OER Africa, an initiative of Saide has a vision of vibrant, sustainable African higher education institutions that play a critical role in building and sustaining African societies and economies by producing the continent's future intellectual leaders through free and open development and sharing of common intellectual capital. Open educational resources' (OER) potential includes bringing transparency to educational processes, developing capacity in design of educationally effective materials, facilitating collaborations between faculty members and students at different institutions, and establishing financially and educationally sustainable ways of procuring and publishing learning materials.
To be successful and sustainable, development of OER cannot be a sideline activity within a university. It must be integrated into institutional processes in order to both leverage its potential and provide for its sustainability. Likewise, institutional policies, particularly around intellectual property rights, remuneration, and promotion, need to be adapted to support and sustain development and use of OER, to systematically and consistently improve and update curricula and teaching materials, reduce operating costs, develop institutional capacity, and manage growing student cohorts more effectively.
With the above background, one of OER Africa's aims has been to help higher education institutions to establish supportive policy frameworks that support openness in the development, adaptation, and use of educational resources and convert this into financially and educationally sustainable models for OER in Africa.
Drawing on earlier work with our network of partners we have revised two of our toolkits, namely our policy toolkit and copyright toolkit to support institutions. The purpose of the policy toolkit is to help institutions review their own institutional policy environment and where necessary institute policy changes that will facilitate collaboration and development and sharing of OER. The toolkit is divided into the following sections:
- Purpose of the toolkit, including definition of OER.
- Policy changes needed for institutions to make more effective use of OER.
- Student considerations for OER-friendly policy.
- Staff considerations for OER-friendly policy.
- Institutional considerations for OER-friendly policy.
- Government considerations for OER-friendly policy.
- Quality assurance bodies' and other stakeholders' considerations for OER policy.
- Policy implications of the use of OER in Open and Distance Learning and e-Learning, including issues related to cross-border provision.
- Policy tools and guides.
The website provides an interactive space in which questions can be raised, suggestions can be made or contributions and links can be made to other policy resources.
The OER Copyright and Licensing Toolkit is a guide for higher education institutions interested in creating and using OER. It explains the notion of copyright and describes the different licensing options available to the author/creator of a work. Whether you are wanting to license your own work, or are tasked with clearing copyrighted documents, you will find comprehensive information about the basic concepts in copyright and licensing, the types of open licences that exist, and tools and techniques to provide support.
The toolkit covers the following areas:
- Basic definitions and concepts.
- Creative Commons licences.
- Applying a licence to your work.
- Copyright clearance.
It is envisaged that both toolkits will be living resources and will be updated periodically. However, it is the policy toolkit that we are focussing most on with regard to getting institutions to engage – particularly by contributing policy examples, case studies or issues or concerns they are experiencing with each of the sections. Creative Commons has also received a small grant to develop a policy registry to which contributions can be made.
OER Africa welcomes all feedback on these two toolkits and hopes that they will be useful too.
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