An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan AfricaWithin the past few years, Africa has joined the rest of the world as an active participant in the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement with a number of home-grown and externally driven initiatives. These have the potential to make an immense contribution to teaching and learning in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). However, certain barriers prevent full participation. This paper reports on qualitative research that sought to investigate SSA's readiness to adopt OER. The study involves three case studies based in higher education institutions involved in OER projects and located in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. Findings indicate contrary to popular belief that low technology levels in Africa do not necessarily impede adoption of such educational technologies; the real challenges facing readiness to adopt OER appear to be related to socio-economic, cultural, institutional and national issues. This paper argues for a complete mind shift in how people perceive OER. It also proposes raising awareness of OER at all levels, involving institutions and government, versioning OER for the African context and conducting more research on OER adoption.Keywords: open educational resources; OER in Africa; challenges of adopting OER IntroductionWhen the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) was conceived, supporters perceived it as a way of making knowledge accessible to all, especially those in most need (Smith & Casserly, 2006 Framing the investigation within an existing OER project (i.e. Teacher Education in SubSaharan Africa (TESSA)) it was possible to interview institutional practitioners (already involved in OER in higher education institutions (HEI)) in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa and discover challenges and success factors that had an impact on their readiness to adopt OER in this region. Although a single project is not representative of a greatly diverse continent such as Africa, the choice of TESSA presented an appropriate study context as it provided access to African practitioners conversant with OER who had first-hand experience of developing and using such content within their own context. Additionally, nine non-TESSA participants from the same institutions were included to help identify socio-cultural issues that potentially influenced non-adoption of OER. We first present a brief literature review followed by a background section which includes a description of the TESSA project.An account of the research method used is then provided, followed by the research findings which are discussed within the context of existing knowledge. The paper concludes with suggestions for future OER development in SSA and similar contexts. LITERATURE REVIEWIssues around adoption of OER have been identified in relation to the African continent; however the discussion has been anecdotal in nature since little documented empirical evidence exists (Hodgkinson-Williams, 2010). Although broadband access can be limited and costly (OECD, 20...

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