Assessing the impact of access to and availability of OER on the emergence and extent of open education practices in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of an ICT-integrated multinational teacher education program in math and science

Dr. Atieno Adala
African Virtual University
ROER4D sub-project 10.2
Assessing the impact of OER availability on the emergence of
open educational practices in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case
of an ICT-integrated Multinational Teacher Education Program
in Math and Science
OPEN EDUCATION GLOBAL CONFERENCE
March 8-10, 2017
Cape Town, South Africa

Background/Context
• Focus of this study is the multinational teacher education project that was
funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and United Nations
Development Program (UNDP), Somalia and implemented by the AVU
between 2005 and 2011.
• This was an ICT-integrated teacher education curriculum in Math, Physics,
Chemistry and Biology.
• Seventy three courses were developed, peer-reviewed and translated in
English, French and Portuguese totaling 219 modules that were released
under a Creative Commons License.
• The TEP was aimed at building capacity in the participating institutions with
the objective of increasing access to quality education

73 modules in English
73 modules in French
73 modules in Portuguese
-------------------------------------
219 modules available as OER
Print
DVD (pdf + doc versions)
Online (oer.avu.org)
Youtube (Intro videos)
Background/Context

Background/Context
Country Institution
1. Ethiopia 1. Jimma University
2. Kenya 2. University of Nairobi
3. Madagascar 3. Universite d’Antananarivo
4. Mozambique 4. Universidade Pedagogica
5. Somalia 5. Amoud University
6. East Africa University
7. University of Hargeisa
6. Senegal 8. Université Cheikh Anta Diop
7. Tanzania 9. Open University of Tanzania
8. Uganda 10. Kyambogo University
9. Zambia 11. University of Zambia
10. Zimbabwe 12. University of Zimbabwe
AVU Multinational Project Phase 1 Countries

Research Question/Hypothesis
 What has been the impact of access to, and availability of, OER
on the emergence and extent of OEP at the level of the AVU
consortium and across its network of partner universities?
 The underlying assumption (or hypothesis) for this study is that
access to and availability of OER has the potential to lead to the
emergence of open education practices, at least to some varying
extent which may be dependent on the institutional context.
 OPAL (2012) observes that the issue of OER use could be
facilitated by creating a culture of openness within institutions
through a complementary focus on educational practices in
addition to resources.
 OEP defined as practices which support the (re)use and
production of OER through institutional policies, promote
innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower
learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path.

Conceptual Framework
Dimensions of Open Educational Practices
Steps Dimensions of OEP
Step 1: Positioning your
organisation in the OEP
trajectory: Use of OER and Open
Learning Architectures
1. Extent of using and repurposing OER
2. Availability of a process for OER creation
3. Degree of sharing of OER and OEP
4. Extent of working with open learning
architectures
Step 2: Creating a vision of openness
and a strategy for OEP in an
organisation
5. Organizational vision for OEP:
6. Existing OEP strategies and policies:,
7. Business model related to OEP:
8. Partnerships related to OEP:
9. Perceived relevance for OEP:
Step 3: Implementing and promoting
OEP to transform learning
10. IPR and Copyright regulations:
11. Motivational framework for OEP
12. Tools to support sharing and exchange of OEP
13. Quality concepts for OEP
14. Level of knowledge and skills
15. Digital literacy
16. Support mechanisms for OEP

OER Usage
Low
No OER
(re)usage
Medium
OER (re)usage
or creation
High
OER (re)usage
or creation
DegreeofPedagogicalOpenness
High
Social practices, co-creation, sharing
(reflection in action)
Knowledge co-creation
 open objectives;
 open methods
A B
C
Medium
Dialog, Procedures, Rules,
(Know-how)
 Closed objectives
 Open methods (e.g. problem
based learning)
D
E F
Low
Knowledge transmission
(Know that)
 “closed” objectives;
 “closed” methods
G H I
Source: Conole (2011), Ehlers (2011)
Conceptual Framework

Data collection & analysis
 Data collection methods included interviews and document analysis
 Data collection, analysis and reporting has focused on these three levels:
 the AVU network (consortium) level;
 the organizational level of the partner institution; and
 the educational professionals’ (individual faculty/lecturer) level.
 Document analysis - published literature on the AVU OER, organizational documents, the
module development template and the ICT integration modules and Mathematics module.
 A semi-structured questionnaire was developed and used to guide the interview which was
done with respondents from UA. The questionnaire was administered to the respondents during
face-to-face interviews, and a total of eleven interviews were conducted.
 The different respondents interviewed for example at the organizational level of the partner
institution included the Director of the Center for Open and Distance Learning at UA,
Coordinator of Open, Distance and eLearning (ODeL) Science, Head of the Mathematics
Division at UA.

 At the network level - What was the extent of use and repurposing of OER in
the creation of the AVU teacher education OER courseware?
 The OER modules and the module development template were some of the
documents reviewed for extent of use and repurposing of OER.
 Resources and readings suggested for the completion of learning activities be
copyright free, either written originally by the module developer, or be from
open access content.
 This requirement was quite strict because it is stated in the template that
modules that do not comply with the request for copyright free resources will
not be accepted.
Q. 1. Impact of availability of OER on extent of use and
repurposing at the network level

Suggested Resources
 GEODE (http://www.uw-igs.org/search/)
 MERLOT (http://www.merlot.org/)
 Canada Learning Object Project eduSource (http://www.edusource.ca/)
 Burrokeet (http://www.burrokeet.org/)
 VLORN (http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/vlorn/)
 LON-CAPA (http://www.loncapa.org/)
 Collections of learning objects
(http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/AOP/LO_collections.html).
 Wikipedia and open access journals

 A review of select modules showed extensive use of open access content
 These include complete pdfs, textbooks, wikibooks, links to various online
resources on a range of topics and software.
 A number of the resources and readings such as the textbooks were availed
on CD. This corresponds with the instructions in the template to consider
that ease of access is not guaranteed for all students and therefore authors
should ensure that in addition to the web links, the resources are provided
on a CD.
 Resources have different licenses—the GNU General Public License version
2 (GPLv2), Creative Commons, some just give permissions for use but no
license attached.

Example of repurposing
 In the template, module authors were advised to “find a variety of learning
activities will suit a variety of learning styles, within the African context.”
 One module author and a faculty at UA, described the AVU OER as being “rich
in the pedagogy element….” in particular the aspect of storytelling drawing from
familiar African stories and symbols.
 He stated that this was a powerful pedagogical tool, which he admitted was
initially a challenge in coming up with stories…….
 ….in fact it was the greatest challenge I have ever faced as somebody who
trains Mathematicians. Because they [facilitators] said it would be better before
you introduce the topic, you give a story in form of an activity. You can give a
story which is fiction or real but is based on our African context. You see what
that means is that you are infusing culture in the learning of Mathematics and
Science concepts (resp) cont….

Example of repurposing cont…
 Permutations? Our grandfathers used to tell us stories that “one day a
person was carrying a leopard and a goat and potato vines. And he needed
to cross the river. Do you know how those three are related?
 Introducing problems in this way helped demystify the concep, “that way the
learner receives the concept in a way that is more natural than mysterious.”
 This is especially for the African context, and if the OER being repurposed
might have been produced for other contexts.
 However, the Respondent cautions that differences in students’
backgrounds such as those living in rural versus urban settings may affect
their understanding of such stories.

repurposing at the organizational level of the PI
 What was the extent of use and repurposing of OER at the PI, as a result of
access to, and availability of, the AVU OER courseware?
 The study found that the UA did not take up the AVU teacher education
curriculum as a degree program to be offered through their institution
 …if you say is [UA] using OER materials for their courses or do they have some
students who are using OER from AVU as the teaching mechanism leading to
an examination and an award at the end? On the basis of that one, the answer
will be no…..we participated in the development of the instructional materials
but we did not participate in using those materials for our own award”
(Respondent 1).

 Cost sharing arrangement. To deliver the AVU teacher education degree program
required that UA sign a cost-sharing agreement, so that a certain percentage of
student fee would be shared with the AVU. The following justifications were provided
for why UA should not get into the cost-sharing arrangement:
 Even if it used the AVU OER courseware, the contention was that UA would still
have to use its own materials. “because it is going to cost us money yet we have
adequate resources we can use for teaching our students by distance mode without
having to sign into this other than openness
 Without any kind of a proposal for joint certification then the AVU teacher education
program and the OER became just a resource, “because if you don’t get to
certification there was no need for paying. If it is UA certification then it becomes
just a general resource area” (Resp. 1).
 The courses were only in four broad subject areas. “we don’t have to bother
developing new ones, [since] to some extent they are good in certain areas, but
they were only in four broad subject areas [Math, Biology, Chemistry and Physics],
therefore, they were going to exclude several other areas” (Resp. 1).

 Despite the fact that ICT-integration was the strongest point of the AVU OER,
UA was not in a position to offer learners ICT-integrated courses. (Resp. 1)
 The technological environment and the level of supply of equipment was not in
place. UA was not able to assure compliance through its learning portal to
ensure that all students had the capacity to access the system equally, or even
ensure that they had access to computers.
 because for you to assess students using a mechanism, that mechanism must
be available to all of them in the same way without any discrimination.
Otherwise the exam would be tested on areas where they are not given
opportunity to do the right things (Resp.1).

