Promising aspects of online educationin Africa: OER, Open Textbooks & MOOCs? A presentation by Associate Professor Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams for the World Development Report 2016: Internet for Development Regional Consultation Conference, Nairobi, 26-27 January 2015, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of Cape Town

1. Promising aspects of online education
in Africa: OER, Open Textbooks & MOOCs?
Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams
Associate Professor & Principal Investigator
Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) Project
Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT)
University of Cape Town
World Development Report 2016: Internet for Development
Regional Consultation Conference, Nairobi, 26-27 January 2015

2. Promising aspects of online education
• Key question: What aspects of online education are
most promising for learners (formal & informal),
teachers & publicly funded educational institutions
and what might be some of the unintended
consequences? (Rather than: “What aspects of online
education are most promising?”)
– Depending on whose perspective, online education might
be valued in slightly different ways
– Online education may also be a disruptive force and not be
perceived as valuable by all stakeholders

3. Online education
underpinned by “deeply embedded imaginaries” (Mansell 2013:9) by society
Market-led
Prevailing dominant “imaginary” / vision
Commons-led
Alternative “imaginary” / vision
• Competition
• Productivity/ efficiency
• “Delivery” of education
• Homogeneity
• Copyright
• Data protection
• Performance monitoring / “Surveillance”
• Collaboration
• Effectiveness
• Participation
• Diversity
• Alternative Intellectual
Property Regulations – e.g.
Creative Commons
• Data sharing

4. Degrees of openness
Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray (2009:110)

5. Degrees of openness
Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray (2009:110) & Hodgkinson-Williams (2014)
Copy
Customise (e.g. translate, add local)
Combine (e.g. select and mix content)
Contribute (e.g. share locally & with the world)

6. Online education
Market-led
Prevailing dominant “imaginary” / vision
Commons-led
Alternative “imaginary” / vision
• Online education provided for fees
(which maybe subsidized by
governments) in traditional public
institutions or for profit by private
institutions
• Online education facilitated in a
more “open” way through
sharing and contribution by
both learners and educators

7. Online education
Commons-led
Alternative “imaginary” / vision
• Open Educational Resources
(OER)
• Open Textbooks
• Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs)

8. What are OER?
Examples of OER (also
called Open Content)
include full courses,
course materials,
modules, textbooks,
streaming videos, tests,
software, including
some massive open
online courses (MOOCs)
and any other tools,
materials, or techniques
used to support access
to knowledge
Free lecture notes
Free videosAny learner or teacher

9. What are Open Textbooks?
An open textbook is
a textbook licensed
under an open copyright
license, and made
available online to be
freely used by students,
teachers and members
of the public. Many open
textbooks are
distributed in either
print, e-book, or audio
formats that may be
downloaded or
purchased at little or no
cost (Wikipedia).

10. What are MOOCs?
• MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are “highly interactive
online courses open to all on the World Wide Web. Some use OER
and others rely on commercial content that can include video,
multimedia and computer applications as well as text and graphics”
(Boga & McGreal 2014)
Free lectures
Virtual class or self-paced
Class discussions &
interaction
Homework/assignments, and
online quizzes or exams

11. What do we know about OER, Open
Textbooks & MOOCs?
MOOCs
Open
Content
OER
Open Textbooks
Google Trends 25 Jan 2015
Global – Web searches

12. Examples of OER from Africa (1)
http://oer.avu.org/
http://open.uct.ac.za/
http://www.oerafrica.org/

13. Examples of OER from Africa (2)
http://www.afrivip.org/open-education-resources
http://www.tessafrica.net

14. Examples of Open Textbooks from
Africa
http://www.siyavula.com/our-products/
https://www.scribd.com/electricbookworks

15. Examples of MOOCs from Africa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGL9nmXZf8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oORShJzqzUk

16. What do we know about OER?
https://oerresearchhub.files.wordpress.com/2014/1
1/oerrh-evidence-report-2014.pdf

17. OER Evidence (OER map)
http://oermap.org/oer-evidence-map/

18. OER Evidence (OER Flow)
http://oermap.org/evidence-flow/

19. What do we know about Open
Textbooks?
http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/group/researchers?xg_source=activity

