Cox, G. 2023. OER development at UCT lessons to carry forward. Title of webinar: Capitalising on OER to improve educational performance in resource-limited settings. Yusuf Maitama Sule university Jano, Nigeria (9 May 2023).

1. Open educational resource development
at UCT: lessons to carry forward
By
Glenda Cox
University of Cape Town
Yusuf Maitama Sule University, Kano 2023

2. Chair of OE Global
conference, Cape
Town, 2017

3. What is Open
Education?
Open Education
encompasses resources,
tools and practices that are
free of legal, financial, and
technical barriers and can
be fully used, shared and
adapted in the digital
environment. It maximizes
the power of the Internet to
make education more
affordable, accessible and
effective (SPARC).

4. movement

5. Open Educational Resources
Open Content / Open educational resources (OER) /
Open Courseware are educational materials which are
discoverable online and openly licensed that can be:
Shared
Shared
freely and
openly to
be…
Used
Improved
Redistributed
… used by
anyone to
…
… adapt /
repurpose/
improve under
some type of license
in order to …
…
redistribute
and share
again.

6. Traditional © designed
for old distribution
models
The problem:

8. Alternative copyright licensing
Previously copyright was binary: All rights retained or public
domain
Now alternative licensing options such as the GNU General Public License
(mostly used for opensource software)
and Creative Commons provide a range of options where
Some rights are reserved
Public
Domain
Copyright©
Public
Domain
Some rights reserved Copyright©

10. Summary - Open Licenses

11. Open Textbooks case study

12. Disclaimer
Initiated as a three-year (2018–2021) research, advocacy and implementation project funded by the
Canadian IDRC, following in wake of Research on Open Educational Resources for Development
(ROER4D) and other CILT open education initiatives (since 2007). Now an institutionally funded
initiative.
Glenda Cox, PI, Michelle Willmers, Publishing & Implementation Manager, Bianca Masuku,
Researcher
Digital open textbooks for Development (DOT4D)

13. ● Digital, freely available collections of scaffolded teaching
and learning content
● published under an open licence
● with affordances for integrated multimedia and third-party
content
● published via platforms and in formats that provide
affordances for content delivery on a range of devices, print
and low bandwidth access strategies
Example: Open Textbooks

14. Read about the journeys these
academics went on in developing
their open textbooks; including
their motivations, challenges,
insights around working with
students and sustainability factors.
https://openbooks.uct.ac.za/uct/ca
talog/book/37

15. Findings
● Open Textbooks save money
● Open textbooks for curriculum change
● Open textbooks are openly licensed
● Open textbooks for collaboration and co-creation

16. https://africanarguments.org/2021/06/fallisms-faultlines-the-paradoxes-of-fees-must-fall/
openstax
We visited Rice University and spoke
with students about their perspectives on
free textbooks. Check back tomorrow to
see another student’s
perspective. #ForStudentsForever
https://www.buzzfeed.com/
husseinkesvani/oxford-
campaign-rhodes-must-fall
Economic distribution, cultural recognition and political
representation
#feesmustfall

17. Social
Justice
Open
Education
Open
Textbook
● Open licences
● Localisation
● Voices
● Free
● Digital
affordance:adaptability
● Co-creation
● Economic ‘distribution’
● Cultural ‘recognition’
● Political ‘representation’

18. Why OE matters?
Need for accessible and FREE resources
Don’t have to re-invent the wheel - better use of time
Need for localised materials, transforming the curriculum
Encourages us to reconsider our teaching and learning approaches
Colleagues & students can become co-creators

19. Takeaways for departments?
● Increase institutional visibility, advancing competitiveness,
attracting students and resources
● Promote effective social responsiveness
● Improve recruitment by helping the right students find the
right programmes
● Enhance teaching coherence across courses
● Ensure better long-term archiving, curation and reuse of
teaching materials
● Attract alumni as life-long learners
19

20. Takeaways– individually?
● Profile teaching and pedagogical idea
sharing
● Create record of teaching for teaching
portfolio
● Foster connections between other
colleagues, departments and even other
universities (especially cross-disciplinary
studies)
● Increase impact of teaching materials
● Extend use of teaching materials to high
school learners and life-long learners
Individual
20

21. Takeaways for librarians?
• You have a vital role to play in the open education ecosystem in terms
of promoting visibility of open resources and supporting open education
practice
• Find out who the institutional authorities on copyright and licensing are
so that you can defer difficult/complex queries
• Don’t try to reinvent the wheel on technical platforms. There are many
publishing platforms and repositories out there that you can use for
hosting and publishing services.
• The library plays an important role as a site for publishing in many
institutions today, but this is typically done in partnership with other
institutional departments as well as external stakeholders.

22. “Open is a gift on offer. Like any gift, it is up to
you whether you think it is worthwhile to accept
it. We only ask that you consider” (Biswas-
Diener & Jhangiani, 2017:6)

23. References
Cox, G., Masuku, B. & Willmers, M. (2020) Open Textbooks and Social Justice: Open Educational Practices to Address Economic, Cultural and
Political Injustice at the University of Cape Town. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1 (2):pp. 1–10. Available at:
https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/31887
Cox, G., Masuku, B. & Willmers, M. (2022) Sustainable open textbook models for social justice. Front. Educ. 7:881998. doi:
10.3389/feduc.2022.881998
DOT4D. (2021). Open Textbooks in South African Higher Education: Action Brief. Cape Town: Digital Open Textbooks for Development. Available at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_BFNLHPRcPP1f94GyR9EiZ98HKKu54f1/view?usp=sharing
Fraser, N. (2005). Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review, 36, 69–88. Retrieved from https://newleftreview.org/II/36/nancy-fraser-
reframing-justice-in-a-globalizing-world
Jhangiani R. & Biswas-Diener R. (eds.) (2017). Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science. London:
Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bbc