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2/25/2015
February­March Newsletter
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January­February 2015
Connect with us through
the following channels
Facebook
Website
Twitter
Slideshare
Recent Events
20 January 2015 – ROER4D
network team planning day...
read more.
15 January 2015 – Online
session with DECI­2 team
for a ROER4D evaluation
update... read more.
27 November 2014 – Online
session with DECI­2 team
for an update on Research
Communications ... read
more.
Welcome to the January/February edition of the
ROER4D Newsletter. The first newsletter of 2015
features a comprehensive round­up of news and
updates from the various sub­projects as well as a
feature about PI Cheryl Hodgkinson­Williams’ recent trip
to the World Bank Regional Consultation Conference in
Nairobi, Kenya.
We are also preparing to welcome 7 new projects into
the ROER4D family. The ROER4D Impact Studies team
at Wawasan Open University are concluding the final
contracting and logistical work required to formalise the
award of research grants to conduct impact studies into
the impact of OER in Africa and Asia. We are delighted
that the new grantees will be participating in the
ROER4D workshop in Banff, Canada on 20­21 April
2015, as well as attending the OEC Global Conference
22­24 April. Details of the grantees and their projects will
be available on the ROER4D website shortly.
We wish all members of the network and the Open
Education community a happy Open Education Week (9
­ 13 March). Please let us know what you are doing to
mark this event by connecting with us on our social
channels: @roer4D on Twitter and via Facebook.
Forthcoming Events
Recent Blog Posts
The next ROER4D workshop will be meeting on 20 and
21 April 2015 in Banff, Alberta, Canada. The workshop
will precede the Open Education Consortium (OEC)
Conference (22­24 April 2015) and we are delighted to
have been granted a specialist research track at the
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PI Cheryl Hodgkinson­
Williams attends
World Bank’s Regional
Consultation
Conference in Nairobi
(26­27 January
2015)... read more.
conference. Shared with the GO­GN network, the
research track will allow ROER4D researchers to
present on various aspects of their projects including
methodology and initial findings. The 7 OER Impact
studies projects will meet other members of the
network for the first time. Main feature: Cheryl Hodgkinson­Williams attends
World Bank Regional Consultation Conference ROER4D Impact
Studies Workshop in
Penang, Malaysia (1­5
December 2014)...
read more.
SP4 Visit to
Hyderabad, India to
Observe SP3
Workshop... read
more,
ROER4D Twitter feed
ROER4D
307 followers
841 tweets
following 355 people
follow
Latest Tweets
RT @uhernandez:
@ROER4D:
#OpenResearch required
#OpenData,
#OpenLicensing and
#OpenFormats. These
principles guide project
Our PI Cheryl Hodgkinson­Williams was invited to the
Regional Consultation Conference on the World Bank’s
“World Development Report 2016” in Nairobi, Kenya
from 26­27 January 2015. The World Bank produces an
annual report focusing on a particular aspect of
development each year. The theme for 2016 is “Internet
for Development”. The Report will explore the internet’s
impact on economic growth, on social and economic
opportunity, and on the efficiency of public service
delivery, with a view to help countries better leverage the
internet for development. This will involve the
identification of policy reforms not only in the information
and communication technology sectors but also more
broadly in various complementary sectors and in the
development community.
Cheryl was delighted to meet the Co­directors of the
World Development Report (WDR) 2016, Deepak Mishra
and Uwe Deichmann, the WDR contributors and
particularly the fascinating range of government officials,
researchers, business executives, entrepreneurs and
consultants from Africa.
