> Dear Participants,
> I did promise to send a full summary of the Virtual Forum. Here it is and
> hope you would find it comprehensive and useful.
> _______________

> As a fore-runner to the 2nd ACDE Conference and General Assembly to be held
> in Lagos at the National Open University of Nigeria from 8th to 11th July
> 2008 a Virtual Forum was held from the 2nd to 30 June 2008. The Virtual
> Forum concentrated on emerging ideas on Open Educational Resources (OER); an
> issue which bears tremendous significance to open and distance learning
> (ODL) in the developing world, especially Africa.  The main theme of the
> forum was *OERs and sustainable development of Higher Education in Africa*
> .

>  The discussion held under four sub-themes namely:

>    - Capacity building and OER in Africa:  issues, process and challenges.
>    Facilitated by, Catherine Ngugi & Neil Butcher of OER-Africa Initiative.

>    -   Public Health issues and OER in Africa. Facilitated by Prof Dick
>    Heller & Omo Oaiya  Peoples-Uni

>    - Instructional Design and collaborative authoring of OER:  issues and
>    challenges.  Facilitated by Professor Santosh Panda, IGNOU.
>    -
>    - Quality assurance in OER. Facilitated by Professor Olugbemiro Jegede,
>    NOUN

> OER – (Open Educational resources) describes learning resources
> that are freely available for use by educators and learners, without an
> accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees.

> The main points raised during the first sub-theme Capacity building and OER
> in Africa:  issues, process and challenges are:

>    - OER has powerful potentials because it removes restrictions around
>    copying resources, The principle of allowing adaptation of materials
>    contributes to encouraging higher education students to be active
>    participants in educational processes.
>    - Critical areas in OER are *learning content*,i.e.  course
>    materials,learning objects and learning resources; *tools*, i.e.
>    software for content and learning management systems; and *implementation
>    resources*, i.e. intellectual property licenses, localization of
>    content etc.
>    - There is need to change the incentive structures within universities,
>    so that development and sharing of educational materials can create career
>    pathways and lead to better remuneration and greater academic recognition.
>    Change management strategies should be adopted.
>    - OERs can be made available in printed format, the  cost of printing
>    can be favorably compared to cost of bandwidth when learners access
>    materials online.
>    - Challenges of infrastructure, bandwidth, power should not discourage
>    universities and institutions from participating in development and
>    utilization of OER's. Such issues are not peculiar to OER and e-learningand are consequently being addressed at macro level of governance. It should
>    not hamper progress on the soft issues such as strategic management of
>    the OER and e-learning services, pedagogies of e-learning, training of
>    trainers with respect to e-learning design, deployment, implementation,
>    operation, review, measurement and evaluation and policy & regulatory
>    environment to govern itsoperation

> The sub-theme for the second week of  discussion was  OERs and Public
> Health Capacity Building in Africa. The points highlighted were:

>    - Peoples-uni is an educational initiative which aims to develop
>    educational context around Open Educational Resources to help with Public
>    Health capacity building in low- to middle-income countries.
>    - All universities should be encouraged to set up centres in various communities
>    that provide internet facilities all the time for people to come,
>    enroll and be able to access their materials.
>    - Institutions like Peoples-uni will still have to partner with local
>      institutions, so that recipients can receive the awards through them.
>    Partnership is crucial to sustainability of initiatives.
>    - OERs are flexible and can be  used in many ways. Increasingly Network
>    resources (both commercial and  open) are being used by students while
>    engaged in full time face-to-face educational programs- often referred to as
>    'blended learning'.  They can also be used to enhance learning packages
>    for independent  study modules of distance education or as resources
>    for more  interactive group based distance education programming
>    (delivered via  video, audio, web or immersive conferencing).
>    - Peoples Uni carried out a pilot project which  involved 38
>    participants from eight countries with about half a dozen from Africa. The
>    delivered content using Moodle an Open source LCMS. Details will be made
>    available at the pre-conference workshop.
>    - Transparency is one reason health professionals should adopt OER's
>    because of the sensitivity involved - 'health is life'.
>    - Having health professionals, ICT experts and other interest group
>    coming together will be able to bring synergy into the work and service we
>    intend to render. This can make crucial needs like health care readily
>    available.
>    - Many resources are available for use such as free TALC CDs. They
>    provide a wide range of carefully selected material from the Lancet, BMJ,
>    Africa Health, Archives Diseases of Children, World Anaesthesia, PLOS
>    Medicine, Footsteps, WHO, UNICEF, and much that is more suited to community
>    level.
>    - In response to the Executive directors search for the definition of
>    an ODL experts it was suggested such a one should be assessed on
>    competencies in Policy Formulation Strategies, Instructional Designing,
>    Content Development, Content Management, Implementation Procedure and
>    Management thoughts as it affects ODL. Also, A database of ODL Associates
>    should the created before creating an ODL expert database because an ODL
>    Expert must first be an ODL Associate and an ODL Expert should be based on
>    recommendations of other ODL Associates through Peer-Review mechanism.
>    - NOUN should collaborate with other instructions to take advantage of
>    the World Bank/FME Stepb-Nigerian grant . A joint proposal has a high
>    probability of sailing through. Creation of ICT parks and elearning centres
>    will widen access to infrastructure.

>  The theme for the third week of  discussion was  Instructional Design and
> Collaborative Authoring of OERs. The points highlighted were:

>    -  Context, content, reflective engagement to self learning should
>    serve as the bases of distance learning and lifelong educatio
>    - The challenges contending with successful development of localized
>    OERs by developing countries are: funding, investment, collaboration for
>    joint creation, adoption / adaptation, ownership, training, editing and
>    contextualisation, digitalisation, copyright researching, and evolving a
>    culture of OERs.
>    - The ACDE2008 conference should serve as an opportunity for
>    collaboration for joint content creation, while the ownership could be under
>    the auspices of ODL in Africa.
>    - Some critical  issues concern are: to what extent can institutions go
>    to collaborate to develop open course resources and in what way to share;
>    how to share student fees even if the resources are open; how should the
>    institutions adopt/adapt the resources .
>    - To determine a successful instructional multimedia design piece
>    whether for ODL purpose or otherwise, 2 issues are fundamental 'interface'
>    and 'content'. The need to designing and developing relevant software
>    contents pertinent to local needs, learning styles and preferences cannot be
>    ignored.
>    - A reward policy of promotion and tenure time, prestige, social
>    capital and personal exposure by the contribution coupled with the
>    possibility of being able to sell the material in different formats as well
>    as making it available for free may encourage many academics in developing
>    OERs.
>    - Institutions can take advantage of resource persons participating in
>    the conference to partner with bodies like CISCO.

>  The theme for the fourth week of discussion was *: Quality Assurance and
> OER*. The points raised  were:

>    - Quality assurance is a critical component of OER
>    - Standards should be evolved by experienced e-learning international
>    and local bodies like the COL, ACDE ..etc .Guidelines for determining
>    aspects to be included in OER standards must be internationally agreed upon.
>    - Peer review is a powerful means of quality assurance because  the co
>    production of courses by  a team of qualified developers will
>    informally keep quality  standards high.
>    - Backwards assessment of what we already are doing,   without
>    investing in innovations and change models with capacity to   help guide us
>    through times of rapid and perhaps continuous change can be
>    counterproductive.
>    - Elements in a quality OER programme must be identified
>    and standardized; identification and matching of teachers' and
>    learners'
>    styles to ensure effective OER implementation, evaluation and
>    assessment parameters must be carefully selected and quality ensured in
>    design for internal and external consistency.
>    -  The continuous production models often associated with OERs present
>    problems for quality assurance

>    - Quality is a very slippery topic and certainly has cultural and
>    bureaucratic dimensions .Nevertheless the cost of any quality system
>    must not exceed the value of the service
>    - Relationship marketing (all activities directed to establishing,
>    developing and maintaining successful long term relationship with the
>    student and other

