Capacity Building in Public Health with OER

[Omo Oaiya]

Greetings everyone,

My name is Omo Oaiya and I will be facilitating this weeks forum with Prof. Heller, co-ordinator of Peoples-Uni. We had already initiated discussions last week under the mistaken impression that the the forums would run concurrently.  I have reposted the questions we would like to discuss below.

For those that do not know us, 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.  A number of national and international partners have agreed to be part of this, and momentum is building.  A paper describing the initiative can be seen at http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/12/07-044388.pdf . The starting point is identified problems in Public Health, building towards Masters level courses, and a pilot of our first course module on Maternal Mortality attracted a large interest and was well received. The draft of this course modules on Maternal Mortality can be seen on http://moodle.cawd.net/course/view.php?id=2

Peoples-Uni have agreement from the UK Royal Society of Health to supervise assessments and offer awards, and would love to have input from African institutions in the form of any type of collaboration including double badging of awards and co-tutoring or any other ideas that might emerge.  We are also interested in exploring the potential to utilise Peoples-Uni to further the aims of GWHA, with a view to creating a delivery arms where we can find partners. I am interested in exploring your contacts and identifying stakeholders who can bring local leadership to the initiative and provide guidance with some of the practicalities of hosting a workshop.

The last week with Neil Butcher raised some issues which I believe are shared by some of the questions below. We look forward to your responses and the ensuing discussion which should move us closer towards workable solutions to these problems.

Best Regards

--
Omo Oaiya
Datasphir
Mobile: 08051064095, 07028034569
Skype: kodion
sip:o...@forum.org.ng
http://www.datasphir.com



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Dear Participants,

Here are the issues we would like to discuss over the time we have for
the Virtual Forum:

1. How can OERs be best used for Public Health capacity building?
There are an increasing number of OERs available, and a massive need
for capacity building that is not being met by the traditional
university system.  In fact, even though many universities are
providing public access to their material, they are not providing a
formal or organised approach to setting these in an educational
context.  How can we encourage universities to broaden their approach
to fully utilise the OERs they produce?  Is there a real wish from the
education sector to help, or is it just a way of advertising their
courses in the hope of increasing market share?

2. Is the Peoples-uni going to be helpful in Africa?
The Peoples-uni offers on-line education to health professionals using
OER and volunteer faculty (http://peoples-uni.org). We have shown the
potential of the Peoples-uni approach through a pilot course module on
Maternal Mortality.  What are the potential benefits, constraints and
limitations that participants can identify to the roll out of the
Peoples-uni in African countries?  Will variation in access to the
Internet and various cultural and economic factors be barriers to the
uptake by health professionals.

3. How can we engage participants to improve the educational
experience and add local relevance, consistent with the principles of
Web 2.0?
As part of the pilot and its aftermath, including the evaluation, we
have attempted to involve the students in refining the course material
and the educational context.  We have found the students largely
reluctant to make real contributions although there are some
exceptions and a number have made helpful suggestions.  How can we
replicate the energy of the Open Software movement in getting real
input beyond the course ?faculty?, especially from people in the
?south? whose contributions should be so valuable in ensuring
relevance of the education to solving local problems?

4. How might the issue of appropriate accreditation be addressed?
The Peoples-uni has come to an agreement with the UK Royal Society of
Health who will supervise the assessment process and offer awards at
various levels to those how meet the identified competences.  Will
such awards be valued in Africa?  How can we encourage the university
sector to recognise this kind of learning, when appropriate?

5. Future directions and/or partnerships.
Participants are encouraged to suggest future directions and to join
the Peoples-uni as individual or institutional partners. The success
of this initiative will depend on being able to develop such
partnerships and collaboration.

Dick Heller
Emeritus Professor
Universities of Manchester, UK, and Newcastle, Australia
Coordinator Peoples-uni
http://www.peoples-uni.org
+44 (0)1315554493
+44 (0)7769880087

--
Omo Oaiya
Datasphir
Mobile: 08051064095, 07028034569
Skype: kodion
sip:o...@forum.org.ng
http://www.datasphir.com

[Omowumi Victoria]

Dear Facilitator,

 

I am Abegunde Omowumi. I am a final year student of the department of Human Nutrition in the Faculty of Public Health University of Ibadan. I am particularly happy with the topic of discussion for this week as i intend to proceed for my masters degree in Public health or Epidemiology&Demography.
I'd like to bare my mind on some of the issues raised as i see it and as it affects me in this part of the world.
 

1.The number of people who wish to proceed to higher education i.e at postgraduate level or who are even running post graduate proramme in increasing however not all universities have the capacity to take all of them therefore using OERs for public health capacity building provide a suitable alternative.

However we cannot talk about OERs where there is virtually no access to the internet as this is the case in the rural areas where there are peolpe who desire to be educated.

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. Lectures can publish their materials on the web through the universities and universities should put in place measures that will encourage them to so.With this in place, we can know that the education sector has a real wish to help and not just inprove their market share.

 

2. I think The people's-uni will be helpful in Africa in this regards as it will be providing OERs, create the environment for the students to interact with themselves, exchange ideas about the course and even communicate with the facilitators, in this context of education, we know that students will not just be recipients of knowledge but will be involved in collaboration in learning activities. There will definitely be variation in access to the Internet and various cultural and economic factors but these shoulidn't be barriers to the uptake by health professionals and this is where local universities will have a part to play in.