Cheryl was invited to contribute to a session focussing
on Internet and public service delivery. She
presented a brief explanation of the value of open
educational resources and alternative licensing
mechanisms such as Creative Commons to assist
creators to share educational content legally. Cheryl
highlighted OER initiatives from Africa (e.g. AVU, OER
Africa, OpenUCT, AfriVIP, TESSA), some
OpenTextbooks (e.g. Siyavula, Electric Book Works) and
emerging MOOCs (Medicine and the Arts ­ Humanising
Healthcare). While some in the group seemed to know
about Creative Commons, the fact that only Cheryl made
her presentation freely and openly available online,
suggests that the concept of OER has not yet gained
sufficient traction to make sharing of publicly influential
information a common practice. Nevertheless, Cheryl
was pleased that she was able to bring OER, Open
textbooks and MOOCs into the Consultation event. Read
more about the key focus areas and session
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#coKREA
http://t… 2:46PM
Session on data curation
strategies facilitated by
Thomas King about to
start for #ROER4D
researchers. Looking
forward to sharing
ideas. 1:51PM
"@Research2Action: MT
@DFID_Evidence: What
do we know about what
policy makers want?! Do
academics understand?!
http://t.co/BfyTW006DW
#AEN" 8:05PM
RT @celTatis:
#ExplOERer friends need
a few more answers for
their survey, can you
help?
http://t.co/8YsJTE8LSJ
#OEP #reuse 8:02PM
RT @mweller: For her
#oer15 keynote
@sheilmcn is after input
https://t.co/ETsnceq5qP
(don't give her too much
good stuff, coz mine will
loo… 8:01PM
proceedings in Cheryl’s comprehensive blog post.
OER resources and readings
The Network Hub has been developing a shared
bibliography of papers on Open Educational
Resources, focusing on the Global South. Researchers
who are interested in using this bibliography in their
own research can view it here. Comments for additional
papers are very welcome, as this is a growing resource
that we intend to keep updating throughout the life of the
ROER4D project. You are of course welcome to make
a copy for yourself!
Sub­Project News
SP2 ­ Large survey of OER creation and use
commences
Led by Dr Jose Dutra, SP2 “OER differentiation in the
global South’ began survey distribution in November
2014, involving 4 institutions of the 9 participating
countries. As of the end of January 2015, the OER
survey for students had received over 1000 responses
with participation from students in Malaysia, Ghana,
Kenya and India. The survey for teachers has thus far
received just less than a 100 responses with responses
from participants in Ghana, Kenya, India, Malaysia and
Indonesia. With the major focus of this sub­project to
investigate the creators and users of OER thus
necessitating an understanding of their context,
educational systems and personal practices in order to
establish how OER might meet their local needs,
valuable data is emerging regarding internet access,
device use, connectivity, language preferences and
digital literacy. Interim findings and indicative trends will
be presented and analysed at the ROER4D workshop in
Banff and a presentation of the research instrument
during the ROER4D Research track.
SP3 ­ New staff changes
After two successful workshops at Hyderabad and
Guwahati in 2014, the SP3 team, who are researching
academics views of sharing OER in India, has some
changes. First, the Principal investigator, Dr Sanjaya
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Mishra, has moved to take­up the position of Education
Specialist, eLearning at the Commonwealth of Learning
in Vancouver. He will be responsible for promoting
eLearning and Open Educational Resources (OER) as
part of his new roles in the Commonwealth. His
replacement as CEMCA Director is Dr. Ramesh C.
Sharma, who served as the Consultant for the two
workshops. Dr Sharma’s arrival strengthens the SP3
team. Other personnel changes include the departure of
SP3’s two Research Associates; the team is in the
process of re­grouping and recruiting a new project
associate and have recently welcomed Alka Singh.
In the meanwhile, preparations for the other two planned
research workshops are in progress. Both the
workshops are scheduled in the month of March 2015.
The third workshop will be held at the Krishna University,
Machhalipatnam, Andhra Pradesh from 2­5 March 2015
and the fourth workshop will be held at the Centurion
University, Bhubaneswar from 7­10 March 2014. The
former is a rural university in the east coast of India,
while the latter is a private university focusing on
engineering and technology subjects with focus on skill
development for the tribal population. A happy
coincidence is that the second workshop will also fall
within the Open Education Week 2015.
