open educational resources and capacity building for development

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

www.sparc.arl.org

Open Educational Resources Program [email protected] @txtbks

Open Educational Resources

and Capacity Building for Development

Nicole AllenOER Program Director, SPARC

6th Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals

December 10, 2013 • United Nations, New York, NY


www.sparc.arl.org


SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an

international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more

open system for sharing the results of research.

www.sparc.arl.org


www.sparc.arl.org


Open Educational Resources (OER)

Teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

- UNESCO


www.sparc.arl.org



www.sparc.arl.org


Open Educational Resources (OER)

Teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

- UNESCO


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OER enables capacity building

by enabling education


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Source: “What Works in Girls’ Education,” Herz and Sperling 2004http://www.cfr.org/education/works-girls-education/p6947

Slide adapted from http://www.righttoresearch.org

Education Builds CapacityProviding girls one extra year of education beyond the average boosts eventual wages by 10–20 percent. Studies have found returns to primary education on the order of 5 to 15 percent for boys and slightly higher for girls.

http://www.cfr.org/education/works-girls-education/p6947


http://www.righttoresearch.org/


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Source: “What Works in Girls’ Education,” Herz and Sperling 2004http://www.cfr.org/education/works-girls-education/p6947

Slide adapted from http://www.righttoresearch.org

Access to Materials Enables EducationWhen free textbooks were supplied to primary schools, controlling for other influences, girls were 30 percent more likely to enroll, but no effect was recorded for boys’ enrollments.



http://www.righttoresearch.org/


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OER & Capacity Building

• Cost savings. Free for students, teachers, schools and governments.


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Learn more: http://www.siyavula.com/

Siyavula is a social enterprise built on community, openness and technology, working to make high quality educational resources available to every learner and teacher in South Africa.

http://www.siyavula.com/

http://www.siyavula.com/


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During a teacher strike in 2010, the South African government contacted Siyavula to deploy open textbooks throughout national public schools.

Siyavula currently offers more than 20 open textbook titles, which have been used by more than 4 million students – saving more than 230 million Rand (USD $23 million).

Every student gets a print copy that they can keep, and the books can be downloaded in a PDF format for free, for use on tablets, smartphones and laptops.

Image Credit: Siyavula.com (used under fair use)


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• Access. Can be used and distributed in any format, for any device – on or offline.


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Learn more: http://ole.org

OLE International is a social benefit organization with a mission to increase access to quality education through the integration of technology.

http://ole.org/

http://ole.org/


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Olé’s Community Learning Centres (CLCs) Program will enable refugees in Dadaab, Kenya to access high-quality OER through the use of tablets linked to a digital library that works off the internet with locally generated power.

This project will make it possible for more than 440,000 refugees to access resources relevant to their needs and interests. This program will also build capacity at the local level, employing a team of 6 refugees to serve as Coaches and Technical Geniuses.

Image Credit: Ole.org (used under fair use)


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• Localization. Can be freely adapted and translated to suit local needs.


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The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology OER initiative seeks to promote open learning through an open exploration that enables faculty, students and the global academic community to access OER to maximize the impact and reach of their scholarly work through open sharing.

Learn more: http://web.knust.edu.gh/oer/pages/

http://web.knust.edu.gh/oer/pages/

http://web.knust.edu.gh/oer/pages/


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When you look in textbooks it’s difficult to find African cases.

[S]ometimes it can be confusing when you see something that you see on white skin so nicely and very easy to pick up, but on the dark skin it has a different manifestation that may be difficult to see.

-Richard Phillips, lecturer, Department of Internal Medicine, KNUST (Ghana)

Image CC:BY-NC-SA Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Slide credit: University of Michigan. Adapted from http://www.slideshare.net/ummedicalschool/capacity-

building-for-global-health


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• Localization. Can be freely adapted and translated to suit local needs.

• Sharing. Worldwide audience, inviting collaboration and shared resources.


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The mission of the African Health Open Educational Resources (OER) Network is to advance health education in Africa by creating and promoting free, openly licensed teaching materials created by Africans to share knowledge, address curriculum gaps, and support health education communities.

Learn more: http://www.oerafrica.org/

http://www.oerafrica.org/


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The Paris OER Declaration, adopted during the World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress in June 2012, was the first step for the development of policies supporting OER. The Declaration aimed at encouraging governments to contribute to the awareness and the use of OER and to develop strategies and policies to integrate OER in education.

Learn more: http://www.unesco.org/oercongress

http://www.unesco.org/oercongress


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Key Recommendations

Foster awareness and use of OER.Promote and use OER to widen access to education at all levels, both formal and non-formal, in a perspective of lifelong learning, thus contributing to social inclusion, gender equity and special needs education. Improve both cost-efficiency and quality of teaching and learning outcomes through greater use of OER.


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Key Recommendations

Foster strategic alliances for OER.Take advantage of evolving technology to create opportunities for sharing materials which have been released under an open license in diverse media and ensure sustainability through new strategic partnerships within and among the education, industry, library, media and telecommunications sectors.


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Key Recommendations

Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds.Governments/competent authorities can create substantial benefits for their citizens by ensuring that educational materials developed with public funds be made available under open licenses (with any restrictions they deem necessary) in order to maximize the impact of the investment.


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OER in North America & Europe

• U.S. State Department launched the Open Book Project to expand access to OER in Arabic http://www.state.gov/p/nea/openbook/

• U.S. Department of Labor providing $2 billion in grants for workforce training, requires all materials be licensed as OER http://www.doleta.gov/taaccct/

• European Commission launched “Opening Up Education” initiative to increase the use of digital technologies for learning and spur OER creation, policies http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-859_en.htm

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/openbook/

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/openbook/

http://www.doleta.gov/taaccct/

http://www.doleta.gov/taaccct/

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-859_en.htm

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-859_en.htm


www.sparc.arl.org


Nicole Allen [email protected]

@txtbks

http://sparc.arl.org

http://sparc.arl.org/issues/oer/