The Skills for Prosperity Kenya project is a 2.5-year initiative aimed at enhancing the expertise of Kenyan higher education staff in digital education, funded by the UK government. The project involved extensive capacity development across 29 public universities and resulted in significant improvements in the confidence and capabilities of educators and staff in online teaching practices. Participants reported positive medium-term impacts, including changes in personal attitudes towards online learning, development of new educational products, and increased collaboration within their institutions.

1. Work together. Learn together. Grow together.
Implemented by:
Add Ukaid/UK Government,
Embassy or HMG logo
Add partner logo
Skills for Prosperity: Using OER to
support nationwide change in Kenya
Fereshte Goshtasbpour, Beck Pitt, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Cross and Denise
Whitelock (The Open University, UK)
OER 2023- Inverness, Scotland

2. 2
What we will
cover today
• About the Skills for Prosperity Kenya project
• Which OER?
• Localisation and Remixing
• Impact of OER
• Sumamry
• Q & A

3. 3
Skills for
Prosperity Kenya
Project
• A 2.5-year nationwide capacity development
programme to build Kenyan HE sector expertise in
digital education (online and blended)
• Aimed 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)
• Included all 37 public universities in Kenya
• Designed for educators, managers and support staff

4. 4
Skills for
Prosperity Kenya
Project
Had 2 stages:
Baseline capacity development
Jul 2021- Mar 2022
Mastery capacity development
May 2021-Jan 2023
• 29 public universities, 254
staff
• Eight-session self-study
online course, requiring 30
hours of study
• Wraparound webinars
• Online community of
practice
• 8 public universities, 83 staff
• 8-block self-study online
course with moderated
discussions requiring 72
hours of study
• Expert webinars
• University projects
supported by expert
mentors
• Online community of
practice

5. 5
Mastery capacity
development-
examples of
practical projects

6. 6
Which OER?

7. 7
Repurposed OER

8. 8
OER impact:
Research design
Contextualising
(Identifying and contextualising the problem/areas of change)
RQ1- What problem(s) did participants face in supporting,
delivering or managing digital education before joining SFPK?
RQ2- Which solutions did participants propose for the problems
identified by RQ1?
Exploring and evaluating the solution (SFPK) and its impact
RQ3- In what ways did SFPK training contribute to solving these
problems, and what remains to be addressed?
RQ4- What were the outcomes/consequences of SFPK training
for individuals and teams?
RQ6- What factors did support or hinder the sustainability of
SFPK outcomes at individual and team levels?
Image: “Planning research” by Bryan Matters, Visual
Thinkery licensed under CC-BY-4.0

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OER impact:
Methodology
Focus groups
(n=4)
Pre-course survey
(n=254)
Qualitative
survey
(n=92)
Semi-
structured
interviews
(n=30)
Identifying problems
Post-course
survey
(n=120)
Exploring medium-
term impact (12-18
months after
programme)
Exploring
immediate
impact
• Problem-based qualitative approach
• Multistage and longitudinal
Data Collection
• Pre-course survey
• Qualitative survey
• Post-course survey
• Interviews and focus groups
Impact
Data analysis
• Semi-directed thematic analysis
using King’s (2014) professional
development impact evaluation
framework

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OER impact:
Conceptual
underpinning
King’s (2014) professional development
impact evaluation framework

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Findings
1. Learning
Improved confidence in all areas and across all
three roles:
• Information, data and media literacies
• Digital creation, problem solving and innovation
• Digital learning and development
• Digital communication, collaboration and
participation
Confidence in Digital
capabilities, knowledge and
skills were checked based on
JISC Digital Capabilities
framework before and after
trainings.

12. 12
Findings
Educators (media literacy, digital creation)
1. Be aware of copyright laws and licensing agreements
2. Take into account students’ needs and issues such as
accessibility when creating digital material.
3. Create digital materials that meet good accessibility standards
Support staff (digital communications , digital creation)
1. Use accessible and inclusive forms of communications,
considering the needs of different users
2. Create digital materials that meet good accessibility standards
3. Produce digital materials in a range of formats.
Managers (digital collaboration and communications, digital
creation)
1. Use collaborative digital environments and tools.
2. Use digital networks and social media to build internal or
external networks.
3. Take into account students’ needs and issues such as
accessibility when creating digital material.
1. Learning