SP4 ­ Gearing up for South African OER
workshops
The SP4 research team, who are researching why
academics contribute or refuse to contribute OER in
South Africa, have finally managed to obtain ethical
clearance from the three Universities where they will be
conducting workshops and interviews. SP4 is now
making travel arrangements and preparing workshop
materials. The first workshop (2­6 March) will be held at
the University of Cape Town (residential institution)
where Glenda Cox and Henry Trotter work. It will be
followed by a trip (9­11 March) to a small town in the
Eastern Cape, Alice, where they will conduct a workshop
at Fort Hare (rural institution). The final workshop (16­
19 March) will be in Pretoria at UNISA (distance
education institute). If all goes well SP4 will have
completed all its data collection by the end of March
2015, just in time to prepare to present on progress at
the ROER4D meeting and Open Education Consortium
conference in Banff, Canada (20­24 April). Glenda and
Henry look forward to conversations in Banff with SP3’s
Ramesh Sharma about a plan for comparing the findings
from SP3 and SP4.
SP5 ­ Facilitating workshops for co­creation and
curation of OER
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SP5 comprises an OER project in Karnataka, India,
Karnataka Open Educational Resources, which aims to
study whether professional learning communities of
teachers can work together on resource co­creation and
curation. As an action research study, the researchers
have held two workshops with a core group of
mathematics, science and social science teachers
creating resources and interacting on a mailing group
and a mediawiki platform. Teachers have contributed
resources, shared ideas and challenges in this process.
Teacher educators and education department officials
have also participated particularly with respect to the
design, development and implementation of the
repository to house the OER. There have also been
efforts to integrate this portal with other OER initiatives in
India including the National Repository of Open
Educational Resources (NROER). The first round of data collection has been undertaken
through structured questionnaires, and the research
team is now studying the responses and patterns of
access, creation and sharing. They also plan to analyse
the mailing forum emails to understand the nature of
resource creation through this medium. The mailing
forum participation is steadily increasing – both in
number of members and through increase in number of
resources shared (both created and accessed), as well
as giving feedback to other participants.
SP6 ­ Colombia avanza en al desarrollo de OER
con el proyecto coKREA
El equipo de investigación del proyecto SP6 arrancó
este año publicando en su sitio web varios REA. Es una
selección realizada por los docentes vinculados al
proyecto entre los REA que co­crearon el año pasado.
Se destaca en estos REA, el re­uso de contenidos para
enriquecer sus propios materiales, la adaptación de REA
existentes, la construcción de REA que abordan temas
pertinentes al contexto, así como la elaboración de REA
para impresión, mostrando que este tipo de recursos y
las prácticas asociadas a ellos van más allá del ámbito
multimedia y digital.
Esta experiencia significó para los docentes conocer y
adoptar el uso de licencias abiertas, llevándolos a
explorar y reconsiderar prácticas cotidianas de acceso,
producción e intercambio de información. Las
principales inquietudes que surgieron en los docentes se
compilaron en un repositorio de FAQ publicado en el
sitio web del proyecto.
Siguiendo con el proceso de creación e intercambio de
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conocimiento que propone el proyecto, en marzo de
este año se realizará el “Encuentro coKREA 2015” en la
ciudad de Popayán (Colombia). Un evento abierto para
hablar sobre los REA y su incorporación en la educación
básica y media, dirigido a docentes, estudiantes,
directivos, académicos y autoridades locales del sector
educativo. Algunos docentes del proyecto SP6 serán
ponentes de sus propias experiencias, con el propósito
de visibilizar su trabajo en la región.
Para finalizar, compartimos la grata noticia de que dos
experiencias con REA de grupos de docentes del
proyecto SP6 fueron seleccionadas para el OEGlobal
2015. El primer trabajo, del área artística, fomenta la
creación contextual de contenidos con TIC sobre la base
de licencias Creative Commons y REA. El segundo
trabajo, explora desde diferentes áreas el uso de REA,
asumiendo la ciudad como espacio de aprendizaje
desde un enfoque de pedagogía crítica.
Para conocer más sobre coKREA, visita nuestra web y
dale una mirada a nuestro álbum de fotografías .
SP6 ­ Colombia moves forward in the development
of OER with the coKREA project
The SP6 research team project started this year
publishing several OER on its website. This is a selection
made by teachers involved in the project and included
OER co­created last year. OER are published in:
https://karisma.org.co/cokrea/?p=731.
