Publish at August 18 2021 Updated July 08 2022
The importance of open educational resources (OER) is no longer in question. In June 2021, the UNESCO Dakar Office organized a regional forum, on the potential of OER for a more inclusive, innovative and quality education. In addition to reflecting on possible synergies and partnerships for successful integration of OER in West Africa and the Sahel, the different countries invited (Burkina Faso, France, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo) shared their experiences in OER. The experiences shared revealed that the production and use of OER, while progressive, is still likely to be slow.
Let us also recall that in 2012, Philippe Menkoué had already highlighted the "timid use" of OER in Africa[1], and had recommended that "African universities should also produce OER, adapted to local contexts". Indeed, Africa was (is) until then mostly a consumer of OER produced by foreign institutions and universities and contributed very little to the local production of OER more suited to its socio-cultural, technological and economic realities.
My goal in this article is therefore to share ideas that can stimulate and encourage greater production and use of OER on the African continent[2] as well as in the global South.
Before going further, let us already point out that the supply of OER has almost never been an issue[3] as such in the South. Quantitatively, there are enough of them and it is sometimes more economical[4] and affordable as well for teachers and learners[5].
Qualitatively, some efforts must be made[6]. A major barrier is accessibility, as the use of existing OER is hampered by barriers in technological hardware[7], technical infrastructure, and individual skills[8]. Internet penetration is not robust in many African countries[9], making the cost of access high for teachers or learners wishing to use OER in their teaching practices.
Many African governments, also lack educational policies framing the production and use of OER[10]. Finally, the content of existing OERs does not always fit the socio-cultural realities of Africa, hence the need to create more of them locally.
The Study Report (2019) on OER Usage Policies[11], conducted by the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL), the English-speaking equivalent of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), confirms that technical problems are the main barrier to the use or adaptation of OER in the global South. However, there are innovative solutions to get around this such as:
It was developed by CoL and is economically affordable, allowing educators and learners to connect to online educational platforms to access content without the need for electricity or internet access. The device's mini-server has a battery that can be recharged by solar or electric power. It can host up to 128 GB of educational content and can be used for virtual exchanges even from a remote village or university campus. Aptus creates a kind of "classroom without walls" that can be set up in minutes and accessed by any learner with a laptop, tablet or cell phone.
Aptus has thus been widely used:
2- Learning Equality Foundation's Kolibri app
This offline learning platform works on a variety of devices and at low cost. The Kolibri product ecosystem includes a library of open educational resources and a toolkit of resources to support training and implementation in formal, informal, and non-formal learning environments.
Kolibri is used in more than 200 countries and territories around the world, serving millions of learners and educators living in underserved contexts where the internet is expensive, unreliable, or simply inaccessible.
There are more than 80 educational collections of games, books, simulations, assessments, etc., from educational organizations and developers. All of the content in the library is directly usable and can be customized to fit your curriculum standards or educational goals. Kolibri has been used for informal education with Raspberry Pi software in refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda by UNHCR and the Vodafone Foundation. The application can be downloaded freely and for free here and there is a grant program for those without the financial means to afford it procure it.
Through these two innovative solutions developed by the Commonwealth of Learning (Aptus) as well as Learning Equality (Kolibri), countries in the Global South are gaining greater access to and use of OER. But there are other measures that need to complement these solutions.
This grants legal authorization and increases the motivation of potential users of existing OER who can use them or adapt them to new pedagogical situations. At this level, it is important to ask:
To address the challenges below, it is important:
The benefit of using open source licenses was visible following the impact of Covid-19 in education[12]. The University of South Africa (UNISA) has used existing OER for online teacher training and Covid has also encouraged many African universities to further explore OER and scale up their open educational practices[13].
The practical case I would like to share here is the experience of Rutgers University in the United States where the President provided financial grants and technical support to encourage faculty to adopt or develop OER to replace overly expensive textbooks and allow more students to have access to them.
This has positively affected the academic performance of more than 19,000 students who have saved at least $3.5 million. Lily and Zara further analyze the factors that stimulated and motivated these teachers to produce more OER[14]. But it is clear from this that financial grants, coupled with institutional support can greatly accelerate the adoption and production of new OER by teachers as confirmed by this other study conducted this time at three universities in South Africa[15].
Conclusion
COVID-19 is a unique opportunity to intensify the transition from Open Educational Resources (OER) to Open Educational Practices (OEP): from awareness to action.
Currently, unprecedented international support is available to increase the use of OER in education systems, particularly those in the Global South. UNESCO[16]'s recommendations on integrating OER can facilitate the process, and I hope that the ideas and solutions shared in this article will be useful to teachers, decision-makers, and educational policy influencers in implementing and democratizing OER in their personal, institutional, and national practices.
Of course, the effectiveness of these solutions will depend largely on contextual variables that are the responsibility of the teacher or learner.
Directory of Repositories of Open Educational Resources and Learning Objects (OER)
https://cursus.edu/9707/repertoire-des-depots-dobjets-dapprentissage-et-ressources-educatives-libres-rel
Annand, David, and Tilly Jensen. "Incentivizing the Production and Use of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education Institutions." The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 18, no 4 (June 16, 2017). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3009
Bozkurt, Aras, Insung Jung, Junhong Xiao, Viviane Vladimirschi, Robert Schuwer, Gennady Egorov, Sarah R Lambert, et al." A Global Outlook to the Interruption of Education Due to COVID-19 Pandemic: Navigating in a Time of Uncertainty and Crisis." Asian Journal of Distance Education 15, no 1 (June 5, 2020): 1-126. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3878572
Miao, Fengchun, Sanjaya Mishra, Dominic Orr, and Ben Janssen. Guidelines on the development of open educational resources policies. UNESCO Publishing, 2019.
