1/14

August 2015Connect with us throughthe following channels

Facebook Twitter Website

Slideshare

Recent Events

14 July 2015 – Meeting theOpen Collaborative Sciencefor Development Network(OCSDNet)... read more.

8 July 2015 – Qualitativedata rendering webinar...read more.

1 – 3 July 2015 – ROER4Dattends the 2nd InternationalConference of the AfricanVirtual University... readmore.

3 June 2015 – CherylHodgkinson­Williamsattends a meeting of theAfrica Evidence Networkmeeting... read more.

29 May 2015 – Onlinesession with DECI­2 teamfor a ROER4Dcommunication and

Welcome to the July­August 2015 edition of theROER4D Newsletter. We are reaching the mid­point ofour three­year funded study researching the adoptionand impact of open educational resources in the GlobalSouth, and are pleased to report that some of ourprojects are at data analysis phases and starting toreport findings.

The highlight for the network so far this year wasundoubtedly the ROER4D workshop held in April inBanff, Canada and our attendance at the OEC GlobalConference in Banff. With 18 sub­projects, 86researchers and associates working across 26countries and 16 time zones, much of our work isvirtual so a physical meeting of the network is animportant and special time. This was the secondROER4D workshop of the project and saw a collectionof new research projects focussing on the impact of theuse of OER formally join the ROER4D research family.The two day workshop was followed by attendance atthe Open Education Global Conference, where adedicated ROER4D research track in partnership withthe GO­GN network allowed ROER4D researchers topresent their projects to a global audience.

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

2/14

evaluation update... readmore.

Recent Blog Posts

Michelle Willmers discussesthe launch of the ROER4DOpen Data Initiative... readmore.

Sukaina Walji interviewsBrenda Mallinson from OERAfrica about OER developmentin Tanzania... read more,

Sarah Goodier discussesROER4D's attendance at theAfrican Virtual Universityconference... read more,

ROER4D Twitter feed

ROER4D

469 followers1,423 tweetsfollowing 446 people

follow

Latest TweetsRole of #OER and#CreativeCommons important forlocalisation of #MOOC contenthttps://t.co/XWIFjY1hYdRT @cdnsciencepub: Great toread about the @IDRC_CRDI'snew #OA policy ­ A new openaccess policy in internationaldevelopment http://t.co/…"@LSEImpactBlog: Social media

ROER4D researchers brave the snow at Lake Louise in Banff

Following the ROER4D workshop, the team atWawasan OU led by Prof Raj Dhanarajan and MsMaria Ng have been onboarding the new impact studyresearchers, and these projects are now underway.The impact studies mentor ­ Deputy PI Prof PatriciaArinto ­ has been working with the researchers tofinalise their research proposals and work has nowstarted in earnest. Many of the impact study researchteams introduce their projects and share their initialactivities in the roundup section of this newsletter.

The first set of projects in the ROER4D programmeresearching the adoption of OER are now at datacollection and analysis phases. In in­depth featurearticles, SP5 and SP6 share some interesting findingsand insights from their action research projects thathave been co­creating OER with teachers in India andColombia respectively. The SP3 and SP4 projects,which are researching academics’ attitudes in India andSouth Africa respectively give updates on their dataanalysis activities and strategies, the SP7 teamdescribes data collection activities at recentworkshops, while SP11 researcher Sarah Goodier hasinterviewed education administrators for her projectwhich aims to establish a baseline for educationalexpenditure in South Africa. Meanwhile SP2, the largeOER survey is progressing with collecting surveyresponses from its 36 participating institutions acrossthe Global South and has over 5000 responsesalready.

10:10AM

6:27AM

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

3/14

outcomes in academia: engagewith your audience and they willengage with you.http://t.co/t7OBO0xLOY"RT @laurentelder: insights fromDFID and IDRC supportedresearch on harnessing ICTs fordevelopmenthttps://t.co/mg...RT @HarrietMW89: Quality ofOpenness report, includesassesment of @INASSAprogram`s contribution to opendevelopment.http://t.co/W2Wvx2RM…

ROER4D BibliographyWe've added new content to our open bibliography ofresearch on OER in the Global South, including a newtab on Open Textbooks. As always, we value yourinput ­ if there is any important content we've left off thespreadsheet, please let us know.