What stands out from the set of OER created is the re­
use of content to enriching their own materials, adaption
of existing OER, developing OER addressing issues
relevant to these specific contexts, as well as the
formatting of OER for printing, showing that this type of
resource and associated practices go beyond the
multimedia and digital sphere.
It is worth noting that that this experience offered
teachers the opportunity to learn about the use of open
licenses, encouraging them to explore and rethink daily
practices of access to, creation and exchange of
information. The main concerns raised by teachers were
compiled into a FAQ repository, available on
https://karisma.org.co/cokrea/?page_id=22.
Following on from the project's knowledge creation and
sharing process, the "Encuentro coKREA 2015" will be
held in March in the city of Popayan (Colombia). It is
conceived as an open space to discuss OER and its
incorporation in K­12 education, and is aimed to
teachers, students, managers, academics and local
education authorities. Some SP6 project teachers will be
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sharing their own experiences in order to make their
work visible in the region.
Finally, we are delighted that OER experiences of two
SP6 project teacher groups were selected for the
OEGlobal 2015. The first one, in the arts education area,
promotes contextual content creation with ICT based on
Creative Commons licenses and OER. The second
explores the use of OER from different areas, assuming
the city as a learning space from the critical pedagogy
approach.
To learn more about coKREA, visit our website and
check our photo album.
SP7 ­ Module development workshops in place
Sub­project 7 aims to study the processes of OER
integration for course development in India and
Malaysia. The research team, led by Deputy Vice
Chancellor (Academic­OCL) Prof Mohandas Menon and
Professor of Education, Prof Phalachandra Bhandigadi
worked with module writers in India and at Wawasan
Open University (WOU). Two module development
workshops were held to produce five modules of a
course on Research Methodology. The first was in
Kochi, India from 8­12 November 2014, and the second
at the WOU main campus from 21­25 January 2015.
The workshops aimed to integrate OER in the
development of the course modules and document the
module writers’ experiences.
Before and after the actual module development, the
writers’ responses were elicited using Concept Mapping
and a Scale on Attitude towards OER. Individual written
reflections of various aspects of OER were obtained
prior to and after the workshop in addition to engaging in
pre­workshop and post­workshop group reflections.
Each member of the project team interacted individually
with each module writer as and when required during the
workshop to understand the various issues involved in
the process of OER integration in module development,
the challenges involved and how these challenges were
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The writing session in progress at Kochi, India
SP8 ­ Interview process reveals initial findings
The SP8 research team from Mongolia, who are
exploring factors influencing OER adoption and use in
Mongolia’s higher education sector, have conducted
open­ended interviews with a range of stakeholders. The
interview data provides the means to analyze the
thematic specifics of each selected interview participant
with the potential to identify the variations and
differences among participants. In this study, the
thematic analysis includes looking for evidence of
administrators, faculty or instructors’ efforts to make
sense of their experiences with OER in the authentic
context of their institution and its systems, rules and
practices. For the interview analysis the researchers use
thematic analysis and coding within an Activity Theory
(AT) framework. The semi­structured design of the
interviews provides an opportunity for new topics and
themes to emerge from the participants.
Some initial findings of the interview process suggest
that educators are willing to use OER, but there is a lack
of confidence in using it; the need to raise awareness of
OER among university management and higher ranking
government education officers, and a need to include
time for development as part of educators' work duties
and incentives to increase their motivation. Other
findings indicate that while the technical infrastructure to
use OER in institutional settings appears sufficient, there
is a need to expand localization efforts of OER materials
into Mongolian languages and for capacity building and
training workshops.
Following this set of interviews with participants recruited
from within a purposeful stratified sample of institutions,
a follow­up survey will target faculty and instructors. The
research participants are drawn from the Ministry of
Education and Science, the National University of
Mongolia, the Mongolian University of Science and
Technology and the Mongolian State University of
Education and other universities.