>> Dear Participants,
>> I did promise to send a full summary of the Virtual Forum. Here it is and
>> hope you would find it comprehensive and useful.
>> _______________

>> As a fore-runner to the 2nd ACDE Conference and General Assembly to be held
>> in Lagos at the National Open University of Nigeria from 8th to 11th July
>> 2008 a Virtual Forum was held from the 2nd to 30 June 2008. The Virtual
>> Forum concentrated on emerging ideas on Open Educational Resources (OER); an
>> issue which bears tremendous significance to open and distance learning
>> (ODL) in the developing world, especially Africa.  The main theme of the
>> forum was *OERs and sustainable development of Higher Education in Africa*
>> .

>>  The discussion held under four sub-themes namely:

>>    - Capacity building and OER in Africa:  issues, process and challenges.
>>    Facilitated by, Catherine Ngugi & Neil Butcher of OER-Africa Initiative.

>>    -   Public Health issues and OER in Africa. Facilitated by Prof Dick
>>    Heller & Omo Oaiya  Peoples-Uni

>>    - Instructional Design and collaborative authoring of OER:  issues and
>>    challenges.  Facilitated by Professor Santosh Panda, IGNOU.
>>    -
>>    - Quality assurance in OER. Facilitated by Professor Olugbemiro Jegede,
>>    NOUN

>> OER – (Open Educational resources) describes learning resources
>> that are freely available for use by educators and learners, without an
>> accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees.

>> The main points raised during the first sub-theme Capacity building and OER
>> in Africa:  issues, process and challenges are:

>>    - OER has powerful potentials because it removes restrictions around
>>    copying resources, The principle of allowing adaptation of materials
>>    contributes to encouraging higher education students to be active
>>    participants in educational processes.
>>    - Critical areas in OER are *learning content*,i.e.  course
>>    materials,learning objects and learning resources; *tools*, i.e.
>>    software for content and learning management systems; and *implementation
>>    resources*, i.e. intellectual property licenses, localization of
>>    content etc.
>>    - There is need to change the incentive structures within universities,
>>    so that development and sharing of educational materials can create career
>>    pathways and lead to better remuneration and greater academic recognition.
>>    Change management strategies should be adopted.
>>    - OERs can be made available in printed format, the  cost of printing
>>    can be favorably compared to cost of bandwidth when learners access
>>    materials online.
>>    - Challenges of infrastructure, bandwidth, power should not discourage
>>    universities and institutions from participating in development and
>>    utilization of OER's. Such issues are not peculiar to OER and e-learningand are consequently being addressed at macro level of governance. It should
>>    not hamper progress on the soft issues such as strategic management of
>>    the OER and e-learning services, pedagogies of e-learning, training of
>>    trainers with respect to e-learning design, deployment, implementation,
>>    operation, review, measurement and evaluation and policy & regulatory
>>    environment to govern itsoperation

>> The sub-theme for the second week of  discussion was  OERs and Public
>> Health Capacity Building in Africa. The points highlighted were:

>>    - Peoples-uni is an educational initiative which aims to develop
>>    educational context around Open Educational Resources to help with Public
>>    Health capacity building in low- to middle-income countries.
>>    - All universities should be encouraged to set up centres in various communities
>>    that provide internet facilities all the time for people to come,
>>    enroll and be able to access their materials.
>>    - Institutions like Peoples-uni will still have to partner with local
>>      institutions, so that recipients can receive the awards through them.
>>    Partnership is crucial to sustainability of initiatives.
>>    - OERs are flexible and can be  used in many ways. Increasingly Network
>>    resources (both commercial and  open) are being used by students while
>>    engaged in full time face-to-face educational programs- often referred to as
>>    'blended learning'.  They can also be used to enhance learning packages
>>    for independent  study modules of distance education or as resources
>>    for more  interactive group based distance education programming
>>    (delivered via  video, audio, web or immersive conferencing).
>>    - Peoples Uni carried out a pilot project which  involved 38
>>    participants from eight countries with about half a dozen from Africa. The
>>    delivered content using Moodle an Open source LCMS. Details will be made
>>    available at the pre-conference workshop.
>>    - Transparency is one reason health professionals should adopt OER's
>>    because of the sensitivity involved - 'health is life'.
>>    - Having health professionals, ICT experts and other interest group
>>    coming together will be able to bring synergy into the work and service we
>>    intend to render. This can make crucial needs like health care readily
>>    available.
>>    - Many resources are available for use such as free TALC CDs. They
>>    provide a wide range of carefully selected material from the Lancet, BMJ,
>>    Africa Health, Archives Diseases of Children, World Anaesthesia, PLOS
>>    Medicine, Footsteps, WHO, UNICEF, and much that is more suited to community
>>    level.
>>    - In response to the Executive directors search for the definition of
>>    an ODL experts it was suggested such a one should be assessed on
>>    competencies in Policy Formulation Strategies, Instructional Designing,
>>    Content Development, Content Management, Implementation Procedure and
>>    Management thoughts as it affects ODL. Also, A database of ODL Associates
>>    should the created before creating an ODL expert database because an ODL
>>    Expert must first be an ODL Associate and an ODL Expert should be based on
>>    recommendations of other ODL Associates through Peer-Review mechanism.
>>    - NOUN should collaborate with other instructions to take advantage of
>>    the World Bank/FME Stepb-Nigerian grant . A joint proposal has a high
>>    probability of sailing through. Creation of ICT parks and elearning centres
>>    will widen access to infrastructure.

>>  The theme for the third week of  discussion was  Instructional Design and
>> Collaborative Authoring of OERs. The points highlighted were:

>>    -  Context, content, reflective engagement to self learning should
>>    serve as the bases of distance learning and lifelong educatio
>>    - The challenges contending with successful development of localized
>>    OERs by developing countries are: funding, investment, collaboration for
>>    joint creation, adoption / adaptation, ownership, training, editing and
>>    contextualisation, digitalisation, copyright researching, and evolving a
>>    culture of OERs.
>>    - The ACDE2008 conference should serve as an opportunity for
>>    collaboration for joint content creation, while the ownership could be under
>>    the auspices of ODL in Africa.
>>    - Some critical  issues concern are: to what extent can institutions go
>>    to collaborate to develop open course resources and in what way to share;
>>    how to share student fees even if the resources are open; how should the
>>    institutions adopt/adapt the resources .
>>    - To determine a successful instructional multimedia design piece
>>    whether for ODL purpose or otherwise, 2 issues are fundamental 'interface'
>>    and 'content'. The need to designing and developing relevant software
>>    contents pertinent to local needs, learning styles and preferences cannot be
>>    ignored.
>>    - A reward policy of promotion and tenure time, prestige, social
>>    capital and personal exposure by the contribution coupled with the
>>    possibility of being able to sell the material in different formats as well
>>    as making it available for free may encourage many academics in developing
>>    OERs.
>>    - Institutions can take advantage of resource persons participating in
>>    the conference to partner with bodies like CISCO.

>>  The theme for the fourth week of discussion was *: Quality Assurance and
>> OER*. The points raised  were:

>>    - Quality assurance is a critical component of OER
>>    - Standards should be evolved by experienced e-learning international
>>    and local bodies like the COL, ACDE ..etc .Guidelines for determining
>>    aspects to be included in OER standards must be internationally agreed upon.
>>    - Peer review is a powerful means of quality assurance because  the co
>>    production of courses by  a team of qualified developers will
>>    informally keep quality  standards high.
>>    - Backwards assessment of what we already are doing,   without
>>    investing in innovations and change models with capacity to   help guide us
>>    through times of rapid and perhaps continuous change can be
>>    counterproductive.
>>    - Elements in a quality OER programme must be identified
>>    and standardized; identification and matching of teachers' and
>>    learners'
>>    styles to ensure effective OER

> On 7/4/08, Olugbemiro JEGEDE <jege...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Dear Participants,
>> I did promise to send a full summary of the Virtual Forum. Here it is and
>> hope you would find it comprehensive and useful.
>> _______________

>> As a fore-runner to the 2nd ACDE Conference and General Assembly to be
>> held in Lagos at the National Open University of Nigeria from 8th to 11th
>> July 2008 a Virtual Forum was held from the 2nd to 30 June 2008. The Virtual
>> Forum concentrated on emerging ideas on Open Educational Resources (OER); an
>> issue which bears tremendous significance to open and distance learning
>> (ODL) in the developing world, especially Africa.  The main theme of the
>> forum was OERs and sustainable development of Higher Education in Africa.

>>  The discussion held under four sub-themes namely:

>> Capacity building and OER in Africa:  issues, process and challenges.
>> Facilitated by, Catherine Ngugi & Neil Butcher of OER-Africa Initiative.

>>   Public Health issues and OER in Africa. Facilitated by Prof Dick Heller
>> & Omo Oaiya  Peoples-Uni

>> Instructional Design and collaborative authoring of OER:  issues and
>> challenges.  Facilitated by Professor Santosh Panda, IGNOU.
>> Quality assurance in OER. Facilitated by Professor Olugbemiro Jegede, NOUN

>> OER – (Open Educational resources) describes learning resources
>> that are freely available for use by educators and learners, without an
>> accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees.

>> The main points raised during the first sub-theme Capacity building and
>> OER in Africa:  issues, process and challenges are:

>> OER has powerful potentials because it removes restrictions around copying
>> resources, The principle of allowing adaptation of materials contributes to
>> encouraging higher education students to be active participants in
>> educational processes.
>> Critical areas in OER are learning content,i.e.  course materials,learning
>> objects and learning resources; tools, i.e. software for content and
>> learning management systems; and implementation resources, i.e. intellectual
>> property licenses, localization of content etc.
>> There is need to change the incentive structures within universities, so
>> that development and sharing of educational materials can create career
>> pathways and lead to better remuneration and greater academic recognition.
>> Change management strategies should be adopted.
>> OERs can be made available in printed format, the  cost of printing can be
>> favorably compared to cost of bandwidth when learners access materials
>> online.
>> Challenges of infrastructure, bandwidth, power should not discourage
>> universities and institutions from participating in development and
>> utilization of OER's. Such issues are not peculiar to OER and e-learning and
>> are consequently being addressed at macro level of governance. It should not
>> hamper progress on the soft issues such as strategic management of the OER
>> and e-learning services, pedagogies of e-learning, training of trainers with
>> respect to e-learning design, deployment, implementation, operation, review,
>> measurement and evaluation and policy & regulatory environment to govern
>> itsoperation

>> The sub-theme for the second week of  discussion was  OERs and Public
>> Health Capacity Building in Africa. The points highlighted were:

