Open Educational Resources Differentiation: A cross-country study on differentiation in access, use and sharing of (Open) Educational Resources at universities in Kenya, Ghana and South Africa

The academic literature on open educational resources (OER) and practices in higher education has grown substantially over the past decade. OER is seen to offer endless possibilities for Sub-Saharan African universities by reducing costs of education, improving quality of education, as well as increasing access to quality education for all, among others. Sub-Saharan African universities though, are notably underrepresented in the literature, especially on differentiations, be it on access to or use and sharing of OER. This thesis synthesizes research carried out to develop a representative view of OER in three Sub-Saharan countries: Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. The study, which formed part of the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project, explores differentiation in terms of (i) digital proficiency; (ii) level of use of OER; (iii) awareness of licensing; and (iv) the perceived value of OER. This thesis examines a deliberate selection of twelve universities across the three countries with randomly sampled students and lecturers. Separate questionnaires for students and the lecturers were used, which generated a response from a total of 2249 students and 106 lecturers. Major findings are: (i) that there is a significant digital differentiation among lecturers and students in terms of their proficiency, devices used and internet accessibility; and (ii) that the awareness and appreciation of the OER concept and open licensing is generally low, but from the actual variety and types of processing by respondents of educational resources which may not be open, there is a preparedness towards openness in the future in all the three countries. Therefore, the universities can use these findings in considerating how to restructure their educational policies to incorporate OER in teaching and learning to enhance the quality of education.