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SP11 ­ Research into educational expenditure in
Africa gets underway
SP11 ­ “Mapping public funding for education in Africa:
the road towards OER advocacy and policy
development ­ kicked off at the start of this year with
Sarah Goodier, based at the University of Cape Town,
taking on the role of project lead. This sub­project aims
to develop a better understanding of the funding flow
from public sources into educational resource
acquisition, development and dissemination in
secondary education. It will also investigate whether
(and how much) public funding is being channelled into
open educational resources. The project is currently
being scoped and proposal development is underway. This study is related to SP12 led by Carolina Botero
which looked at educational expenditure in Latin
America.
Image by Liby Levi
SP12 ­ Recursos Educatives Abiertos y la
Educación Superior en America Latina Desde el año pasado, la Fundación Karisma ha estado
trabajando en una investigación que busca establecer el
panorama de los recursos educativos abiertos (REA) y
los sistemas de educación superior en Chile, Colombia y
Uruguay. Esta investigación está basada en un informe
anterior que se centró en mapear el gasto público en la
producción de recursos educativos en la educación
básica y media en 5 países de América Latina. La idea
de la investigación es comprender cómo operan y se
financian los sistemas de educación superior e
identificar si existen políticas o directrices sobre REA y
acceso abierto, así como reconocer la existencia de
movimientos de educación abierta.
La investigación ha revelado que hay grandes
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diferencias entre los países. Por una parte, Chile tiene
un sistema que premia y promueve la competitividad,
además de ser principalmente privada. Colombia, por su
parte, cuenta con cientos de instituciones de educación
superior, lo que complica la aplicación de la única
estrategia nacional alrededor de los REA en los país de
habla hispana en la región. Uruguay, por su parte,
presenta un panorama alentador para la promoción de
la educación abierta y la adopción de los REA y el
acceso abierto, que ha sido posible, en parte, por la
movilización de los estudiantes .
El informe estará listo en las próximas semanas. En él
encontrará no solo los resultados de la investigación,
sino también recomendaciones sobre política
nacional/institucional y construcción de capacidad. Vale
la pena señalar que en septiembre de 2014, Karisma
organizó un taller en Bogotá, que reunió expertos y
activistas de la región con el fin de revisar los resultados
preliminares de la investigación. Su ojo experto y sus
ideas sobre el futuro de los REA en la región, sin duda,
nutren el informe final.
Por último, aunque la investigación nos ha confirmado
que el movimiento de educación abierta todavía
requiere de un mayor impulso, creemos que hay
algunos signos positivos de oportunidades para impulsar
pequeños pero importantes cambios en la promoción de
los recursos educativos abiertos en la región.
SP12 ­ Open Educational Resources and Higher
Education in Latin America
Since last year, the Karisma Foundation has been
working on a research project that seeks to establish a
“panorama” on open educational resources (OER) and
higher education systems in Chile, Colombia and
Uruguay. This research is based on a previous report
that focused on mapping public spending on education
resource production in K­12 in 5 Latin American
countries. The idea of the research is to understand how
higher education systems operate and are financed, to
identify whether open access/OER policies or guidelines
exist, as well as to recognize the existence of open
education movements.
The research so far has revealed that there are big
differences between countries. On the one hand, Chile
has a system that rewards and promotes
competitiveness, although being primarily private.
Colombia, meanwhile, has hundreds of higher education
institutions, complicating the implementation of the single
government strategy around the OER in Spanish­
speaking countries in the region. Uruguay, on the other
hand, presents an encouraging picture for the promotion
of open education and the adoption of OER and open
access, which has been made possible, in part, by
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student mobilization.
The report will be ready in the coming weeks and will
comprise not only the research findings, but also
recommendations for national/institutional policy and
capacity building. It is worth noting that in September
2014, Karisma organized a workshop in Bogotá with
regional experts and activists to review the preliminary
results of the investigation. Their expert eye and their
thoughts on the future of OER in the region will
strengthen the final report.
Finally, even if the research has confirmed that the open
education movement still requires further impetus, the
team believes that there are some positive signs of
opportunities to boost small but important changes in the
promotion of open educational resources in the region.
Copyright © 2014 Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D). Materials on this
newsletter are licensed under a CC­BY­SA 4.0 International license.
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