The document discusses a case study on the use and production of open educational resources (OER) and open courseware (OCW) by academics in South African higher education institutions. The study found that academics use OER/OCW for several reasons, including making additional materials available to students, improving their own subject knowledge, and revising curriculum. Common types of OER/OCW used included videos, images, and lecture slides. The majority of respondents also reported using open access journals. The study provides insights into how OER/OCW are being utilized in South African higher education.
Semelhante a Igor Lesko: The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources & OpenCourseWare in Teaching in South African Higher Education Institutions (Case Study)
Semelhante a Igor Lesko: The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources & OpenCourseWare in Teaching in South African Higher Education Institutions (Case Study) (20)
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Igor Lesko: The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources & OpenCourseWare in Teaching in South African Higher Education Institutions (Case Study)
1. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources &
OpenCourseWare in Teaching in South African Higher
Education Institutions
Case Study
Igor Lesko
HELTASA, November 28-30, 2012, Stellenbosch, South
Africa
igorlesko@ocwconsortium.org
Unless otherwise noted, the presentation “The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources & OpenCourseWare in
Teaching in South African Higher Education Institutions” by Igor Lesko is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution
3.0 Unported License.
Open Sharing, Global Benefits
The OpenCourseWare Consortium
www.ocwconsortium.org
2. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Aim of the Presentation
Report on the results from a case study on the use &
production of OER/OCW amongst academics based at SA HEIs
including:
• Motivation
• Benefits
• Challenges
3. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Structure of the Presentation
• Definitions: OER and OCW
• Milestones: Open Educational Resources (OER)
OpenCourseWare (OCW)
• Justification for the case study
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusion
4. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Definitions: OER & OCW
• OER are commonly referred to as “digitized materials offered
freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to
use and re-use for teaching, learning and research.”
OECD, 2007: http://tiny.cc/onq7lw
• An OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital
publication of high quality college and university‐level
educational materials. These materials are organized as
courses, and often include course planning materials and
evaluation tools as well as thematic content:
http://www.ocwconsortium.org/en/aboutus/whatisocw
5. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Definitions: OER & OCW
Both OER and OCW are licensed under conditions that permit
their use, reuse, redistribution and/or adaptation.
See Creative Commons: www.creativecommons.org. The
producers of OER/OCW determine which copyright permissions
are granted to users of OER/OCW:
• CC BY
• CC BY-SA
• CC BY-ND
• CC BY-NC
• CC BY-NC-SA
• CC BY-NC-ND
6. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
OER, OCW & OCWC
Important Milestones I
• 2001 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) –
decision to make courses from its entire curriculum available
online for free, under open licenses, known as
OpenCourseWare
(OCW):http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/ocw.html
• 2002 – Term OER adopted during the “The First Global OER
Forum” organized by UNESCO:
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-
URL_ID=2492&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
7. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
OER, OCW & OCWC
Important Milestones II
• 2005 – Launch of International OER Community by UNESCO
IIEP: http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/
• 2007 – Cape Town Open Education
Declaration:http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/
• 2007 – OECD: Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of
Open Educational
Resourceshttp://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/givingknowledgefor
freetheemergenceofopeneducationalresources.htm
8. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
OER, OCW & OCWC
Important Milestones III
• 2008 – Global OpenCourseWare Consortium established
www.ocwconsortium.org
• 2012 – Paris OER
Declarationhttp://oercongress.weebly.com/paris-
declaration.html
9. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Who we are
www.ocwconsortium.org
10. 1%
21%
22%
32%
7%
2%
1%
13%
1%
Over 250 institutions and
organizations worldwide supporting
open sharing in education
More than 20 000
courses
11. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Two Important Invitations
1. OCWC Global 2013 Conference Date: May 8-
10, Bali, Indonesia. OpenCourseWare Consortium Global
Conference: opportunity to learn from practitioners in the
field and learn new ideas:
http://conferences.ocwconsortium.org/
2. Open Education Week
Open Education Week takes place online and in locally
hosted events around the world. The purpose of Open
Education Week is to raise awareness of the open education
movement and its impact on teaching and learning
worldwide. For more information visit
http://www.openeducationweek.org/ or email
openeducationwk@gmail.com
12. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Justification for the Case Study I
With thousands of OER/OCW having been produced and
shared under open licenses thus far, the focus of the open
education movement has shifted on the need to
demonstrate the impact of open education initiatives
worldwide:
• Who are the users of OCW/OER?
