can we plan professional development in universities?
- The UNESCO OER Recommendation and effective, inclusive, equitable access to quality OER
- Continuing Professional Development strategies in Higher Education Institutions Report
[1] Zawacki-Richter and Naidu (2016) quoted in Aluko, F.R. and Coetzee, D. (2023). Chapter 1: Setting the scene – Why research distance education? In Does Distance Education in the Developing Context Need More Research? Building Practice into Theory. ESI Press: