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Catherine Ngugi and Neil Butcher travelled to the headquarters
of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in March 2009. The purpose
of the visit was to meet with the outgoing and incoming directors
of Open Educational Resources(OER). Catherine Ngugi reports on the
visit.
Whilst at the Foundation, the first task was to present the OER
Africa program to the OER Directors and Associate Program Officers.
Over lunch, Catherine and Neil were honoured to be introduced to
the Chairman of the Hewlett Foundation, Paul Brest, who engaged
OER Africa in a thought-provoking discussion on the limits and possibilities
of grant-making as a tool for building capacity in higher education
institutions in Africa. Throughout the day, the Foundation’s
commitment to supporting OER was evident.
Next on the Agenda for the OER Africa team was the 2009 Hewlett
Grantees Meeting. This year’s meeting was carefully organised
to enable grantees to spend as much time as possible in discussion
with each other. In the opening plenary session Dean James O. Wolliscroft
of the University of Michigan Medical School focussed his remarks
on how Michigan University moved into an OER strategy, the motivations
and the key barriers that had to be overcome as well as how Michigan
sees OER impacting on the future of the Medical School. Catherine
Ngugi described where OER has gained traction in the OER Africa
strategy and why. She highlighted how OER helps rebut the egregious
notion everything has to come into Africa from the outside and spoke
of the unique potential for OER in Africa that is different from
other traditional interventions. Rachel Wise, Director of Secondary
Education, Omaha Public Schools, explained how OER has impacted
on the Omaha Public Schools system as well as the primary reasons
schools will be motivated to participate in OER. She shared her
vision of how OER might evolve in the K-12 in-school context and
described how teachers have responded to OER and what more could
be done to increase impact of OER in schools. The panellists were
well received by the audience of grantees and foundation staff and
a rigorous question and answer session followed.
The main plenary on Day Two focussed on OER in Africa providing
an opportunity for Neil Butcher to introduce OER Africa to all the
other Hewlett grantees. In his presentation, Neil sketched out OER
Africa’s proposed Theory
of Change and Programme of Action, while reinforcing the progress
that we have made in deepening our understanding and knowledge of
the practical requirements to help unlock the potential of OER in
African Higher Education. It was clear that OER Africa aroused a
lot of interest from others engaged in the field, many of whom approached
us to discuss potential synergies. As a result of the two day meeting,
OER Africa looks forward to working more closely with the Connexions
Project at Rice University, Commonwealth of Learning, Winona State
University, Teachers Without Borders, Open Society Institute and
the University of Michigan.
Kathy Nicholson of the Hewlett Foundation introduced OER Africa
to the Google Analytics project in which we are now actively participating.
We were also able to renew our acquaintance with Dr. Mary Y. Lee
of Tufts University. With her particular interest in how information
technology can help further educational goals, Dr. Lee is the project
steward of both the Tufts University Sciences Knowledgebase (TUSK)
and Tufts OpenCourseWare (OCW). OER Africa and Tufts hope to facilitate
a joint relationship with the East African Curriculum Consortium
(EACC) to explore where there may be synergies.
In between plenary, break-out groups and other sessions, OER Africa
was able to renew old relationships and build new ones. A meeting
with Jophus Anamuah Mensah and Freda Wolfenden of the TESSA of the
Teacher Education in sub Saharan Africa project (TESSA) enabled
us to get an update on the project, whilst another meeting with
Lesley-Anne Long of the Health Education and Training in Africa
programme (HEAT) allowed us to catch up with progress and share
recent OER Africa activities.
All in all, this was time well spent in building relationships for
OER Africa.
More information about this year’s Hewlett Grantees meeting
can be found here.
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