News from the network hubA large part of the network hub’s efforts in the early partof the year, led by indefatigable Project Manager TessCartmill, was the organisation of the ROER4Dworkshop and attendance at the OEC GlobalConference in Banff, Canada. Following this, networkhub members have attended and presented at anumber of conferences with PI Prof Cheryl­Hodgkinson­Williams keynoting at the 2nd InternationalConference of the African Virtual University in Nairobi,where Sarah Goodier also presented. Sukaina Waljipresented at the 10th eLearning Africa conference inAddis Ababa.

Networking is a core ROER4D objective and wecontinue to connect and nurture relationships with otherresearch projects and stakeholder organisations. Newrelationships have been forged both with the AfricaEvidence Network (AEN) and the Open CollaborativeScience for Development Network (OCSDNet) withinteractions between project members both virtuallyand physically. See the ROER4D Project events pagefor more details on these and other networkingactivities.

Round­up from the ROER4D research projects

SP2 gets more than 5000 survey responsesAs of July 2015, two­thirds of our 36 target institutionshave now completed their surveys, meaning that atleast 10 instructors and 200 students at 24 universitieshave responded to our survey request. The majority ofthese universities are based in Africa (Kenya, Ghana,South Africa) and Asia (India, Indonesia, Malaysia). We

6:27AM

8:52PM

4:22PM

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

4/14

now have a total of 5,425 survey responses fromstudents and instructors across the Global South, anice large data set.

But we’re still on track to get even more responses,especially from South America where our responserate thus far in Brazil, Colombia and Chile is only 22%of our goal (540 responses by instructors andstudents). With a little more time, we believe we’ll reachour target in these countries as well. We will keepeveryone posted on our progress via the SP2 page onthe ROER4D website.

SP3 Attitude towards OER scale finalisedThe SP3 team from India at the CommonwealthEducational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) is busytranscribing and coding the qualitative data collectedfrom interviews with about 30 respondents during fourworkshops conducted on Open Educational Resourcesfor Development. The team has also finalised theAttitude towards OER (ATOER) scale that has 17items, which follows a two factor model covering“Sharing” and “Adaptation”. A paper is being finalizedfor submission to a peer­reviewed journal reporting thescale development process. View the SP3 page on theROER4D website.

SP4 Data rendering in processSince the Banff workshop and conference – and aftersome fun family vacation time – Glenda and Henry ofSP4 have been busy rendering their research data sothat it will be legible for qualitative analysis. Their mainfocus has been on their interview data, whichcomprises the bulk of their materials, but they havealso been attending to their survey data as well. Theyhave done this by reading through their transcribedinterviews, annotating them according to themes,filtering them according to concepts, visualizing them indifferent formats, tabulating certain responses forquicker retrieval and selecting stand­out quotes for laterreporting. With their materials thus rendered, they havenow just begun the exciting process of actuallyanalysing their ROER4D research data. View the SP4page on the ROER4D website.

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

5/14

SP5 Collaboratively creating and curating video OER as a teacher development processThe Karnataka Open Educational Resources (KOER) project is studying whether and how professional learning communities of teachers can collaborate on resource co­creation and curation. During June, they ran a workshop with high school science teachers, to create video OER of experiments. While learning science by doing is an effective method of science teaching, science classes are mostly theoretical since science labs are dysfunctional in many high schools. During a previous workshop with this group, teachers had expressed a need for good quality, contextual video resources for demonstrating science experiments. This was also based on a strong teacher professional development (TPD) requirement in the area of hands­on activities for science. Teachers felt that sharing videos of experiments on KOER and the mailing forum could support other teachers to activatelabs.

Creating a video of a science experimentdemonstration

The process of making videos was a learningexperience for the participants; they provided activefeedback to one another on many aspects relating tothe correct manner of conducting an experiment, safetymeasures, constructivist approaches to helpingstudents learn from the experiments; succinctlydocumenting the processes, observations andinferences etc.

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

6/14

Rehearsals by teachers, using mobile phones to recordexperiments.

The entire process of doing­documenting­recording­reviewing was most enjoyable. Teachers did a dummyrecording before finalizing the video allowing self andpeer evaluation of their own teaching­learningmethodologies. Teachers also saw first hand the powerof remixing OER, as they combined their own imagesor illustrations with other OER resources from theInternet and text material with the video recordings. TheOER processes (access­create­review­remix­revise­publish) allowed teachers to examine and reflect ontheir own beliefs and methods of science teaching.View the SP5 page on the ROER4D website.

