Addressing the Local in Localization: A Case Study of Open Textbook Adoption by Three South African Teachers

Abstract

This article presents a case study of the adoption and use of open textbooks by three high school teachers in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The textbooks, collaboratively authored and distributed through the South African-initiative, Siyavula, are available online and are openly licensed, allowing teachers to freely use, modify, print, and share them with peers. Building on prior research conducted on the Siyavula project, the study consisted of interviews with teachers in South Africa to assess their reasons for adopting open textbooks, and their experiences using Siyavula’s open textbooks in the classroom. 
 
 The study revealed that beyond the cost-savings and flexible printing possibilities afforded by using open textbooks, the teachers’ adoption and use of the open textbooks were tied to the local nature of the textbooks, as well as the localization opportunities made possible through open licensing. Specifically, the study revealed the importance of content rooted in the cultural and geographic contexts in which teachers teach—for example, through authentic scenarios and accessible texts for students and teachers to work with. Moreover, because the Siyavula textbooks were collaboratively written by local field experts and scholars, the content was viewed by the teachers as higher quality than proprietary textbooks, which often have few authors and are disseminated by large publishing companies. Furthermore, the study found that localization of the textbooks involved not only to the ability to modify and annotate the content to meet classroom needs, but also the ability to meet local socioeconomic constraints, including technological and budgetary limitations. The findings also indicated that the textbooks’ collaborative authorship and possibilities for user modifications facilitated communication about enhancements to the textbook between the textbook authors and the teacher users. 
 
 On the whole, the findings support nascent, prior research revealing that when open educational resources (OER) are created, developed and evaluated through processes drawing upon individuals who live and work within the context in which the OER are being created for, the end result is more useable. The results of the study support the need for further research in other settings globally, centering on, for example, the role of collaborative authorship in relation to perceived quality of content.

Reflections on COVID-19 and the viability of curriculum adjustment and delivery options in the South African educational space

“…What works in another educational space may not be ideal for another; that is the sole argument of the theory of localisation. In view of this, there is an additional notion that content rooted in cultural and geographical contexts, in local languages and day to day experiences are more acceptable (Jimes, Weiss & Keep 2013;Ndebele 2020;Olivier 2020).…”

Tracking the Money for Open Educational Resources in South African basic Education: What We Don’t Know

“…Governments that recognise this potential and its asserted link to reducing their costs have been shown to favour open textbooks (Frydenberg & Matki, 2007). The DBE has printed and issued several OER textbooks to high school science and maths students since 2012 in partnership with OER publisher Siyavula (Attwell, 2012; Department of Basic Education [DBE], 2012;2013a;Frydenberg & Matki, 2007;Jimes, Weiss, & Keep, 2013;Shillington, 2012). This presents an opportunity to potentially investigate whether OER has reduced…”

“…6) to review and endorse the open textbooks Siyavula produces, and enable the printing and distribution of free-to-the-user copies of their textbooks, Everything Maths and Everything Science, and their Thunderbolt Kids workbooks for Grades 4-6 in natural science and technology to all government schools across the country (Attwell, 2012;DBE, 2012;2013a;Jimes et al, 2013;Shillington, 2012). In 2012, government printers printed both the Siyavula Everything Maths and Everything Science textbooks, teacher guides for Grades 10, 11, and 12, and the Grade 4-6 workbooks (DBE, 2013a;Shillington, 2012).…”

A incompatibilidade entre os atributos dos recursos educacionais abertos e as preferências dos usuários como barreira à difusão de inovação

“…Destacam-se, ainda, artigos de desenvolvimento de escalas Pirkkalainen et al, 2017;Rolfe, 2012;Ye et al, 2015); desenhos de pesquisa quaseexperimentais (Allen et al, 2015;Fischer et al, 2015;Hilton III & Laman, 2012;Swirski & Baram-Tsabari, 2015); artigos qualitativos de orientação positivista que buscaram testar de teorias com uso da técnica de adequação ao padrão (pattern matching); análise de conteúdo e análise de discurso (Adnan, Kalelioglu, & Gulbahar, 2017;Chiappe & Arias, 2015;Chiappe, Pinto, & Arias, 2016;Elf, Ossiannilsson, Neljesjö, & Jansson, 2015;Gadd & Weedon, 2017;Guedes, Gonçalves, & Nascimento, 2015;Gutiérrez, Ibarra, & Ramírez-Montoya, 2014;Hennessy, Haßler, & Hofmann, 2015Jimes, Weiss, & Keep, 2013;Jung & Hong, 2017;Masterman, 2016;Pirkkalainen et al, 2017;Ponti, 2014;Suárez, 2016;Thoms & Thoms, 2014;Wharrad, Sanderson-Mann, McCandless, & Riley, 2012;Xia, 2013).…”

“…Abordagens não-positivistas também foram utilizadas para estudar o fenômeno de REA, sobretudo, em países em desenvolvimento (Amiel, 2013;Cox & Trotter, 2016;Harley, 2011;Hennessy et al, 2015;Jimes et al, 2013;P. Murphy & Wolfenden, 2013;Ngugi, 2011;Stoffregen et al, 2016), como teoria crítica (Alevizou, 2015;Knox, 2013), estruturalismo (Jones, 2015;Willems & Bossu, 2012), abordagem foucauldiana (Alevizou, 2015) e social realismo (Cox & Trotter, 2016).…”