 1. AVU OER given to junior faculty to use in teaching their courses
 2. AVU OER distributed to students (in the regular STEM program and
in the B.Ed program). They are given photocopies of module for a fee.
 3. Incorporating the aspect of ICT integration in course development.
The ICT-integration aspect of the AVU OER courseware seemed to
have had an impact as far as UA using them for the development of
their own ICT-integrated instructional materials at UA and in turn having
the potential to improve quality of instruction.

 4. Use/repurposing of AVU OER as a resource for training and development of
courses for distance learning.
 UA uses a variety of OER when developing distance learning resources. He stated
that, “when we are involved in training we [tell faculty] we’ve got a lot of OER
materials…. and we [refer] them to use these as resource areas. He noted that they
use resources that “are in familiar areas and from familiar institutions.” (Resp 1).
 He gave examples of some of the OER they use and these included, the AVU OER,
the COL and TESSA
 Compared to the other two the AVU OER were particularly the closest. If you go to
AVU, these are materials which have been developed very close to [the curriculum
of UA], because a lot of our people participated in those. If you look at them,
generally they are even more closer to our normal curriculum. Therefore they
respond to our syllabus with much less modification at all (Resp. 1).

 The OER were not being used as is, but were being repurposed. The course
writers repurpose the OER when developing their own instructional materials.
“I think what is important is you [the writers] use it as an important resource
area for developing your own. They are not bringing these [AVU OER] to use as
theirs….they are repurposing them.”
 Use and repurposing of OER at UA was quite high and was embedded into the
practice of the institution, in particular, in areas where UA was developing
distance and open learning materials, they were using OER,
 Like now the policy of [UA] is to develop open distance eLearning for all
courses in the university. One, to serve the regular students as a different mode
of delivery. Two, to enable them where possible to serve students who will not
necessarily be internal students…As of now we have developed materials for
20 schools and we are about 80 schools. So you find the [use of OER] across
the board at all levels. (Resp. 1)

Q.2. Impact of availability of OER on the process for the
creation of the AVU OER
 Availability of OER or open access content, software, and tools like the
Creative Commons License did have an impact on the process for the creation
of OER modules at the network (consortium) level.
 OER made it possible for AVU to create modules that could be freely accessed,
used, repurposed and redistributed.
 The process for creation was undertaken at the network (consortium) level and
involved subject matter (faculty) drawn for the participating universities.
 Done within the context of the teacher education program, there was a well-
defined process and steps for the creation of the AVU OER modules that
included the following processes: (i) policy and curriculum conceptualization, (ii)
curriculum design, (iii) content development and authoring (iv) module
production, (v) peer review, (vi) translation and (vii) attachment of an open
license.

Q.2. Impact of availability of OER on the process for the
creation of the AVU OER
 One of the concerns for the OEP dimension of availability of a process for the creation of
OER, is that the licenses adopted allow for the free use and repurposing of OER.
 Certain strategies were undertaken by the AVU to enable the modules to be released as
OER. These included:
 First, the stipulation that members of the consortium agree to assign intellectual property
rights to one institution or the consortium in order to allow the resources to be released
under a Creative Commons license.
 Secondly, individual modules authors and peer reviewers waive their intellectual property
rights to AVU by signing the Creative Commons Agreement.
 Thirdly, in the development of the modules, authors were directed to use and repurpose
relevant OER readily available online, or create their own original materials.
 This therefore made it possible for AVU to release the modules as OER under the
Creative Commons license; hence, allowing users to freely access, use, repurpose and
retain the materials.

AVU Creative Commons License
 All materials released on the OER@AVU site are covered under the Creative
Commons
 Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-SA). This license allows
users to freely modify, rework and extend any of the material, and later
distribute it under the following two conditions:
 You must provide attribution to the creator of the material, and you must license
your derivative version under the same license (CC BY-SA).
 If you contribute material to OER@AVU, you must be the owner of the material,
and you must consent to releasing the material under the CC BY-SA license as
part of the submission process.

