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Open education a view from the south
This document summarizes research into factors influencing South African lecturers' adoption of open educational resources (OER). It finds that practical pedagogical concerns about quality and relevance are more important than a resource's openness. Lecturers are guided by a belief in open education and improving quality by making materials open to greater scrutiny. Culture and structure shape agency differently at three case study universities. Individual volition is key to OER adoption at UCT, while institutional support is more important at UNISA. OER adoption is lowest at UFH where awareness and permission are lacking. The researcher argues individual ultimate concerns and how they are mediated by culture and structure influence OER contributions.
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Open education a view from the south
- 1. Open Education: researchfrom the South Dr Glenda Cox Senior Lecturer Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching University of Cape Town
- 2. Transition to Library(2014 ongoing)-Training Advocacy and Support Management (2010-2014) Research PhD 2013- 2016 Glenda Cox
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- 8. Research into theSocial and Cultural acceptability of Open Educational Resources (OER) in the Global South (South Africa) Glenda Cox Senior Lecturer, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT), University of Cape Town Henry Trotter Researcher, CILT
- 9. Research questions Primary researchquestion: • Why do South African lecturers adopt – or not adopt – OER? Subsidiary research questions: • Which factors shape lecturers’ OER adoption decisions? • How do lecturers’ social conditions shape OER adoption? • How does an institution’s culture shape lecturers’ adoption of OER? • How do lecturers’ attitudes towards OER, particularly as relates to quality, shape OER adoption ?
- 10. University Profiles UCTUFH UNISA Student access Residential Residential Distance Student numbers 26 000 11 000 400 000+ Location Urban Rural Dispersed Approach Traditional Traditional Comprehensive Institutional culture Collegial Bureaucratic Managerial Copyright owner of teaching materials Lecturers Institution Institution
- 11. • 6 intervieweesper university • Structured • One-on-one • 30 minutes–1 hour interviews • 50-56 questions • Covering multiple elements of teaching and OER activity Interviews (18)
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- 13. OER Readiness: academics ascreators UCT UFH UNISA Volition Availability Capacity Awareness Permission Access Level of OER readiness Very low Low Medium High Very high
- 14. OER Readiness: institutions ascreators UCT UFH UNISA Volition Availability Capacity Awareness Permission Access Level of OER readiness Very low Low Medium High Very high
- 15. Which institution isOER ready? • UCT is OER ready if the individual academic is viewed as the agent of activity : personal volition is the key • UNISA is OER ready if the institution is viewed as the agent of activity : institutional volition is the key • UFH is not OER ready for either OER use or creation because: both the institution and academics lack awareness; academics lack permission to create
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- 17. Attitudes towards OER Thisstudy also revealed more personal concerns about sharing from the interviews at the three institutions.
- 18. 2 Key Findings The“openness” of an OER is rarely more important than the practical, pedagogical concerns surrounding any educational material’s relevance and quality in terms of a specific intended use. Lecturers appear to be guided by two key principles: they believe in an open educational ethic, and they find that there is pedagogical utility in going through the process of making materials open (especially in anticipating greater scrutiny, and therefore improving the quality of their work)
- 19. EXPLAINING THE RELATIONSBETWEEN CULTURE, STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN LECTURERS’ CONTRIBUTION AND NON- CONTRIBUTION TO OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN A HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION Thesis Title:
- 20. C o n t e x t Enabler and Barriersto contribution of OER
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- 23. Margaret Archer • SocialRealism-Sociological theory
- 24. Culture Relations Structure Agent “How does structureinfluence agency?” Margaret Archer (Social Realism)
- 25. Ultimate concerns Ultimate Concerns Projects Practice ...Individualsdevelop and define their ultimate concerns, those internal goods that they care about most (Archer 2007:42) ...develop course (s) of action to realise that concern by elaborating a project... Translated into a set of practices
- 26. Agents ask: “What doI want and how do I go about getting it?” “What should I do?”
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- 28. Bottom line • Peoplehave different ultimate concerns • Lecturers who are sharing are concerned about the Global South and sharing education • Lecturers who are not sharing are focused on their classrooms but also seem especially self critical and do not see the value of sharing or that their materials are of good enough quality to share
- 29. The need forOER in South Africa • We are currently in a crisis in Higher Education • Opportunity to create more OER while transforming the curriculum • Students can still learn and access materials
- 30. Cape Town: hostcity for the OEC 2017 (7-10 March) https://www.flickr.com/photos/barbouria ns/
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- 33. ROER4D SP4 slidesprepared by: Henry Trotter – henry.trotter@uct.ac.za / trotterhenry@hotmail.com UCT image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/barbourians/
Editor's Notes
- #3 VOLUNTARY contribution of openly licensed materials No mandate.
- #4 University on the slopes of Table Mountain (Devil’s peak in the background) This research was done at UCT a medium size; 27 993 students and 4808 staff including 1000 permanent academics across the seven faculties
- #5 The local organizing committee is from the University of Cape Town 27 993 students and 4808 staff Residential with increasing blended and online approaches
- #6 UCT the home of Open… Add 2016 and IP Law- Tobias CC legal Lead SA
- #11 We travelled to the other universities and conducted workshops on OER and Creative Commons. These universities have quite different characteristics, as the table shows.
- #12 After conducting the workshops, we interviewed 6 staff members at each university on their teaching and OER in/activities.
- #13 As we were conducting our research, it became clear that a number of factors shaped OER adoption decisions at these universities. But 6 of them stood out as having a “determinative” effect on OER activity and its potential. These are factors which, if you ask, “can OER activity proceed here without them?”, the answer would be “no”. So we developed what we call The OER Adoption Pyramid.
- #14 In this second one, this shows OER readiness when the academic is taken as OER creators. Here the key feature is that UFH and UNISA possess copyright over academics’ teaching materials, so academics are not able to create and share OER from their teaching materials. They do not have permission.
- #15 This third OER readiness table looks at institutions as creators, which shows challenges for a university like UCT (which has given copyright over teaching materials to the academics), challenges for UFH (which lacks awareness and volition) and real opportunities for UNISA which has developed an OER Strategy to potentially (in the future) share its IP assets as OER materials. (There is no need for a table showing institutions as users, because institutions do not typically “use” educational resources; rather academics do that.)
- #19 While the ethic behind this openness may correspond with a potential user’s personal educational values, it does not override the necessity that the materials meet other subjective standards of relevance, utility and quality.
- #21 Open culture and open philosophy but Lack of awareness. Institutions are not always supportive of sharing and do not have a culture of sharing OER is premised on the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the World Wide Web in particular provides an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge’ (Hewlett Foundation) Not everyone has access, Digital divide between Global south and North, Lack of ability and skills There is a general feeling that quality will improve if materials are available for peer scrutiny But there are concerns about the readiness of materials That some materials may be of poor quality Different views on a quality check: one says up to author and user /other says a quality check would protect the institution and the individual Policy versus academic freedom in fact the opposite was the case contributors liked the fact that they could choose…9 said policy would NOT enable them Policy and reward would not enable non-contributors, 2 Contributors were enabled by small grants and others said grants are useful Pedagogy: Using OER can give students more options. Academics can use and share OER an move towards Open practice However, many academics do not want to change their pedagogical practice
- #22 14 academics- 7 contributing, 7 not Interviews and also questionnaires that I will explain a little later Range of age, gender and rank
- #25 Archer (2003) is concerned with the burning question: “ How does structure influence agency?” Social theorists have tried to theorise the relationship between the two. Is there a process or causal mechanism that links the two? Archer (2003) argues that it is the properties and powers of agents that is key to the process. 3 stages: structure and culture objectively shape the situations that agents confront involuntarily-and posses poweres of constraints and enablements 2. Subjects have concerns and are subjective in their responses Courses of action are produced through the reflexive deliberations of subjects who subjectively determine their practical projects in relation to their objective circumstances.
- #28 Agents have various ways of foreseeing or anticipating challenges, and also acting strategically to discover ways around constraints, “agents have to diagnose their situations, they have to identify their own interests, and they must design projects they deem appropriate to attaining their ends”(Archer 2003; p9). How do they do this? According to Archer they do this via ‘the internal conversation’ which Archer defines as “the modality through which reflexivity towards self, society and the relationship between them is exercised” and she argues it is this reflexivity that is the most important of personal emergent properties. Archer (2003) argues that ‘human reflexivity is central to the process of mediation”.