20. What do we know about MOOCs?
http://www.moocresearch.com/

21. OER and MOOC adoption & impact in
Africa: ROER4D research project
http://roer4d.org/

22. References
• Boga, S. & McGreal, R. (2014). Introducing MOOCs to Africa: New Economy Skills for Africa Program – ICT.
http://www.col.org/PublicationDocuments/MOOCs_in_Africa_2014_Boga-McGreal.pdf
• Hodgkinson-Williams, C. A. (2014). Degrees of Ease: Adoption of OER, OpenTextbooks and MOOCs in the
Global South. Keynote address at the OER Asia Symposium 2014. Available online:
https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/1188
• Hodgkinson-Williams, C. & Gray, E. (2009). Degrees of openness: The emergence of open educational
resources at the University of Cape Town. International Journal of Education and Development using
Information and Communication Technology, 5(5), 101-116. Available online:
https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/8860 [Last Accessed 23 January 2015].
• Hodgkinson-Williams, C.A. & Cartmill, T. (2014). Research on Open Educational Resources for
Development in the Global South. IDRC Grant: 107311-001. 1st Technical Report.
http://roer4d.org/resources/project-coordination-resources or
https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/9695
• Hoosen, S. (2012). Survey on Governments’ Open Educational Resources (OER) Policies. Prepared for the
World OER Congress, June 2012.
http://www.col.org/PublicationDocuments/Survey_On_Government_OER_Policies.pdf [Last accessed
16 August 2014]
• Smith, M. S. & Casserly, C. M. (2006). The promise of open educational resources. Change: The Magazine
of Higher Learning, 38(5), 8-17. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3200/CHNG.38.5.8-17 [ Last
accessed 22 August 2014]
• Tuomi, I. (2013). Open educational resources and the transformation of education. European Journal of
Education, 48(1), 58-78. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejed.12019/full [Last accessed 22
August 2014]

23. Images
• Slide 1:
http://www.jorum.ac.uk/blog/post/72/from-
glum-to-hopeful-a-conversation-on-moocs-
and-oer

24. Additional slides on the questions
• Suggested rewording of questions posed in
documentation

25. Use of social media for education in
Africa: The question?
• Key question: In what ways are learners,
teachers and educational institutions using
social media for education? (Rather than “Are
learners and teachers using social media
mostly for personal entertainment or to make
their voices heard”?)
– It is not merely a binary question, “Yes” or “No”;
instead different types of social media adoption in
different contexts needs to be uncovered to
provide a more nuanced answer

26. Use of the internet to transform
education: The question?
• Key question: In what ways can the use of the internet
contribute positively to transform access to good
quality and affordable education in Africa? (Rather
than “What is required for the internet to transform
educational delivery in the way it has transformed the
retail sector and numerous other industries”?)
– We need to be aware that the use of the internet in the
retail sector and other industries has also had other
unintended consequences that we would not like to
replicate in education (e.g. cyber crime, identity theft)
– We need to spell out what we mean by the word
“transform” and what measures we could use to
determine as access to good quality and affordable
education

27. Collaboration in expanding online
education: The question?
• Key question: Why would it be useful for governments
and the private sector to collaborate in expanding
online education? (Rather than: “What is the potential
for governments and the private sector to collaborate
in expanding online education?”)
– We need to be aware that the potential of government –
private sector collaboration may not necessarily benefit
learners and teachers directly, so we need to tease out
what these potential benefits might be for expanding
access to education, improving the quality of teaching
materials and reducing the costs of materials and tuition.

28. Promising aspects of online
education: The question?
• Key question: What aspects of online education
are most promising for learners (formal &
informal), teachers & publicly funded
educational institutions ? (Rather than: “What
aspects of online education are most
promising?”)
– Depending on whose perspective, online education
might be valued in slightly different ways
– Online education may also be a disruptive force and
not be perceived as valuable by all stakeholders

29. Promising aspects of online education:
OER, Open Textbooks & MOOCs
• Open educational resources (OER) are teaching,
learning, and research resources that reside in the
public domain or have been released under an
intellectual property license that permits their free use
and re-purposing by others (e.g. Creative Commons)
(adapted from Smith & Casserly 2006: 8).
• MOOCs offer free lectures with no entry requirements
and allow for features such as interactive online forums
that can involve hundreds of students in peer-to-peer
discussions, as well as access to video lectures and
course materials in online format (adapted from CILT
website)
CILT Website: http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/news/uct-moocs-launch-early-2015

30. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Written by Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams,
cheryl.hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za
Graphics of ROER4D map by Rondine Carstens
rondine.carstens@uct.ac.za