Although the concept of OER initially gained publicity in the Global North, OER are gaining traction in Africa, with an increasing number of OER initiatives focusing on areas such as OER advocacy, practice, and research. Today, the concept has been mainstreamed around the world, as exemplified through the unanimous adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on OER in 2019.
Drawing on a comprehensive literature review of best practice in OER measurement, as well as experience of working with UNESCO to support implementation of the Recommendation, this chapter presents an initial framework for the measurement of the effectiveness of the OER Recommendation and proposes indicators that regions, countries, and/or institutions could adopt or adapt to rigorously measure both how OER is used and its effectiveness for improving learning.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the importance of professional development on effective teaching and learning for university academics into sharp relief. Universities found themselves having to close their campuses and were unable to teach their students face-to-face. Universities in Africa resorted to various strategies to reach students, ranging from no teaching taking place, through emergency remote teaching (ERT) with some form of online teaching, to fully implemented e-learning.
In the last decade, a number of OER initiatives in African higher education have sought to address challenges related to the access, supply and contextualisation of educational materials. However, limited information is available on the effectiveness of such initiatives. To gain deeper insight into this, OER Africa conducted research between September 2019 and February 2022. The project analysed the effectiveness of eleven key African OER initiatives in higher education and their influence on developing and supporting effective OER practices.
Openly licensed educational content and librarians could enable more equitable access to quality resources, but only if governments, the development community, and other stakeholders pay attention to open educational resources (OER), open access, and other forms of open learning and research. This overview considers one global instrument aimed at facilitating openness, the UNESCO OER Recommendation, and carefully inspects it as it relates to the different library types in Africa and the user communities the libraries represent.
This report sets out to understand the effectiveness of OER policies to date and whether there is evidence of integration between OER policy provisions and other mainstream government policy commitments or strategic goals.
Neil Butcher was invited to present at Botswana Open University’s Open Access Week in October, 2021. In this presentation, OERs and open licensing: Why it matters to open universities?, Neil explores what is needed for us to join the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Librarians are positioned to lead the way in the 4IR by helping their institutions and communities understand and harness the potential of open licences and OER.
