Articles and Updates

This post is the third in a series on sharing African research outputs, using open licensing. This post concentrates on open data. Open data means that users can make free use of research data without requesting written permission and without copyright or patent violations.

This week, we focus on publishing in high-quality Open Access (OA) journals, with an emphasis on African journals. Open licensing allows for distribution of research literature, primarily online, without cost to the reader.Most OA materials use Creative Commons licences, which lay out the terms under which they can be used and distributed.

This week Mohini Baijnath speaks with Neil Butcher, OER Strategist at OER Africa, about OERs and their relevance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Neil speaks about the challenges that COVID-19 poses to education systems, how OER can be used to support educators and students amidst institutional closures, and what role governments can play in promoting the use of OER.

Open licensing is used for many different kinds of resources – open educational resources (OER), open access research publishing, open data, and more broadly open science. This post discusses developments in access to African research information through repositories that use open licensing.

As the spread of COVID-19 continues around the world, face-to-face lectures have ceased in many countries and academics are trying to find practical ways of delivering curricula remotely. In response to this, the Association of African Universities (AAU) and OER Africa presented a series of four webinars on Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) strategies.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, most African higher education institutions have halted face-to-face classes. But learning can continue, so OER Africa would like to share resources to help you to keep the doors of learning open.