• For which purpose (s) do they use OCW/OER?
• With what impact?
13. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Justification for the Case Study II
Challenge: Obtaining feedback from users of OER/OCW
• No need to log into specific websites reliance on
voluntary feedback
• Reliance on website user statistics for data number
of downloads, time spent on websites, users’
geographical location
• Despite emerging studies lack of data who the
users are, how they are using OER/OCW and with
what impact
14. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Justification for the Case Study III – Example: OCWC
User Feedback Survey
Source: OCWC Feedback Survey March 2011 - August 2012, CC BY, OCWC
15. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Justification for the Case Study III – Example: OCWC
User Feedback Survey
- Feedback survey active on the OCWC website since April
2011
- Data gathered from 1037 respondents from over 80
countries
- Nearly half of all the users (43%) are students currently
undergoing secondary or university-level education
- Self-learners represent 22% of all the respondents
followed by a group of working professionals (22%)
- Teachers and faculty members forming 9% of all the
respondents.
- 20% of respondents indicated that they use OCW to
supplement or create teaching materials
16. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Methodology I
• Research carried out as part of a project on Emerging ICTs in
Higher Education (http://www.emergingicts.blogspot.com/)
• National survey conducted in 2011 with academics and e-
learning practitioners based at various HEIs in SA, probing
respondents on innovative teaching and learning practices
using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
over the past 3 to five years
• Purposive and snowball sampling methods
17. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Methodology II
• Out of 261 respondents, 120 indicated that they used
OER/OCW on a regular basis (24%) or at least once (22%) in
2011
• During the period 15 February 2012 – 31 March 2012, a
subsequent survey was distributed to 97 respondents who
had agreed to be contacted for follow up questions
• Lime survey, a free open source survey application, was
used to develop the survey instrument:
http://www.limesurvey.org/
18. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Methodology III
Survey questions related to:
• Characteristics of respondents;
• Characteristics of OER/OCW materials used in teaching;
• Ways of using OER/OCW in teaching and with what impact;
• Rationale for using OER/OCW;
• Creation and rationale for the creation of OER/OCW;
• Practices related to using of OA journals;
• Respondents’ understanding of regulations (license terms)
that govern ownership and use, reuse or modification of
OER/OCW and of course materials produced by faculty;
• Challenges related to using or producing of OER/OCW
19. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Characteristics of Respondents
• Responses received from 48 respondents
• 17 Higher Education Institutions in SA
• Level of Appointments:
Ranging from junior lecturer – professor – non academic
• Teaching undergraduate, postgraduate or a combination of
undergraduate and postgraduate courses
20. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Characteristics of OER/OCW used in
Teaching I
Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to
48/100%
21. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Characteristics of OER/OCW used in
Teaching II
• OER/OCW in teaching:
- video and audio lectures (47%) & images, graphs or data
representations (47%)
- 40% use free quizzes, exercises, assessment tools or
worksheets
- Full free courses (known as OCW) have been used by 25% of
all the respondents
• Sources of OER/OCW: Various OCW websites (such as MIT
OCW, OU UK); YouTube, SlideShare, Institutional
Repositories, Vimeo, or Flickr
22. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Characteristics of OER/OCW used in
Teaching III – Most Useful Resources
Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to
48/100%
Images and video resources (42% & 42% respectively)
identified as the most useful OER/OCW in classroom setting.
Images and video resources are followed by lecture slides
(33%), tutorials & learning exercises (27%) and theoretical or
conceptual explanations (23%).
23. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching I
Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to
48/100%
24. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching II
• 69% making OER/OCW available as additional resources to
their students
• 56% use OER/OCW to improve their knowledge in the field
• 46% include OER/OCW in their teaching materials or course
syllabus
• 33% of respondents have used OER/OCW to help develop or
revise curriculum for their departments or schools
25. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching III
Further elaborations on the educational rationale for using
OER/OCW in teaching:
• Scarcity of content in certain subject areas
• To enhance teaching practices - a variety of perspectives
related to a specific subject matter
• To encourage supplemental independent learning and to
develop skills needed in order to evaluate appropriateness of
online content
• OER/OCW save time to develop teaching materials
• To encourage a more learner-centered learning approach
• To share expertise in specific fields or because of
respondents’ beliefs related to benefits of open sharing in
education
26. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching IV
– Selection of Quotes I
“I am experiencing a shocking level of "ability to study", "ability to critically
assess materials" etc, even at post-graduate level. Scarcity of resources in
South African Education could at least partially, be overcome by encouraging
students to discover certain aspects of content for themselves”.