Q.3. Impact of availability of OER on extent of working with
open learning architectures?
 What needs to be determined is the degree of pedagogical openness—low, medium
or high:
 Low degrees of openness exist if objectives and methods of learning and/or
teaching are represented by closed, one-way, transmission and reproductive
approaches to teaching and learning. The underlying belief is that teachers know
what learners have to learn and mainly focus on knowledge transfer.
 Medium degrees of openness represents a stage in which objectives are still pre-
determined and given, but methods of teaching and learning that are represented
as open pedagogical models that encourage dialogue-oriented forms of learning or
problem-based learning (PBL) that focus on developing ‘know how.’
 High degrees of freedom and openness in pedagogical models are represented if
objectives of learning and methods (e.g., learning pathways) are highly determined
and governed by learners (self-regulated learners). Teachers facilitate learning
through open and experience-oriented methods which accommodate different
learning pathways.

Using learning types to assess pedagogical openness
Acquisition - Learning through
acquisition is what learners are
doing when they are listening to a
lecture or podcast, reading from
books or websites, and watching
demos or videos
Investigation - Learning through
investigation guides the learner
to explore, compare and critique
texts, documents and resources
that reflects the concepts and
ideas being taught
Practice - Learning through practice
enables the learner to adapt their
actions to the task goal, and use the
feedback to improve their next action.
Feedback may come from self-
reflection, from peers, from the
teacher, or from the activity itself.
Production - Learning through
production is the way the teacher
motivates the learner to consolidate
what they have learned by
articulating their current conceptual
understanding and how they used it
in practice
Discussion - Learning through
discussion requires the learner t
articulate their ideas and
questions, and to challenge and
respond to the ideas and
questions from the teacher
and/or from their peers
Collaboration - Learning through
collaboration embraces mainly
discussion, practice and production.
Building on investigations and
acquisition is about taking part in the
process of knowledge building itself
Source: Laurillard (Conversational Framework)

Mapping Learning Types to the Conversational Framework
Source: Laurillard ppt presentation

Task(s) Learning Types Technology
1. Learning activity 1.1: Reading critique
Read the UNESCO (2004) texts on
continuing education for teachers, and the
integration of ICT in scientific disciplines
(lessons-learned and best practices for ICT
in Mathematics, Biology, Physics and
Chemistry teaching
programs).
Acquisition: the learning
activity consists of
reading the assigned
compulsory readings.
The readings that have been
provided in a digital form as pdfs
and also availed on DVDs
Produce:
A 3-page summary report that brings out
the major points of a professional
development plan that would allow
teachers to succeed in integrating ICT in
their discipline.
A synthesis table presenting the basic
skills necessary to apply ICT in pedagogical
practices.
An analysis of the important themes
developed in the readings.
Production: the learning
activity consists of
learner producing a
summary report, a
synthesis table and an
analysis of report.
Written report
Table

Analysis of ICT Integration in chemistry module
Acquisition Investigation Practice Production Discussion Collaboration
1. LA 1.1
2. LA 1.2
3. LA 1.3
4. LA 1.4
5. LA 2
6. LA 3.1
7. LA 3.2
8. LA 3.3
9. LA 4
10. LA 5
Tally 8 6 3 10 1 1

Using learning types to assess pedagogical openness
Production
Acquisition
Investigation
Practice
Collaboration
Discussion
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%
Learning Types by Percentage
Percentages

OER Usage
Low
No OER
(re)usage
Medium
OER (re)usage
or creation
High
OER (re)usage
or creation
DegreeofPedagogicalOpenness
High
Social practices, co-creation, sharing
(reflection in action)
Knowledge co-creation
 open objectives;
 open methods
A B
C
Medium
Dialog, Procedures, Rules,
(Know-how)
 Closed objectives
 Open methods (e.g. problem
based learning)
D
E F
Low
Knowledge transmission
(Know that)
 “closed” objectives;
 “closed” methods
G H I
Source: Conole (2011), Ehlers (2011)

Conclusions: Impact of availability of OER on OEP
 The study found that while OER usage was quite high, when it came to the
creation of the modules, the degree of pedagogical openness of the modules
was closer to medium.
 While the use of OER was quite high in the creation of the AVU OER modules,
this was not necessarily the case when it came to the integration of
pedagogical openness in the design of the modules.
 For this reason locate the extent of OEP at the network level of the AVU is
located in cell [D] in the OEP trajectory matrix.
 This is also the same for degree of sharing as far as collaborative and social
practices.

So what? Implications for teacher training
 Make learning relevant – take advantage of the affordances offered by
the internet and access to knowledge and social media to increasingly
incorporate social learning practices.
 Opportunities to incorporate OEP in training of student teachers
 Opportunities for professional development in OEP training
 Update AVU OER from the perspective of embedding OEP
 Quality – work on organization and content to improve quality

Assessing the impact of access to and availability of OER on the emergence and extent of open education practices in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of an ICT-integrated multinational teacher education program in math and science

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