>> Peoples-uni is an educational initiative which aims to develop educational
>> context around Open Educational Resources to help with Public Health
>> capacity building in low- to middle-income countries.
>> All universities should be encouraged to set up centres in various
>> communities that provide internet facilities all the time for people to
>> come, enroll and be able to access their materials.
>> Institutions like Peoples-uni will still have to partner with local
>>   institutions, so that recipients can receive the awards through them.
>> Partnership is crucial to sustainability of initiatives.
>> OERs are flexible and can be  used in many ways. Increasingly Network
>> resources (both commercial and  open) are being used by students while
>> engaged in full time face-to-face educational programs- often referred to as
>> 'blended learning'.  They can also be used to enhance learning packages for
>> independent  study modules of distance education or as resources for more
>> interactive group based distance education programming (delivered via
>> video, audio, web or immersive conferencing).
>> Peoples Uni carried out a pilot project which  involved 38 participants
>> from eight countries with about half a dozen from Africa. The delivered
>> content using Moodle an Open source LCMS. Details will be made available at
>> the pre-conference workshop.
>> Transparency is one reason health professionals should adopt OER's because
>> of the sensitivity involved - 'health is life'.
>> Having health professionals, ICT experts and other interest group coming
>> together will be able to bring synergy into the work and service we intend
>> to render. This can make crucial needs like health care readily available.
>> Many resources are available for use such as free TALC CDs. They provide a
>> wide range of carefully selected material from the Lancet, BMJ, Africa
>> Health, Archives Diseases of Children, World Anaesthesia, PLOS Medicine,
>> Footsteps, WHO, UNICEF, and much that is more suited to community level.
>> In response to the Executive directors search for the definition of an ODL
>> experts it was suggested such a one should be assessed on competencies in
>> Policy Formulation Strategies, Instructional Designing, Content Development,
>> Content Management, Implementation Procedure and Management thoughts as it
>> affects ODL. Also, A database of ODL Associates should the created before
>> creating an ODL expert database because an ODL Expert must first be an ODL
>> Associate and an ODL Expert should be based on recommendations of other ODL
>> Associates through Peer-Review mechanism.
>> NOUN should collaborate with other instructions to take advantage of the
>> World Bank/FME Stepb-Nigerian grant . A joint proposal has a high
>> probability of sailing through. Creation of ICT parks and elearning centres
>> will widen access to infrastructure.

>>  The theme for the third week of  discussion was  Instructional Design and
>> Collaborative Authoring of OERs. The points highlighted were:

>>  Context, content, reflective engagement to self learning should serve as
>> the bases of distance learning and lifelong educatio
>> The challenges contending with successful development of localized OERs by
>> developing countries are: funding, investment, collaboration for joint
>> creation, adoption / adaptation, ownership, training, editing and
>> contextualisation, digitalisation, copyright researching, and evolving a
>> culture of OERs.
>> The ACDE2008 conference should serve as an opportunity for collaboration
>> for joint content creation, while the ownership could be under the auspices
>> of ODL in Africa.
>> Some critical  issues concern are: to what extent can institutions go to
>> collaborate to develop open course resources and in what way to share; how
>> to share student fees even if the resources are open; how should the
>> institutions adopt/adapt the resources .
>> To determine a successful instructional multimedia design piece whether
>> for ODL purpose or otherwise, 2 issues are fundamental 'interface' and
>> 'content'. The need to designing and developing relevant software contents
>> pertinent to local needs, learning styles and preferences cannot be ignored.
>> A reward policy of promotion and tenure time, prestige, social capital and
>> personal exposure by the contribution coupled with the possibility of being
>> able to sell the material in different formats as well as making it
>> available for free may encourage many academics in developing OERs.
>> Institutions can take advantage of resource persons participating in the
>> conference to partner with bodies like CISCO.

>>  The theme for the fourth week of discussion was : Quality Assurance and
>> OER. The points raised  were:

>> Quality assurance is a critical component of OER
>> Standards should be evolved by experienced e-learning international and
>> local bodies like the COL, ACDE ..etc .Guidelines for determining aspects to
>> be included in OER standards must be internationally agreed upon.
>> Peer review is a powerful means of quality assurance because  the co
>> production of courses by  a team of qualified developers will informally
>> keep quality  standards high.
>> Backwards assessment of what we already are doing,   without investing in
>> innovations and change models with capacity to   help guide us through times
>> of rapid and perhaps continuous change can be counterproductive.
>> Elements in a quality OER programme must be identified
>> and standardized; identification and matching of teachers' and learners'
>> styles to ensure effective OER implementation, evaluation and assessment
>> parameters must be carefully selected and quality ensured in design for
>> internal and external consistency.
>>  The continuous production models often associated with OERs present
>> problems for quality assurance

>> Quality is a very slippery topic and certainly has cultural and
>> bureaucratic dimensions .Nevertheless the cost of any quality system must
>> not exceed the value of the service
>> Relationship marketing (all activities directed to establishing,
>> developing and maintaining successful long term relationship with the
>> student and other stake holders) is a key aspect in controlling attrition
>> and should therefore be incorporated in policy for Quality Assurance in
>> Distance

> On 7/4/08, Olugbemiro JEGEDE <jege...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Dear Participants,
>> I did promise to send a full summary of the Virtual Forum. Here it is and
>> hope you would find it comprehensive and useful.
>> _______________

>> As a fore-runner to the 2nd ACDE Conference and General Assembly to be
>> held in Lagos at the National Open University of Nigeria from 8th to 11th
>> July 2008 a Virtual Forum was held from the 2nd to 30 June 2008. The Virtual
>> Forum concentrated on emerging ideas on Open Educational Resources (OER); an
>> issue which bears tremendous significance to open and distance learning
>> (ODL) in the developing world, especially Africa.  The main theme of the
>> forum was OERs and sustainable development of Higher Education in Africa.

>>  The discussion held under four sub-themes namely:

>> Capacity building and OER in Africa:  issues, process and challenges.
>> Facilitated by, Catherine Ngugi & Neil Butcher of OER-Africa Initiative.

>>   Public Health issues and OER in Africa. Facilitated by Prof Dick Heller
>> & Omo Oaiya  Peoples-Uni

>> Instructional Design and collaborative authoring of OER:  issues and
>> challenges.  Facilitated by Professor Santosh Panda, IGNOU.
>> Quality assurance in OER. Facilitated by Professor Olugbemiro Jegede, NOUN

>> OER – (Open Educational resources) describes learning resources
>> that are freely available for use by educators and learners, without an
>> accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees.

>> The main points raised during the first sub-theme Capacity building and
>> OER in Africa:  issues, process and challenges are:

>> OER has powerful potentials because it removes restrictions around copying
>> resources, The principle of allowing adaptation of materials contributes to
>> encouraging higher education students to be active participants in
>> educational processes.
>> Critical areas in OER are learning content,i.e.  course materials,learning
>> objects and learning resources; tools, i.e. software for content and
>> learning management systems; and implementation resources, i.e. intellectual
>> property licenses, localization of content etc.
>> There is need to change the incentive structures within universities, so
>> that development and sharing of educational materials can create career
>> pathways and lead to better remuneration and greater academic recognition.
>> Change management strategies should be adopted.
>> OERs can be made available in printed format, the  cost of printing can be
>> favorably compared to cost of bandwidth when learners access materials
>> online.
>> Challenges of infrastructure, bandwidth, power should not discourage
>> universities and institutions from participating in development and
>> utilization of OER's. Such issues are not peculiar to OER and e-learning and
>> are consequently being addressed at macro level of governance. It should not
>> hamper progress on the soft issues such as strategic management of the OER
>> and e-learning services, pedagogies of e-learning, training of trainers with
>> respect to e-learning design, deployment, implementation, operation, review,
>> measurement and evaluation and policy & regulatory environment to govern
>> itsoperation

>> The sub-theme for the second week of  discussion was  OERs and Public
>> Health Capacity Building in Africa. The points highlighted were:

