[Oer-community] Forwarded message from Catherine Ngugi

[Igor Lesko]

Dear All

I agree that a map of OER initiatives would be very useful for many of
the reasons already stipulated by various contributors to this list.

Coming back to Catherine's point about "how to ensure searchability"
of the map: I do agree that a common metadata framework would have to
be established.

Searchability of the map could be ensured by a quasi search engine
that could be "attached" to the map where people could search for
initiatives, resources, etc according to specific keywords.

For an example, have a look at the SERENDIPITY project. Serendipity is
an exciting and innovative pilot program sponsored by the research
group GICAC from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (GICAC-UPM) and
the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL) in collaboration
with the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC). This project aims to
improve the searchability and discoverability of open educational
content, which will enhance the ability for learners and educators to
find and use OCW courses.

At the moment, it is work in progress (beta version) but you can
already search for open content using specific keywords. The results
are organized according to a number of categories: Platforms used for
the content, names of authors, university, organization, tags,
discipline, licenses used, languages of resources, regions/countries
of the world where initiatives/resources are located. At the moment,
we are testing it and will inform the community when it is ready for
feedback.

You can have a look at one example here when searching for a keyword
"history": http://linkeddata.utpl.edu.ec/results/serendipity/Flamenco?words=history&q=geography&facet=&in=all

Kind Regards

Igor
---------------
Igor Lesko
Operations Manager & Open Education Specialist
OpenCourseWare Consortium
Cell:+27(0)72 6130478 (Johannesburg, South Africa)
igorlesko at gmail.com (personal)
igorlesko at ocwconsortium.org (work)
Skype:igor19805
Twitter:igor_lesko
www.ocwconsortium.org


On 14 November 2012 15:18, Susan D'Antoni <susandantoni at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>
> I am forwarding another message - this one from Catherine Ngugi who is
> Project Director for OER Africa.  Along with education, health is a key
> social service.  OER Health is an initiative addressing one of the pressing
> social demands.
>
>
> My best,
>
>
> Susan
>
> *******************************
>
>
> Dear All,
>
>
> In 2009, OER Africa was launched to support African institutions of higher
> education in creating and using OER as a means of improving teaching and
> learning. We quickly set about the launch of a proof of concept pilot
> project. The objective was to test that notion that OER could indeed serve
> to address gaps in existing curriculum as well as to update and modify
> curriculum by making it more contextually relevant. This is critical in the
> environment in which OER Africa works, typified by rising costs of text
> books, the slow (although steady) growth of information and communication
> technologies, over-stretched faculty, and ever-increasing pressure by
> governments on higher education institutions to provide quality higher
> education to ever-growing numbers of potential students.
>
>
> Accordingly, Health OER began as a partnership between the University of
> Ghana, the Kwame Nkruma University of Science and Technology – also in Ghana
> – the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, the
> University of Michigan and OER Africa. Faculty at the Colleges of Health
> Sciences within these African partner institutions had long been concerned
> with developing socially relevant and culturally appropriate training
> materials and experiences for their students. They wished to address the
> challenge of large class instruction in the face of limited tutorial time
> and small numbers of qualified lecturers and realized they needed to find
> alternative ways to deliver health education content in a format that would
> enable students to have increased access to the material, in their own time.
>
>
> The results were positive. Faculty gained the chance to learn or refresh
> their own skills in materials design – and the opportunity to include within
> their curriculum the notion of resource based learning – and move away from
> a dependence on lectures as the main means by which to deliver the
> curriculum. Students gained access to resources specifically tailored by
> their faculty to meet their particular needs.
>
> As all the resources created were shared under an open license, there was no
> need for faculty to re-invent the wheel: resources created in Ghana could
> easily be used to teach students in North America; resources created in
> local languages at the University of Cape Town, could easily be picked up by
> neighboring universities to support even more students.
>
>
> Adherence to universal standards meant that the metadata from all of these
> resources was widely accessible through a regular search engine. With little
> support from OER Africa, many of the faculty involved in the original
> pilots, continue to create and share OER – and to raise the institutional
> profile of their universities – and of their own intellectual capital.
>
>
> I have no doubt that pockets of OER projects and initiatives, not dissimilar
> to what I have described, abound across the whole world.  Many are visible
> only to a small circle of participants. An OER world map of institutional
> initiatives might allow not only greater visibility to such projects, but
> greater access to valuable resources that others might not otherwise have.
> It is only a substantive body of OER work that will allow us to foster
> useful research on the development, use, evaluation and re-contextualisation
> of OER, as recommended by the 2012 OER Paris Declaration. A world map of OER
> initiatives could thereby contribute to strengthening the evidence base for
> public investment in OER and encourage governments to adapt an implement OER
> policies to promote better teaching and learning in publicly funded
> institutions of higher education.
>
> That said, as we go forward, we may wish to consider some of the following
> issues:
>
> ·       What constitutes an institutional OER project? Do we need a
> definition?
>
> ·       In the interests of inclusivity rather than false dichotomies, might
> the definition of “an institutional OER project” focus around the open
> license that typifies both OER and Open Access?
>
> ·       How might we ensure searchability of the map? Might we need to
> specify the kind of metadata that should accompany entries to the map?
>
>
>
> Catherine Ngugi
>
> Project Director
>
> OER Africa
>
>
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