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.
03 February 2021
Are you looking to interact with people who are interested in Open Education Resources (OER)? Do you have ideas that you want to share with a wider audience and learn more about OER? A Community of Practice (CoP) might be the right place for you.
The term ‘Community of Practice’ was created by Etienne Wenger, who offers a social theory of learning – a school of thought that proposes that humans can acquire new ideas and behaviours by observing others.
19 January 2021
Most research is only seen by a small number of specialists. Would you like to share your research with those who can use it directly? They can be teachers, policy makers, other stakeholders, or the media. In this post, we explore how you can make your work accessible to a wider audience and release it under an open licence.
09 December 2020
In August, OER Africa introduced the Open COVID Pledge for Education, which was launched at the OER20 Conference earlier that month. OER Africa is proud to be a founding signatory of this Pledge, which encourages individuals and organisations to make their intellectual property available through open licensing arrangements to support educators, learners and decision-makers and assist educational organisations.
17 November 2020
The Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) (40 C/32) was adopted at the 40th UNESCO General Conference in Paris on 25th November 2019 as the culmination of a long process of UNESCO engagement with the concept of OER. Now that it is adopted and a UNESCO Dynamic Coalition has been discussing the next steps (download workshop report here), this raises the practical question of what steps government and educational institutions at all levels can do to help to operationalize the OER Recommendation.
21 October 2020
A few years ago, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were touted as “the next big thing”. They have developed since then and are part of the current education landscape. Who are they aimed at? Can university faculty members take an existing MOOC and use it in their own courses? How open are MOOCs? Where can you find them?
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.
05 March 2020
Founded in 2013 by the Open Education Global (previously Open Education Consortium), the goal of Open Education Week is to raise awareness and showcase impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. Open Education Week has become one of the most foremost global events recognizing high achievement and excellence in open education.
06 February 2020
Open Education Week (OEW) aims to raise awareness and showcase the impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. It spotlights amazing work from over a dozen categories including live, face-to-face events, webinars, projects, and resources.
30 January 2020
This report assesses students’ access to educational materials in select institutions within Commonwealth countries. The findings indicate that learners are now engaging with a complex ecosystem of learning materials, both print and digital, in a multitude of differing forms and formats, with various terms of use and durations of sustained access.
21 November 2019
This paper demonstrates how the features and affordances of open learning have been developed in new and productive ways to provide school-based continuing professional development for teachers in Zambia.
06 November 2019
A big barrier to lifelong learning can be the cost of resources. There are worldwide initiatives to change this, though, and it’s helpful to know how to use these resources legally.
One such arrangement is Creative Commons, considered to be the global standard for open licences.
16 October 2019
The guidelines describe the whole process for designing and implementing OER policy in seven chapters, each representing a clear phase in the whole process. The chapters introduce the purpose of the phase and provide background information and references with practical examples for illustration.