SP6 CoKREA project: Promoting Teachers asambassadors of Open EducationDuring the first part of 2015, SP6’s work in Colombiahas focused on the work to systematize and sharewhat happened around the co­creation of OER withK12 (secondary school) teachers in southwesternColombia. The research team and participatingteachers shared the progress and initial results of theproject with some 18 presentations being made atevents including the CoKREA Meeting 2015(February), Education Freedom Day ­ Popayan(March), the OER Global Conference, Banff Canada(April), the Latin American Festival of Installation ofFree Software ­ FLISoL Popayan (April), and the ThirdMeeting of educational experiences and research ofteachers from Cauca (April). Each event was anopportunity to share the learning challenges facingOER adoption with colleagues, government officialsand researchers in the education sector and to deepen

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

7/14

understandings of how locally adapted OERcontributes to open educational practices.

These events have increased the project’s visibility asthe dissemination of the research is leading to newopportunities to discuss open licensing, OER and OpenEducation. To further this impact, the project isencouraging teachers to write down their stories abouttheir experience in the use and creation of OER,allowing them to systematize their work and share itwith others. In addition, the team is developing contentto promote, in multiple creative formats, the coKREAexperience with new audiences.

Poster of the coKREA project on display

coKREA begins its final stage with a closing workshopscheduled for August. During the workshop they plan toseek, through peer to peer work, to strengthen thesystematization of experiences about OER from thestories of those who participated in the project andfinalise the research reports that have been drawn upduring the investigation. The workshop will take place inPopayan, Colombia. For more information visitkarisma.org.co/cokrea

Proyecto coKREA: Docentes como embajadores dela Educación AbiertaEste año, el trabajo del SP6 en Colombia ha estadoenfocado en sistematizar y socializar lo ocurrido entorno a la co­creación de REA con docentes deEducación Básica y Media en el suroccidente deColombial. El equipo de investigación y los docentesparticipantes han realizado ponencias en diferentes

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

8/14

espacios académicos, compartiendo los avances yresultados iniciales del proyecto.

Se han realizado 18 ponencias en eventos como:Encuentro coKREA 2015 (Febrero), EducationFreedom Day ­ Popayán (Marzo), OEGlobalConference (Abril), Festival Latinoamericano deInstalación de Software Libre ­ FLISoL Popayán (Abril),III Encuentro de experiencias pedagógicas einvestigativas de maestros y maestras del Cauca(Abril), entre otros. Cada evento ha sido unaoportunidad para compartir con colegas, autoridadesgubernamentales e investigadores del sector educativolos aprendizajes y retos frente a los REA, entendidoscomo ejes para liderar prácticas educativas abiertasadaptadas a necesidades locales.

La visibilización del proyecto en estos eventos, hadespertado el interés de otras personas, abriendonuevos escenarios para hablar sobre el licenciamientoabierto, REA y Educación Abierta. Para ampliar esteimpacto, estamos alentando a los docentes queescriban relatos sobre su experiencia en el uso ycreación de REA, lo que les permitirá sistematizar sutrabajo y compartirlo con otros. Además, estamoselaborando contenidos de divulgación, en múltiplesformatos creativos, para compartir la experiencia decoKREA con nuevos públicos.

coKREA comienza su etapa final. En agosto,realizaremos un taller en el que se buscará, a travésdel trabajo entre pares, fortalecer la sistematización delas experiencias en torno a los REA, a partir de losrelatos de quienes participaron del proyecto y de losinformes académicos que se han elaborado en lainvestigación. El taller tendrá lugar en Popayán,Colombia. Visita: http://karisma.org.co/cokrea

SP7 Initial Module tryout workshops in progressThe SP7 team, which is researching the operationalprocesses involved in course development usingexisting OER, ran a number of module tryoutworkshops in early 2015 to provide feedback on theinitial draft of materials prepared during the originalcourse development workshops organised in Kochi and

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

9/14

Penang in 2014. These one­day workshops were heldat MET College of Education Chenbagaramanputhur,Tamil Nadu, India and at St Joseph’s college ofTeacher Education for Women Kochi, India.

Among the objectives of the workshops were to:

use the course materials of the module in smallgroups of studentscollect specific individual feedback from thelearners for a given section/sub­section of theModulecollect the reactions of students on the qualityand learning effectiveness of the coursematerials.

Postgraduate students at MET College of EducationChenbagaramanputhur, reviewing the module.

View the SP7 page on the ROER4D website.

