The document summarizes the repurposing and localization of an open educational resource for a professional development program in Kenya. Key points: - An existing 2018 OER course from The Open University was repurposed for the Skills for Prosperity Kenya project through a process of needs assessment, content revision, and localization through workshops. - The repurposed course was delivered online to over 250 educators across 29 public universities in Kenya and addressed challenges like flexible scheduling and inclusion. - Lessons learned include how reusing high-quality OERs can reduce production time and costs while enabling content updates and expansion to new audiences. The OER is now being further adapted and used by universities in Kenya.

1. Work together. Learn together. Grow together.
Implemented by:
Add Ukaid/UK Government,
Embassy or HMG logo
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Open Learning & OER Remix:
Delivering a nationwide professional
development programme in Kenya
Fereshte Goshtasbpour, Beck Pitt, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Cross and Denise
Whitelock (The Open University, UK)
ALT-C, Manchester, UK. 7 September 2022

2. 2
What we’ll cover today
• About the Skills for Prosperity Kenya project
• Which OER?
• Localisation and Remixing
• Insights and Lessons Learnt
• Q & A

3. 3
Skills for Prosperity Kenya Project
• A 30-month nationwide capacity development programme to build
Kenyan HE sector expertise in digital education (online and blended)
• Aims to introduce HE staff to principles of effective, inclusive and
accessible online education and to strengthen their skills and capabilities
for delivering quality digital education.
• Funded by UK Government Foreign, Commonwealth and Development
Office (FCDO)
• Includes all 37 public universities in Kenya
• Designed for educators, educational
leaders and support staff

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Skills for Prosperity Kenya Project
• Has two stages:
• Baseline capacity training
• 8-session self-study online course with wraparound webinars and
an online community of practice
• August 2021 to March 2022
• 29 public universities, 254 staff
• Mastery capacity training
• Thought-leader training + mastery training
• June 2021- December 2022
• 8 public universities, 80 staff
How are the programmes produced?

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Which OER? The journey…
OU OpenLearn
Course
A free 8-week CPD
course
2018
2020
Take Your
Teaching
Online
Tertiary
Educator
Programme
Pathways to
Learning Project
A 6-week teacher
training course
(Africa)
Take Your
Training
Online
2021
ACCESS Project
A 6-session course
to train NGO &
charity staff to
deliver services
online
Digital
Education for
Universities
2021
Skills for Prosperity
Kenya Project
Baseline training
Mastery training
2022
Revisioning 2018
original course
Digital skills:
succeeding in a
digital world
The Transformation by
Innovation in Distance
Education (TIDE)
A free 4-week
professional
development course
for university staff
(Myanmar)
2018

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Repurposing the 2018 open course
1. Conducted needs assessment based on JISC Digital Capabilities Frameworks
to identify skill and knowledge gaps
2. Defined learning outcomes based on the needs assessment outcomes and
mapped them to the original open course aims and content
3. Identified gaps in content and outlined the required additional content
through 8 co-design workshops

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Repurposing and localising the 2018 open course
Pedagogical approach: The OU’s supported open learning (McAndrew & Weller, 2005)
• flexible (learners work where and when they choose to fit in with their professional
and personal commitments)
Challenges to consider:
• Conditions caused by Covid (workload, working hours, changing priorities,
working off campus)
• Staff motivation
• Retention and recognition of achievement
Solutions:
• Asynchronous, self-pace delivery mode with flexible scheduling
• Downloadable content
• Recording of synchronous session
• Distributed award system

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Repurposing and localising the 2018 open course
Pedagogical approach: The OU’s supported open learning (McAndrew & Weller, 2005)
• inclusive (needs of different learners are accommodated)
Challenges to consider:
• Attending to national, local and role related needs
• Attending to needs of learners with disability
• learners’ unfamiliarity with online learning
• Constraints on learners (e.g. time)
• Limited resources (broadband, devices used)
Solutions
• Desk research and role-based needs assessment (3 groups)
• Kenyan-based educational consultant
• Co-design workshops with stakeholder to create new content,
activities, images and illustrations

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Repurposing and localising the 2018 open course
Pedagogical approach: The OU’s supported open learning (McAndrew & Weller, 2005)
• Solutions
• Providing downloadable content in multiple formats
• Providing accessible content via an accessible learning platform (OpenLearn
Create)
• Adapting and contextualising the course language and activities
• Providing online study skills sessions
• Providing one-to-one support (online and in Kenya)
• Establishing an online community of practice

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Repurposing and localising the 2018 open course
Pedagogical approach: The OU’s supported open learning (McAndrew & Weller, 2005)
• social (learners have the opportunity to communicate and meet)
Challenges to consider:
• Enabling learners from different universities to communicate and network safely
• Enable learners to communicate with course academic and technical teams
Solutions
• An online community of practice (peer interactions and communication with the
course academic team
• Expert webinars and discussions
• Special-occasion webinars (e.g. mid-course and graduation webinars)
• Mentoring sessions
• Practical workshops

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Repurposing and localising the 2018 open course
Pedagogical approach: The OU’s supported open learning (McAndrew & Weller, 2005)
• learning support (staff provide academic expertise, support and guidance)
Challenges to consider:
• Learning/pedagogical support
• Technical and administrative support
Solutions
• Online community of practice (peer and educator support)
• Practical workshops
• Technical and admin support
• Kenya-based support

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Repurposed and localised open course

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Learning blocks
Week 1
• Online self-study content
• Moderated discussions
Week 2
• Expert webinar
• Online self-study content
• Moderated discussions
Week 3:
• Mentoring meetings for university projects
• (un)Moderated discussions

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Insights and lessons learned
• Using a good quality OER saved us at least 3 months of production time
and cost (helped with the budget cuts)
• The process of repurposing led to some creative approaches in creating
new learning activities (STEM for non-STEM and non-educators)
• Repurposing/reusing OER for a new context required a good
understanding of the new context (education system vs education
culture)
• OER enabled expanding the reach of a resource to new groups of
audience (educators only vs other roles within HE)
• Repurposing OER contributed to updating the original content (new
topics, methods, etc.)

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Future of this OER
2022-2023
• We have updated and revised the content of original Take Your Teaching
Online (2018) open course based on feedback from course educators and
participants to offer it again as a free CPD course (suitable for a global
context)
• 3 Kenyan universities are repurposing and localising this course to offer it to
a larger number of staff in their universities and as a route for promotions
• The government of Kenya (State Department) will make the course available
to more staff in both public and private universities after project ends

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Participants’ feedback
Impact case study vignettes:
https://bit.ly/3xgZbJR
Programme impact videos:
https://bit.ly/3wTtpSZ

17. 17
20 challenges to be addressed when repurposing, remixing and localising OER
(particularly for a low-resourced context)
Publication

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Acknowledgement
Illustrations in this presentation are original or remixed
versions of a selection of
images produced by Visual Thinkery for the UK-Aid
Funded Skills for Prosperity Kenya programme, and are
licensed CC BY 4.0

19. 19
Q & A
Thank you!
SFPKadmin@open.ac.uk
@GFereshte @BeckPitt