Ossiannilsson, Ebba, Xiangyang Zhang, Jennryn Wetzler, Cristine Gusmão, Cengiz Hakan Aydin, Rajiv Jhangiani, James Glapa-Grossklag, Mpine Makoe, and Dhaneswar Harichandan. "From Open Educational Resources to Open Educational Practices. Distance and Mediation of Knowledge. Distance and Mediation of Knowledge, no 31 (September 28, 2020). https://doi.org/10.4000/dms.5393
Philippe, Menkoué. "Open educational resources (OER): timid use in Africa". Accessed August 12, 2021. https://cursus.edu/8864/ressources-educatives-libres-rel-timide-utilisation-en-afrique
Ruth, D. & Boyd, J. (2016, January 20). OpenStax already saved students $39 million this academic year. Rice University News & Media. Retrieved from http://news.rice.edu/2016/01/20/openstax-already-saved-students-39-million-this-academic-year/.
Senack, E. & Donaghue, R. (2016). Covering the cost. Student PIRGs. Retrieved from http://studentpirgs.org/reports/sp/covering-cost.
Todorinova, Lily, & Zara T. Wilkinson. "Incentivizing faculty for open educational resources (OER) adoption and open textbook authoring." Journal of Academic Librarianship 46, no 6 (November 2020): 102220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102220
[1] Menkoué Philippe, "Ressources éducatives libres (REL) : timide utilisation en Afrique," accessed 12 August 2021, https://cursus.edu/8864/resources-educatives-libres-rel-timide-utilisation-en-afrique
[2] Let's already point out that the Association for the Promotion of African Free Educational Resources (APRELIA) is raising awareness of the importance of OER in Africa and is supporting research in this area. URL: https://www.aprelia.org/index.php/fr/ and https://cursus.edu/9031/un-site-pour-la-promotion-des-ressources-educatives-libres-en-afrique
[3] OER provision is not really an issue as there are many organizations working to produce and disseminate OER. Besides the Commonwealth Of Learning (COL), AUF, the TESSA program, Sankoré etc., let's also mention the African Virtual University (AVU) which has opened a portal of open online resources.
[4] David Annand and Tilly Jensen, "Incentivizing the Production and Use of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education Institutions," The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 18, no 4 (June 16, 2017), https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3009
[5] In the United States, for example, a study by Donoghue (2016) of 5,000 students showed that about 65% of those at the undergraduate level did not purchase all the educational resources required by their University because of their exorbitant cost, thus affecting their academic performance. In 2015-2016 alone, OER use saved students more than $39 million USD according to an OpenStax OER study cited by Ruth and Boyd (2016)
[6] For example, studies have shown that a barrier to OER adoption is its time-consuming nature. Indeed, teachers report that finding, evaluating, and incorporating OER into their curricula is extremely time consuming.
[7] Agbu, J.-F. O., Mulder, F., de Vries, F., Tenebe, V., & Caine, A. (2016). The best of two open worlds at the national open university of Nigeria. Open Praxis, 8, 111-121. doi:10.5944/openpraxis.8.2
[8] Kellner, C, Massou, L. & Morelli, P. (2010). (Re)thinking the non-use of ICT. Communication Issues, 18. Retreived from: http://journals.openedition.org/questionsdecommunication/395
[9] Cape Town Open Education Declaration. (2007). Cape Town open education declaration: Unlocking the promise of open educational resources. http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration
[10] Mtebe, J. S., & Raisamo, R. (2014). Investigating perceived barriers to the use of open educational resources in higher education in Tanzania. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 15(2).https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v15i2.1803
[11] Fengchun Miao et al., Guidelines on the development of open educational resources policies (UNESCO Publishing, 2019).
[12] Aras Bozkurt et al., "A Global Outlook to the Interruption of Education Due to COVID-19 Pandemic: Navigating in a Time of Uncertainty and Crisis," Asian Journal of Distance Education 15, no 1 (5 June 2020): 1-126, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3878572
[13] Ebba Ossiannilsson et al, "From Open Educational Resources to Open Educational Practices," Distances and Mediation of Knowledge. Distance and Mediation of Knowledge, no 31 (September 28, 2020), https://doi.org/10.4000/dms.5393
[14] Lily Todorinova and Zara T. Wilkinson, "Incentivizing faculty for open educational resources (OER) adoption and open textbook authoring," Journal of Academic Librarianship 46, no 6 (November 2020): 102220, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102220
[15] Cox, G. and Trotter, H. (2017). Factors shaping lecturers' adoption of OER at three South African universities. In C. Hodgkinson-Williams and P. Arinto (eds.), Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South (pp. 287-347). Retreived from: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.601935
[16] Hoosen, S., & Butcher, N., OER Africa. (2019). Understanding the impact of OER: Achievement and challenges. Paris: UNESCO: IIITE. Edited by Svetlana Knyazeva, UNESCO IIITE. https://iite.unesco.org/publications/understanding-the-impact-of-oer-achievements-and-challenges/
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