oer africa – an introduction (kenya methodist university, meru) january 2010

OER AfricaAn introduction

Kenya Methodist UniversityMeru, Kenya

27th January, 2010

Who we are OER Africa is an innovative initiative of Saide,

headquartered in Nairobi and established to play a leading role in driving the development and use of OER in Africa.

OER Africa brings together all of SAIDE’s OER-related activities under a common conceptual framework designed to ensure that the full value proposition of OER is unleashed to the greatest possible effect in African education.

Seed funding from the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and a wide variety of projects and partnerships running across Africa, to deploy African experts and expertise to harness the concept of OER to the benefit of education systems on the continent and around the world.

KeMU Policy Review & OER Workshop

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What is the Vision of OER Africa?

Vibrant and sustainable African education systems and institutions that play a critical role in building and sustaining African societies and economies, by producing the continent’s future intellectual leaders through free and open development and sharing of common intellectual capital.


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What is the Mission of OER Africa?

To establish dynamic networks of African OER practitioners by connecting like-minded academics from across the continent to develop, share, and adapt OER to meet the higher education needs of African societies.

By creating and sustaining human networks of collaboration – face-to-face and online – OER Africa will enable African academics to harness the power of OER, develop their capacity, and become integrated into the emerging global OER networks as active participants rather than passive consumers.


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KeMU – OER Africa MoU

Intent of this MOU is to create a framework that will assist both parties create a working partnership to enable joint pursuit of collaborative activities and projects…

… specifically in the area of Open Educational Resources for Health (Health OER)

…more generally in areas where there are demonstrable intersections of interest.

5KeMU Policy Review & OER Workshop

KeMU – OER Africa Activities Purpose of these activities & projects will be to

develop quality, innovative, educationally sound educational programmes and re-deployable educational resources for meaningful education and to deliver these programmes using appropriate e-learning platforms where appropriate.

Emphasis on the creation of policies that support the creation and sharing of Open Educational Resources (OER).

OER Africa to run sensitization workshops at KeMU to help to ensure that academic staff are brought up to date with, and participate in the review of policy frameworks. (Oct ‘09, Jan ‘10)


Objective of Policy Mapping

Over-arching Policy Framework on OER which: takes cognisance of the particular

circumstances, Vision and Mission of each participating university and;

facilitates collaboration with other distance education providers to produce and adapt high quality distance learning materials for use in programmes.


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INTRODUCINGOPEN EDUCATIONAL

RESOURCESKeMU Policy Review & OER Workshop

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Why Open Educational Resources?

Concept:Educational resources for use by educators

and learners, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence fees.

New licensing frameworks remove copying / adaptation restrictions

OER hold potential for reducing the cost of accessing educational materials.


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What Potential Lies in OER?

Access to the means of production enables development of educators’ competence in producing educational materials

Access to instructional design necessary to integrate such materials into high quality programmes of learning.

Principle of allowing adaptation of materials enables learners to be active participants in educational processes


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How do we Capture this Potential?

Through the potential of a collaborative partnership of people...

working in communities of practice

focussed on the four main elements of the OER evolutionary process: Creation, Organization, Dissemination

and Use.


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Dispelling Some Myths

Content = education

Good content will overcome institutional capacity constraints

OER should be a process of voluntarism

OER will make education cheaper in the short-term

Openness automatically equates with quality

OER is about e-learning


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INTRODUCINGCREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING


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What is the most commonly used Alternative License Framework? Most developed alterative licensing approach

is that developed by Larry Lessig of Stanford University in 2001, called Creative Commons (CC).

CC licences most often used for OER work and provide various options.

The CC approach provides user-friendly open licences for digital materials and so avoids the automatically applied copyright restrictions.


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How do CC Licenses Work?

CC licences are based on four specific conditions:

attribution,

share alike,

non-commercial and

no derivative worksKeMU Policy Review & OER

Workshop15

What are the CC License Conditions? (1)

Attribution You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.


Creators choose a set of conditions they wish to apply to their work.

Share Alike You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

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What are the CC License Conditions? (2)

Non-commercial You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for non-commercial purposes only.


No Derivative Works

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

http://creative commons .org

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http://creative/

How do CC Licenses Protect Intellectual Property?

All CC Licenses assert the author’s right over copyright and the granting of copyright freedoms and require licensees to: Obtain permission should they wish to use the resource in a

manner that has been restricted;

Keep the copyright notice intact on all copies of the work;

Publish the licence with the work or include a link to the licence from any copies of the work;

Not change the licence terms in anyway;

Not use technology or other means to restrict other licences’ lawful use of the work.


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What are the various CC Licenses?



Based on your choices, CC will suggest a license formulation that clearly indicates how

otherpeople may use your work.

.

Attribution (By)

Attribution — Share Alike

Attribution — No Derivatives

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http://creative/

What are the various CC Licenses?



. Attribution — Non-Commercial

Attribution — Non-Commercial — No Derivatives

Attribution — Non-Commercial — Share Alike

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http://creative/

What can Creative Commons Do for Me? CC licenses give you flexibility

e.g. you can choose to only pre-clear non-commercial uses or to combine several license conditions

CC Licenses protect the people who use your work As long as they abide by the terms you have specified,

they don’t have to worry about copyright infringement.

Relevant content is available to you under various CC Licenses If you are looking for content that you can freely and

legally use, there is a giant pool of CC-licensed creativity available to you.


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INTRODUCING


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http://www.oerafrica.org/Default.aspx?alias=www.oerafrica.org/healthproject

http://www.oerafrica.org/Default.aspx?alias=www.oerafrica.org/healthproject

Q & A


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Thank you

Catherine Ngugi Neil ButcherProject Director OER Strategist

[email protected] [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

COMMENTS AFTER SESSIONS 1 & 2


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Questions / Comments (1)


Questions / Comments (2)