>> Peoples-uni is an educational initiative which aims to develop educational
>> context around Open Educational Resources to help with Public Health
>> capacity building in low- to middle-income countries.
>> All universities should be encouraged to set up centres in various
>> communities that provide internet facilities all the time for people to
>> come, enroll and be able to access their materials.
>> Institutions like Peoples-uni will still have to partner with local
>>   institutions, so that recipients can receive the awards through them.
>> Partnership is crucial to sustainability of initiatives.
>> OERs are flexible and can be  used in many ways. Increasingly Network
>> resources (both commercial and  open) are being used by students while
>> engaged in full time face-to-face educational programs- often referred to as
>> 'blended learning'.  They can also be used to enhance learning packages for
>> independent  study modules of distance education or as resources for more
>> interactive group based distance education programming (delivered via
>> video, audio, web or immersive conferencing).
>> Peoples Uni carried out a pilot project which  involved 38 participants
>> from eight countries with about half a dozen from Africa. The delivered
>> content using Moodle an Open source LCMS. Details will be made available at
>> the pre-conference workshop.
>> Transparency is one reason health professionals should adopt OER's because
>> of the sensitivity involved - 'health is life'.
>> Having health professionals, ICT experts and other interest group coming
>> together will be able to bring synergy into the work and service we intend
>> to render. This can make crucial needs like health care readily available.
>> Many resources are available for use such as free TALC CDs. They provide a
>> wide range of carefully selected material from the Lancet, BMJ, Africa
>> Health, Archives Diseases of Children, World Anaesthesia, PLOS Medicine,
>> Footsteps, WHO, UNICEF, and much that is more suited to community level.
>> In response to the Executive directors search for the definition of an ODL
>> experts it was suggested such a one should be assessed on competencies in
>> Policy Formulation Strategies, Instructional Designing, Content Development,
>> Content Management, Implementation Procedure and Management thoughts as it
>> affects ODL. Also, A database of ODL Associates should the created before
>> creating an ODL expert database because an ODL Expert must first be an ODL
>> Associate and an ODL Expert should be based on recommendations of other ODL
>> Associates through Peer-Review mechanism.
>> NOUN should collaborate with other instructions to take advantage of the
>> World Bank/FME Stepb-Nigerian grant . A joint proposal has a high
>> probability of sailing through. Creation of ICT parks and elearning centres
>> will widen access to infrastructure.

>>  The theme for the third week of  discussion was  Instructional Design and
>> Collaborative Authoring of OERs. The points highlighted were:

>>  Context, content, reflective engagement to self learning should serve as
>> the bases of distance learning and lifelong educatio
>> The challenges contending with successful development of localized OERs by
>> developing countries are: funding, investment, collaboration for joint
>> creation, adoption / adaptation, ownership, training, editing and
>> contextualisation, digitalisation, copyright researching, and evolving a
>> culture of OERs.
>> The ACDE2008 conference should serve as an opportunity for collaboration
>> for joint content creation, while the ownership could be under the auspices
>> of ODL in Africa.
>> Some critical  issues concern are: to what extent can institutions go to
>> collaborate to develop open course resources and in what way to share; how
>> to share student fees even if the resources are open; how should the
>> institutions adopt/adapt the resources .
>> To determine a successful instructional multimedia design piece whether
>> for ODL purpose or otherwise, 2 issues are fundamental 'interface' and
>> 'content'. The need to designing and developing relevant software contents
>> pertinent to local needs, learning styles and preferences cannot be ignored.
>> A reward policy of promotion and tenure time, prestige, social capital and
>> personal exposure by the contribution coupled with the possibility of being
>> able to sell the material in different formats as well as making it
>> available for free may encourage many academics in developing OERs.
>> Institutions can take advantage of resource persons participating in the
>> conference to partner with bodies like CISCO.

>>  The theme for the fourth week of discussion was : Quality Assurance and
>> OER. The points raised  were:

>> Quality assurance is a critical component of OER
>> Standards should be evolved by experienced e-learning international and
>> local bodies like the COL, ACDE ..etc .Guidelines for determining aspects to
>> be included in OER standards must be internationally agreed upon.
>> Peer review is a powerful means of quality assurance because  the co
>> production of courses by  a team of qualified developers will informally
>> keep quality  standards high.
>> Backwards assessment of what we already are doing,   without investing in
>> innovations and change models with capacity to   help guide us through times
>> of rapid and perhaps continuous change can be counterproductive.
>> Elements in a quality OER programme must be identified
>> and standardized; identification and matching of teachers' and learners'
>> styles to ensure effective OER implementation, evaluation and assessment
>> parameters must be carefully selected and quality ensured in design for
>> internal and external consistency.
>>  The continuous