EDULINK - SideCap Project

Louise Vakamocea & Alanieta Lesuma-Fatiaki

Overview

About the SideCap Project

Other institutions

Study Skills package

Delivery formats

Where to from here? Progress so far

Many thanks…

About the SideCap Project

• SideCap stands for, Staff Improvement in distance education for Carribean, African and Pacific universities

• EU funded project – 32 months• 5 institutions; OU, UHI, UM, UWI & USP• Led by Professor Robin Mason, OU

About the SideCap Project

• Overall objective– Promote multilateral activities amongst European and

ACP partners through practical activities, networking and hands on exercises to improve the quality of teaching and support for students.

• Specific objective– Repurpose existing Open Content teaching material

and adapt it to local contexts using appropriate technologies

Defining OER

• OER – Open Educational Resources• First adopted at UNESCO 20002 Forum of Open

Courseware for HE in Developing Countries• educational materials and resources offered freely

and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute.– Learning Content– Tools– Implementation resources

(Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources)

OER Sites

Project Activities

• 1 - Project website setup & maintenance (UHI)

• 2 - Preparation of background reports (All)

• 3 - Kick-off meeting at the OU

• 4 - Establish ACP Researchers Network

• 5 - Open Content activity• 6 - Open Content in DE

workshop in UM

• 7 – Technology Training• 8 – Drafts of Teaching

Material• 9 – QA Workshop in UWI• 10 – Cascading Activity• 11 – Final Dissemination

Event in USP• 12 – Final Evaluation Report

Other institutions • University of Mauritius (UM)

– Participants; Prof. Alain Senteni & Mohammad Santally– Heavily involved in setting up of technology based applications

• University of the West Indies (UWI)– Participants; Roger Powell & Stewart Marshall– Setting up of Open Campus

• University of Highlands & Islands (UHI) Millenium Institute – Co Principal Researcher - Frank Rennie

• OU– Lead Researcher - Prof. Robin Mason

Study Skills Package

• Priority areas based on majority student need– Assignment writing– Reading– Note taking ^& Summarising– Referencing

• Based on the project time-frame, refocused on intergrating the above skills into one module

• OER material – University of Otago

Delivery formats

• Online (facilitator led & self-paced)• Links to all courses & Success@USP• Future consideration

– DVD– Blended; F2f & Online

Progress so far

• Each institution tasked to repurpose one course each;– UWI – Masters level course in ID– UM – Masters level course in Research Methods– USP – Study Skills Package

• Repurposing OER Manual• Content outline & list of OER materials used

By 1 August 2008

• 1st draft of repurposed material By early/mid November 2008

Many thanks…

• EU• Lead Researcher – Professor Robin Mason• CEDT for its vision and support• USP – host for the Final Dissemination Event -

2010

Web links• SideCap Project site: http://sidecap.wetpaint.com/?t=anon

• SideCap Group hub: https://sidecap.grouphub.com/login

• SideCap Project blog:

http://www.sidecap-project.blogspot.com/

• OpenLearn site: http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php

– Cohere: http://cohere.open.ac.uk

• OU site: http://www.open.ac.uk/

• UM: http://www.uom.ac.mu/index.asp

– UM, VCILT: http://vcampus.uom.ac.mu/vcilt/index.php

• UWI: http://www.uwi.edu/

– UWI, Open Campus: http://www.uwi.edu/vicechancellery/uwioutreach/default.aspx

• UHI: http://www.uhi.ac.uk/

– UHI, Lewis Castle College: http://www.lews.uhi.ac.uk/