SP10.1 Getting started with fieldwork in Mauritius

Focus group concept mapping activity

SP10.1 is researching the impact of OER on practicesin teacher education institutions in East Africa. Whilethe sun shone most days, researchers FredaWolfenden and Alison Buckler had little time for thefamous beaches during their recent trip to Mauritius tojoin up with the third investigator on their OER impactproject, Pritee Auckloo, based at the Mauritius Instituteof Education. The trip had been timed to coincide with

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

10/14

the biannual DETA conference where they were allpresenting on various other projects concerned withteacher education in Sub Saharan Africa. Theconference brings together teacher educators fromacross the continent and enabled them to renewconnections and link up in person with their researchcollaborators from their ROER4D research siteinstitutions in Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda todiscuss details of the forthcoming field visits and recentdevelopments in OER in their institutions and countries.

Being able to meet informally away from the demandsof their teaching commitments was hugely valuable,particularly in such beautiful surroundings. In betweenconference sessions the research team held projectmeetings and undertook a number of semi­structuredinterviews with staff at the Mauritius Institute ofEducation. They also seized the opportunity to pilottheir focus group OER activity with small groups ofteacher educators from the region, exploring the ‘what?how? who with? and to what effect?’ questions of OERusing a concept mapping technique. Following theconference they are looking forward to analysing therich data they have collected and finalising theirresearch instruments prior to planned field trips to EastAfrica. View the SP10.1 page on the ROER4D website.

SP10.3 Interviews with MOOC educatorscommenceSince the stimulating Open Education Globalconference in Banff at the end of April, the SP10.3research team has been toiling away: conductinginterviews with MOOC educators; coding transcripts;ironing out creases in the conceptual framework;submitting proposals; planning research outputs;determining presentation strategies and identifyingconferences to participate in. Two of three sets ofinterviews have been conducted for the first twoMOOCs, and the first set of interviews for the thirdMOOC are complete. (That’s 30 interviews and 25transcription documents from three MOOCs with theproject studying five MOOCs in total). Coding, finessingcodes, recoding, refining codes, recoding is proving tobe a fascinating albeit a labour intensive process.

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

11/14

And the team has early findings! Laura Czerniewiczand Sukaina Walji will be presenting a paper titled“MOOCs as Changing Activity Systems: OpeningEducator Practices in a Multi­disciplinary AfricanMOOC” at the ICDE conference in Sun City (SouthAfrica), which runs from 13 ­16 October this year. Atthe same time the team is working towards completinga full paper on their findings for the first two MOOCs byOctober 2015, so that they can present at theNetworked Learning Conference in May 2016.

In terms of the conceptual framework (CulturalHistorical Activity Theory), Michael Glover from theresearch team attended a day of lectures by CHATtheorists Yrjӧ Engestrӧm and Annalisa Sannino at theend of July in Cape Town. Michael is also planning topresent the project’s Activity Theory literature review atthe 2015 Teaching and Learning Conference in CapeTown during late October. View the SP10.3 page on theROER4D website.

SP10.4 Inception workshop held in KabulIn July, the Darakht­e Danesh Online Library team heldits inception workshop in Kabul for the impact studythey will be conducting with teachers in Afghanistanusing the free digital resources of a unique online librarythat functions in Dari, Pashto and English (seewww.darakhtdanesh.org.) Lauryn Oates (PrincipalInvestigator) was joined by Abdul Rahim Parwani (DariContent Manager), Zainab Rafiatee (Monitoring &Evaluation Officer), Mythili Gowtham (OER ImpactAdvisor), Murwarid Ziayee (Country Director), MikeDawson (CEO of Ustad Mobile), Basir Anwari(Logistics), Humaira Ferozi (Libraries Program Officer),CW4WAfghan's teacher training team including Madiha,Maliha, Bahadari, Salima and Nasrin, and Letha Goger,a consultant in OER who joined by Skype video fromthe US.

After a brief internet crash, they were online and doveinto refining their methodology and planning each stepof the study. This was an opportunity forCW4WAfghan's Afghanistan team and the OERexperts to put their minds together and exchangeknowledge, so that they could make decisions about

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

12/14

the study that draws on best practice in researchingOER and on experience of the context of working withteachers in Afghanistan. Mythili spent the next weekworking with Zainab to finalize the data collection tools,plan a schedule for implementation, and plan the fieldtesting of the tools, which will take place after schoolresumes following the Eid holidays in Afghanistan.During July, they also assessed the research site(Parwan province), developed a partnership plan withthe teachers’ college there, and reviewed options foraccess for the teachers, with the support of UstadMobile. They are looking forward to the start of theirdata collection in early August. View the SP10.4 pageon the ROER4D website.