“For me knowledge is a commons and knowledge creation is and should be
an open collaborative process. In sharing of content and skills via teaching I
believe in promoting open and collaborative efforts”.
“Get better insight and information on the subject I teach”.
“Anyone can look up the material I choose to use. The challenge is to make
sense of what is out there and I can use class time to help students learn to
do this actively, discussing and questioning selected material. I want them to
learn life-long study skills as well as the topics we're studying”.
27. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching IV
– Selection of Quotes II
“Enhances self-study and online learning”.
“It is important that I provide various avenues for participants to engage with
the content material and add their own understanding and using OER/OCW
helps me do that”.
“Saves time having to design/develop own materials”.
“Remaining current and evaluating the contextual relevance of the OER for
our learning purpose”.
“Student centered learning - the student is in charge of their studies and
knowledge creation. To find knowledge and to create knowledge now a days
is so very easy. I am just the facilitator, students need to use all available
information”.
28. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching IV
– Selection of Quotes III
“OER fits my philosophy of teaching and learning i.e. that knowledge is for
the public good. Why should privileged people have more access? I believe in
using interactive participatory approaches that empower students to find
their content for learning then use the classroom for critical discussions. OER
broadens the scope for learning. It offers students and teachers greater
opportunities to do this”.
“Using these resources expands the dialogue within my discipline by
connecting other disciplines and countries to my own context. This enables
students to visualize their role in the international dialogue and evidence
based practice”.
“The best reason to use OERs in SA is to share expertise with similar context,
or to develop South African contexts for various educational resources, but
using the best quality content from around SA, around Africa & the world”.
29. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Use of Open Access (OA) Journals
Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to
48/100%
In addition to using OER/OCW, 75% of respondents indicated
that they had used Open Access journals in the past year, with
42% of those who had used information obtained from OA
journals for teaching and nearly 71% who had used OA
journals for research purposes.
30. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported Benefits to using OER/OCW in
Teaching I
Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to
48/100%
31. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported Benefits to using OER/OCW in
Teaching II
• 52% stated that their classes are more interesting and/or
engaging for their students
• 48% and 44% of those who state that they are able to
improve their teaching materials or incorporate new
concepts into their teaching
• 34% of respondents claim that OER/OCW help them to
save time preparing course materials
• 31% state that they are more motivated to teach
• 25% of the respondents stated that they have more
content to teach with an equal number stating that they
are able to use their class time more effectively for class
discussions as a result of using OER/OCW
32. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Production of OER/OCW I
• 33% of respondents stated that they have also produced or
contributed to the production of OER or OCW
• Such materials would include lecture presentation
slides, lecture notes, tutorials, handbooks and more. Most of
the resources have been licensed under creative commons
licenses
33. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Production of OER/OCW II – Qualitative
Comments from producers of OER/OCW I
“…IMBOK handbook was a key deliverable from the …project at
UWC/CPUT, using CC – more than 2000 downloads recorded
from www.imbok.org…”
“After my paper explaining my innovative teaching was rejected
by a journal I chose to publish it as an OER. It is on UCT
OpenContent website. I used CC BY-NC-SA. I was thrilled with
this option. I’ve enjoyed watching the clicks grow, having the
opportunity to take control of my contribution and so able to
update the material, using it as an example to promote OER. I
am busy working on my next resource.”
34. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Production of OER/OCW II – Qualitative
Comments from producers of OER/OCW II
“I use, and therefore I share. I created slides and used Creative
Commons Licensing. It was great!”
“In my research by publishing journal articles. Posting my
lecture slides and videos using creative commons license.”
“There was nothing usable out there. OER materials were
mostly in the form of video, audio and images. The licensing was
creative commons. It felt liberating as I was able to contribute
without all the usual bureaucratic processes we have to go
through.”
35. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW
A number of challenges that have implications for using or for
producing OER/OCW have been identified. These could be
organized into the following categories:
• Lack of knowledge related to regimes governing ownership
and use, reuse, modification of OER/OCW
• lack of awareness about policies/regulations that govern
ownership and use of course materials created by faculty
• Institutional support/infrastructural challenges
• Lack of knowledge about the existence of OER/OCW
36. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright I
• Only slightly more than half (52%) of all the respondents
(users of OER/OCW) are aware of license terms that govern
ownership and use, reuse or modification of OER/OCW and
have correctly identified a range of CC licenses to this effect.
37. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright II
• only 31% of respondents are aware of policies and
regulations that govern ownership and use of course
materials created by faculty
38. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright III
Context of OER/OCW producers (see also slides 32-34):
• Majority (75%) - aware of license terms governing the
ownership, use, reuse and modification of OER/OCW
• Lack of knowledge about licenses that govern production and
use of OER/OCW might lead to confusion when deciding how
to license the materials (choosing an appropriate license) or
not licensing the content at all (in which case the all rights
reserved license applies). Examples:
“I created Lecture slides/notes. I used no license. It has proven
to be very useful.”
“I created OER (visual and audio) to improve retention. License:
Copyright. It improved attention and interest.”
39. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright IV
Context of OER/OCW producers (see also slides 32-34):
• Only half of the producers of OER/OCW (50%) are
aware of institutional policies that govern ownership and
use of materials created by faculty
40. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural
challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW I
• Institutional challenges (such as existing IP policies or
blocking of certain sites), infrastructural challenges (such as
internet speed), ability to find appropriate OER/OCW and
lack of awareness about the existence of OER/OCW have
been reported to be some of the main challenges related to
using or producing of OER/OCW.
41. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural
challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW II
Selection of Comments to this effect:
“My university blocks many sites, amongst them YouTube, not
only for students, but also for staff. Furthermore, whilst we have
many computer labs and computers many of these are not open
to the Internet, and access to the internet is thus not as easy as
it should be for students.”
“Time is the biggest challenge. Sometimes I cannot find what I
am looking for.
42. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural
challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW III
“Sometimes difficult to upload and download big files dues to
bandwidth problems.”
“It is a wonderful pathway towards better education for all.
However, many teachers and people in powerful positions such
as those with vested interests in traditional publishing are
creating barriers to further its (OER/OCW) use.”
“More awareness of its existence to lecturers at Universities is
needed.”
43. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural
challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW IV
“Institutionally, I think many universities in SA are way behind in
enabling the use of OER/OCW by staff and students for teaching
and learning. For one, open access to all Internet sites in all labs
at my university would be a great start.”
“Their use could be more widely advertised in HEIs and rated in
some way to indicate how authoritative or useful they are. More
free courses could be made available to students and lecturers.
Some credit could be given in the HE system for engaging in the
use and development of these resources. A critique is that
someone is taking their time to develop these and this is not
acknowledged.”
44. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using
or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural
challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW V
“The institution holds copyright on all the materials produced as
part of my work, so it is not clear if I can make it freely available
without consulting the IP office.”
45. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Conclusion I
• The findings have provided important insights into practices
related to using and producing
(motivation, challenges, benefits) of OER/OCW among
academics based at SA HEIs
46. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Conclusion II
In order to advance the use and production of OER/OCW in SA
HE a number of challenges will need to be addressed related to:
• Institutional & Infrastructural challenges
• Lack of awareness pertaining to OER/OCW licensing regimes
• Lack of awareness pertaining to regulations that govern
ownership and use of materials created by faculty
• Lack of awareness about the existence of OER/OCW and
about the benefits of engaging in the production of OER/OCW
Note: A full report with findings will be available on the OCWC website
(www.ocwconsortium.org) in January 2013
47. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Acknowledgement
This research has been made possible through the financial
support of the National Research Foundation in South Africa
(http://www.nrf.ac.za/) and through the support of the Higher
Education Teaching and Learning Association of South Africa
(www.heltasa.org)
48. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
Activities of the OpenCourseWare Consortium are generously supported
by:
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Sustaining Members of the OCW Consortium:
The African Virtual University
China Open Resources for Education
Delft University of Technology
Fundação Getulio Vargas
Japan OpenCourseWare Consortium
Johns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health
Korea OpenCourseWare Consortium
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Netease Information Technology Co.
Open Universiteit
Taiwan OpenCourseWare Consortium
Tecnológico de Monterrey
Tufts University
Universia
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
University of California, Irvine
University of Michigan
University of the Western Cape
And contributions of member organizations
49. advancing formal and informal learning through the
worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality
education materials organized as courses.
www.ocwconsortium.org
feedback@ocwconsortium.org
igorlesko@ocwconsortium.org