Access to Education With Online Learning and Open Educational Resources: Can They Close the Gap?

Geith, Christine; Vignare, Karen

doi:10.24059/olj.v12i1.39

Cited by 47 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The CC licensing framework allows individuals and organizations to publish their work (West & Victor, 2011) under different types of Intellectual Property licenses (Kozinska et al, 2010). Additional flexibility of the framework allows authors to customize the license according to their requirements (Geith & Vignare, 2008). Thus when potential users see the Creative Commons license, which changed the "all rights reserved" to "some rights reserved open licensing" (Gourley & Lane, 2009, p.58), they know that the educational content is open and freely available for use (West & Victor, 2011).…”

Section: Copyrightmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This in itself could pose a large barrier to the adoption and use of open content in non-English speaking developing countries which may have fewer resources for translating materials (Mora et al, 2008). However, as the OER movement gains momentum and more organizations join the fray, the amount of OER content which has been translated has increased (Geith & Vignare, 2008). Although potential cultural issues have also been mentioned (Mora et al, 2008), no actual supporting evidence has been provided for this barrier.…”

Section: Politics and Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this right is dependent on the relevant infrastructure being in place (Geith & Vignare, 2008). This could include anything from content repositories to bandwidth to the removal of any barriers which prevent accessibility to educational resources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the Barriers and Enablers to the Use of Open Educational Resources by University Academics in Africa

Percy

Belle

2012

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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Abstract. Considerable effort has gone into Open Educational Resource (OER) initiatives in the past decade. These initiatives have created free, high quality educational resources for everyone and anyone to use. However, these open and free resources appear to remain largely unused by university academics on the educationally resource-poor African continent. The objectives of the research study are to explore the inhibitors and enablers are experienced by academics that use OER, and what barriers prevent academics from using OER. The sample consists of academics from East, West and Southern Africa. Information was gathered by means of a survey questionnaire. A modified version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model was used to identify the influence of certain factors on a user's intention to adopt OER. Some of the key findings indicate that Performance Expectancy and Effort Expectancy have a positive effect on a user's Behavioural Intention to use OER, and the latter has a strong influence on the Actual Use of OER. Facilitating Conditions do not have a statistically significant impact. Additionally, significant differences were found in the barriers which users and potential users of OER have identified as either limiting their current use of OER, or negatively affecting their intention to use OER. These barriers include discovery, relevance, context and individual resources. Addressing these factors could lead to a more widespread adoption of Open Educational Resources in Africa and, consequently, more pervasive and higher quality educational opportunities.

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Section: Copyrightmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Politics and Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the Barriers and Enablers to the Use of Open Educational Resources by University Academics in Africa

Percy

Belle

2012

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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“…Institutional readiness rarely exists in lower middle-income countries, making it one of the challenges for e-learning (Frehywot, 2013;Geith & Vignare 2008;. In most developing nations, for example, the education system revolves around the use of physical textbooks and other types of published resources.…”

Section: Oers In the Tertiary And Primary Education Sectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Access has been on top of every developing country's list of educational objectives. Access to technology and educational tools determines the ability of educators and learners' to share works and contribute to their improvement (Geith & Vignare, 2008). However, major setbacks such as internet connectivity, lack of internet skills in users, availability of peripherals such as scanners and printers and bandwidth are yet to be confronted actively, bearing in mind that these issues may vary from country to country or region to region Ayoo, 2009).…”

Section: Oers and Primary Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Primary Education in Developing Nations: A Case Study of India

Ganapathi¹

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This research aims to identify how open educational resources (OERs) can contribute towards primary education, and what role they might play in increasing childhood literacy in particular, which has been identified as a prime component in ensuring educational attainment in primary school. Literature in the area largely addresses OERs and their potential to widen participation in tertiary education with a focus on developed nations, with little discussion about how OERs can be utilized in primary education. This thesis is particularly interested in the role OERs might play in primary education in developing nations where a range of challenges contribute to the low levels of literacy. In nations like India and South Africa, which are the locations of the case study organizations selected for this research, decentralized rural populations, combined with high levels of poverty, child labor and low levels of literacy and awareness cause poor attendance and access to schools. This research suggests that OERs aimed at developing literacy in primary school-aged children can overcome the distribution and access issues that contribute to low attendance and engagement with education in these nations. OERs have the capacity to bypass low levels of educational infrastructure by distributing high quality resources online in low definition formats suitable for downloading and under open licenses on platforms suitable for users to repackage, translate and re-purpose according to their particular need or audience. While there are a range of sustainability challenges for organizations with a social mission to use OERs to increase the equity and access of educational materials, these organizations have found innovative solutions taken from other online successes such as gaming and social media. Making use of volunteers and users in a community of practice to ensure that content is translated, quality is maintained and there is volume on their sites has some risks but also enables the maintenance of an open repository of materials for use, re-use, adaptation and sharing. This thesis contributes to the existing literature by shedding light into understanding these challenges from the experiences and perspectives of three case study organizations that provide OERs for children.

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Teaching, Learning, and Sharing Openly Online

O’Byrne¹,

Roberts²,

LaBonte³

et al. 2014

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

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Open learning is becoming a critical focus for K‐12 technology‐supported programs as the importance of digital literacy and digital freedoms for all learners grows. This article describes current open learning policy, open educational resources and potential implications for open practice and ends with suggestions for future research in open learning. The column situates this examination in the context of current opportunities and challenges that impact open learning in educational spaces.

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Access to Education With Online Learning and Open Educational Resources: Can They Close the Gap?

Cited by 47 publications

References 16 publications

Exploring the Barriers and Enablers to the Use of Open Educational Resources by University Academics in Africa

Exploring the Barriers and Enablers to the Use of Open Educational Resources by University Academics in Africa

The Role of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Primary Education in Developing Nations: A Case Study of India

Teaching, Learning, and Sharing Openly Online

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