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Findings
2.1 Processes
Nearly half of the participants who were interviewed or attended a
focus group reported that they made changes to some of the
processes within their institutions to improve learning, support
student outcomes and provide more accessible education. The
majority of changes were related to :
• teaching
• assessing learners and learning
• creating learning material
• processes of providing library resources
• attendance policy
• communication with students
“Management accepted the policy that we actually do the blended
…we have a problem of physical infrastructure, and sometimes some
of the classes are quite large, so you are not able to meet all of the
students physically, that is when we tell them the option is to sign in
and attend the lessons, and I think we are getting on well with that”.
2. Degree and quality of change

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Findings
2.2 Products
New educational products, outputs and partnerships
• Physical products
• Different kinds of labs (eLearning lab, mathematics lab,
electronic studio, media lab)
• Digital products
• Quality online learning content
• Bank of video lectures
• Specialised YouTube channel
• Online library resources
• STEM wikis
• Policies
• Online learning policy (Delivery mode)
• Learning analytics policy
• Policy for compensating faculty members for online content
creation
2. Degree and quality of change

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Findings
2.3 staff outcome
Personal
More than half of participants reported a change in attitude or
perception about online learning.
2. Degree and quality of change
“I learnt that it’s not impossible to teach anyone, whether blind,
whether deaf, whether you’re teaching sciences, whether you’re
teaching something so technical like music, nothing is impossible
to be taught online”.
“Many things have changed, ranging from my own perceptions
and attitudes on online education to actual implementation of
the teaching and learning. One significant area is in the planning
for an online class. In the past, I didn't quite put much
consideration to the status of the learners in terms of internet
connectivity, physical and mental abilities, personal readiness for
the course, and other militating factors”

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Findings
2.3 staff outcome
Professional (quality of use of new knowledge and skills)
• 62% critical use
• 31% accepted
• 3% discontinued
• 3% non-use
“And then it [training] also gave me the idea on how to be able to
make online teaching and lecturing more practical. I'm a
mathematician and therefore mathematics what involved showing
the students wherever they are how to perform the calculations and
how to perform the analysis of the concepts. And that's now I can do
practically via YouTube, practically via use of whiteboard in the Zoom
platform, which initially I did not know how to use”.
2. Degree and quality of change

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Findings
2.3 staff outcome
Cultural (forms of collaborations and creating PD communities to
support moving beyond the routine level of understanding and use)
• Peer coaching
• Collaborative consultation
• Small professional learning communities
“So, for the three of us, we did a small WhatsApp group where we
could chat. In the evening we have our experiences and when you
move forward to the next day’s assignment you find you have the
interest.”
“So, these members participated, they act as champions in training
our staff within the university. And indeed I can go on confidently
confirm that we gained a lot, both as individuals and also as a
university at large”
2. Degree and quality of change

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Findings
Others in the institution
72% of interviewees reported cascading what they learned to others
within their department or institution.
“So, immediately after training we were tasked with the responsibility
of having a small workshop with our colleagues on the benefit of
embracing e-mode of learning to complement the physical one”
“Once we finished the course, we converted this team to be a duty
that is trainers or trainees, the champions for implementation of e-
learning within the university”.
Others in other institutions
Very little evidence (1%)
“And because CO University has embraced e-learning and they have a
real capacity, so we say that they will come and share their
experiences with us, so we conducted two weeks’ training, it was
training for our staff”.
3. Diffusion/ cascading

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Summary
• The repurposed OER had positive, immediate and medium-term
impact on participants in varied roles, in terms of :
• Learning new conceptual knowledge and skills or enhancing
existing one(s)
• Creating change at “product”, “process” and “staff
outcome” levels
• After “ acquiring new knowledge or skills”, most cited area of
change related to “staff outcome” followed by changes in
“products” and then “processes”.
• When staff outcome is considered, most reported changes were
at professional level followed by areas of change at a personal
level. Comparatively, much fewer cases of cultural change were
reported.

20. 20
Project impact
(participants’
views)
Impact case study vignettes:
https://bit.ly/3xgZbJR
Programme impact videos:
https://bit.ly/3wTtpSZ

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Thank You!
Thank you for joining us today!
Fereshte Goshtasbpour
(fereshte.Goshtasbpour@open.ac.uk)
Beck Pitt
(beck.pitt@open.ac.uk)

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Acknowledgements This presentation is licensed CC BY 4.0 unless
otherwise stated.
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