SP10.5 Research team formalisedSP10.5 is studying the impact of OER on teaching andlearning in Pakistan and the project aims to bothevaluate the impact of the use of OER on students’learning and educational performance as well as the theimpact of using OER on teaching at secondary andtertiary level.

The primary focus at the start of the project wasfinalising the research framework, and feedback on theproposed research framework during project meetingsin Malaysia and Canada earlier this year proved useful.The Research team at both Virtual University ofPakistan (VU) and the Center for LanguageEngineering (CLE) KICS­UET, Lahore has beenformalized and the team is now working on the tasksdefined for the next phase including finalizing theresearch questionnaires for three types of respondents:students, teachers and institutional management forboth secondary level and tertiary level institutions. Inthis context, relevant permissions are being sought atboth secondary as well as tertiary level institutes forseeking their consent to allow the research team tocollect data about the use of OER at their institution,from students, teachers and management. View theSP10.5 page on the ROER4D website.

SP10.6 Integrating OER in Teacher Education isprogressing in Sri LankaThe SP10.6 research team, led by ShironicaKarunanayaka and Som Naidu, has been busy since

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

13/14

March implementing the OER­Integration Interventionprogram at the nine Regional Centres of the OpenUniversity of Sri Lanka (OUSL) (Colombo, Kandy,Matara, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Badulla,Kurunegala and Ratnapura), with the activeparticipation of student teachers at the Faculty ofEducation, OUSL. Over these past months, the leadresearchers, together with colleagues and researchassistants at OUSL, have been collecting Pre­Intervention data using surveys, concept mapping,lesson plan observations, focus group discussions andself­reflections. The team are currently planning andimplementing Mid­Intervention workshops.

The research team are encouraged to see that thestudent teachers have started searching, identifying,finding and integrating OER into their lesson plans andsharing them with their peers through the LearningManagement System, created to facilitate thisintervention. The initial, small and incremental changesin teachers’ thinking and practices are being recordedin various formats including pictures, concept mapsand video stories. Shironica and Som are also in theprocess of developing an instrument ­ the OpenEducation Practices­Impact Evaluation Index ­ tocapture the perceptions, perspectives and practices ofeducators as they engage with the adoption andintegration of OER in their teaching and learningactivities and how these change over time. A draft ofthis instrument is being circulated for a first round offeedback from expert practitioners.

The research team is disseminating initial findings fromthis work by submitting abstracts to be presented atseveral local and international conferences. Shironicapresented a paper – “Opening up Access to Education:Role of Open Educational Resources”, at theInternational Conference on Promoting Socio­economicEquity in South Asia: Challenges and Prospects, heldin Colombo, Sri Lanka in July. Abstracts have alsobeen submitted to the 26th ICDE World Conference tobe held in October, 2015, in Sun City, South Africa,OUSL Annual Academic Sessions – 2015 to be held inNovember, 2015 in Nawala, Sri Lanka, and the 29thAAOU Conference to be held in December, 2015, in

8/6/2015 ROER4D Newsletter ­ August 2015

14/14

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. View the SP10.6 page on theROER4D website.

SP 11 Research into educational expenditure inSouth Africa moves forwardSince our last update work on SP11: Mapping publicfunding for education in South Africa: The road towardsopen educational resource (OER) advocacy and policydevelopment has gotten under way. The projectscoping and proposal development has beencompleted, and ethical clearance has been obtained. Abetter understanding of the funding flow from publicsources into educational resource acquisition,development and dissemination in secondary educationin South Africa is being uncovered by an extensiveliterature review. A key focus of this review is to findany information focusing on OER. Sarah Goodierpresented on the initial stages of this project at theROER4D Workshop held in Banff in April this year.

Sarah has interviewed a representative from theDepartment of Basic Education (DBE) and an OER­producer, which forms the ongoing second stage of theproject. These interviews enable gaps in the literaturereview, due to a lack of publically available information,to be filled. The DBE is engaged in producing someOER, such as the Curriculum and Assessment PolicyStatement (CAPS)­aligned Mind the Gap study guideseries, and some cost­related information on thisproject has been obtained. Other interviews withprovincial education department representatives areplanned to be held later this year.

Copyright © 2014 Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D). Materials on thisnewsletter are licensed under a CC­BY­SA 4.0 International license.

unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences