Explore the dynamic world of Open Educational Resources and discover how OER Africa is driving the movement forward. This page is divided into two sections:
Articles: Our articles aim to deliver insights on OER-related themes that inform, spark conversation, and engage with the developing open education landscape, with a particular focus on Africa.
Updates: Below, the articles, you'll find updates on OER Africa’s latest initiatives, activities, and contributions to the OER community.
Articles
This section features targeted articles crafted specifically for educators, students, and the global Open Educational Resources (OER) community. The articles examine themes related to OER, offering insightful perspectives and information. The content seeks to inform, prompt discussion, and actively engage with the dynamic landscape of open education, particularly within the African context.
23 October 2025
2025 OEGblobal Board Award Winner- OER Africa (Saide and NBA - South Africa). Open Education Global has recognised OER Africa’s outstanding work in advancing Open Education and awarded it OEGlobal Board Award for Organizational Leadership. The Award was specifically for Organizational Leadership. We are proud to be recipients of this prestigious Award and for the listing of OER Africa on the pages of 2025 Board Award Winners.
22 October 2025
In early 2025, OER Africa launched the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Network, an initiative designed to connect higher education institutions across southern Africa in a shared effort to strengthen professional development for academic staff. Since its inception, the Network has convened seven times, bringing together representatives from five institutions.
24 September 2025
As African universities increasingly adopt Open Educational Resources (OER), the need for robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) has never been greater. Effective M&E enables institutions to track progress, demonstrate impact, and ensure that OER initiatives genuinely advance access, equity, and quality in education. This communication explores practical approaches to monitoring and evaluating the implementation of OER at Universities.
12 August 2025
OER Africa has developed a Toolkit for Developing Human Resources Policies and Supportive Institutional Environments in Higher Education, which provides a comprehensive, practical guide for higher education institutions to assess, improve, or establish effective HR policies and practices. It is positioned as an Open Education Resource (OER) and contributes to OER Africa’s broader mission to support sustainable education systems in Africa by empowering institutions to improve staff capacity, enhance organisational effectiveness, and create environments conducive to the adoption and integration of OER. It offers detailed guidance on core HR domains, including conditions of service, staff development, performance management, promotion, and codes of conduct, along with templates and openly licensed resources to facilitate policy development and implementation. It focuses particularly on helping institutions determine which HR processes and policies should be in place to support individuals within the work environment.
29 July 2025
There is strong evidence that professional development is more effective when it is intentionally planned by higher education institutions (Özgenel et al. 2024; Solomon et al. 2023). OER Africa has developed two frameworks for continuous professional development (CPD): one for academics and one for academic and research librarians. The purpose of the frameworks is to capacitate higher education professionals to work innovatively in the modern world by making use of affordances such as open educational resources (OER), open pedagogies and digital technologies. An institution, faculty, department or individual can decide on current needs and use the framework to structure and implement a flexible professional development plan.
20 June 2025
The Botswana Open University (BOU) wanted to give lecturers and tutors at BOU an opportunity to gain skills for facilitating online learning. OER Africa adapted the OER Africa online tutorial for Facilitating Online Learning (FOL) for the context of staff development at BOU. When students arrive in a face to face class, when a lecturer or tutor arrives to teach them, there is an immediate connection, a presence. Online, we can lose the connections that allow us to learn with and from each other. The art of online facilitation helps to re-create those connections, to create a presence.
Updates
This section provides updates on OER Africa’s initiatives and activities. Stay informed about our contributions to the OER community and how we are driving the open education movement forward.
23 April 2019
This new publication has been put together by the OER Africa team in partnership with UNESCO IITE. The aim of the research was to shed light on economic and pedagogical value of investing in OER.
04 April 2019
Simple, short 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.
14 March 2019
OER Africa would like to congratulate Associate Professor Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams on her appointment as a UNESCO Chair in Open Education and Social Justice. The UNESCO Chairs Programme serves as a think tank and bridge-builder between academia, civil society and local communities, as well as researchers and policymakers.
25 January 2019
This free online course on OER from the Commonwealth of Learning has recently been updated. It is interactive and on completion you can download a certificate of participation.
12 October 2018
Participant Experiences and Financial Impacts: Findings from Year 2 of Achieving the Dream’s OER Degree Initiative.