 

3. Concerning the issue of accreditation, i think The Peoples-uni will still have to partner with local institutions, so that recipients can receive the awards through them as it might not work out well to give awards directly to the individual. whoever is going to receive awards must be well known by the institution having registered with them before commencing on the programme. I think the awards should be valued if the programme is free from irregularities and the process of obtaining the awards are genuine. 

With time and when the programme is producing competent health professionals, naturally universities will be and can be encouraged to recognise this type of learning.

All in all, i believe that a lot of partnership will and should be done for the smooth running and success of The Peoples-uni.

 

Thanks.

[Richard Heller]

Thank you Abegunde for this perceptive and helpful set of comments.
Your comments on the need to provide Internet access are very
important, and reflect previous comments to the forum. I hope that one
of the outcomes of this discussion, the conference and pre-conference
workshop, will be to identify ways of establishing Internet access
points to facilitate this type of education. Your point about student
collaboration is also key to what we hope to achieve in the
Peoples-uni, consistent with the Web 2.0 approach. Finally, and linked
to both of these points, is the need for partnerships with local
institutions for the development and delivery of the course and for
giving awards (certificates, diplomas and degrees). Peoples-uni looks
forward to any input, collaboration and partnerships that may evolve.

Dick

Dick Heller
Emeritus Professor
Universities of Manchester, UK, and Newcastle, Australia
Coordinator Peoples-uni
http://www.peoples-uni.org
+44 (0)1315554493
+44 (0)7769880087

Quoting Omowumi Victoria <wum...@gmail.com>:

>> For those that do not know us, Peoples-uni <http://www.peoples-uni.org/>,

>> 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. A number of national and
>> international partners have agreed to be part of this, and momentum is
>> building. A paper describing the initiative can be seen at
>> http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/12/07-044388.pdf . The starting
>> point is identified problems in Public Health, building towards Masters
>> level courses, and a pilot of our first course module on Maternal Mortality
>> attracted a large interest and was well received. The draft of this course
>> modules on Maternal Mortality can be seen on
>> http://moodle.cawd.net/course/view.php?id=2
>>
>> Peoples-Uni have agreement from the UK Royal Society of Health to
>> supervise assessments and offer awards, and would love to have input from
>> African institutions in the form of any type of collaboration including
>> double badging of awards and co-tutoring or any other ideas that might
>> emerge. We are also interested in exploring the potential to utilise
>> Peoples-Uni to further the aims of

>> GWHA<http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/en/>,

>> with a view to creating a delivery arms where we can find partners. I am
>> interested in exploring your contacts and identifying stakeholders who can
>> bring local leadership to the initiative and provide guidance with some of
>> the practicalities of hosting a workshop.
>>
>> The last week with Neil Butcher raised some issues which I believe are
>> shared by some of the questions below. We look forward to your responses and
>> the ensuing discussion which should move us closer towards workable
>> solutions to these problems.
>>
>> Best Regards
>>
>> --
>> Omo Oaiya
>> Datasphir
>> Mobile: 08051064095, 07028034569
>> Skype: kodion

>> sip:o...@forum.org.ng <sip%3A...@forum.org.ng>

>> sip:o...@forum.org.ng <sip%3A...@forum.org.ng>
>> http://www.datasphir.com
>>
>> >
>>
>
> >
>

[Toyin Oloniteru]

Dear All,

I have been following the discussion with keen interest. All the
objectives being envisaged and discussed are possible. However, we
seem to be carried away with hard issues mainly such as: Internet
access, availability of computer system (hardware) and
power/electricity. These issues are not peculiar to OER and e-learning
alone. And they are being addressed at macro level of governance. So
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 its
operation. These are soft issues that should be of great concern to
us.

For example, how many people include active participants in this area
can different between accessing the Internet to read and search for
information, use of email services and using learning management
systems (LMS). How many people know that deployment and operations of
LMS means, entails and issues for consideration?

How many institutions - public & private has enough e-teachers,
e-tutors, e-moderators etc that could effectively manage and lead
online communities of learners etc. How many professionals are trained
in the act of online assessment of students and use of LMS
productivity tools? We therefore need to first and foremost put in
place a structured approach to train-the-trainers and build a
community of e-champions that will carry out effective OER and
e-learning advocacy both in the rurual areas and in underserved and
unserved communities and groups.

More importantly, such advocates should understand the purpose of OER
and e-learning properly not as a replacement for traditional teaching
methods as most people including some educators seem to believe but as
both a complimentary service and sometimes the only alternative to
address some shortages in teachers, lecturers and tutors. These areas
include getting sufficient qualified Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry
and Science/Technology teachers among others (telemedicime, GIS
expert, Information Security etc) to be available to all intended
learners across various geography in Nigeria and Africa.

Today, if we carry out a survey we might find out that only Federal
Government Colleges, State Unity Schools and some Private Secondary
Schools have these levels of quality teachers to serve their students.
All other schools will either have an Economics graduate teaching
Mathematics or a Geography graduate teaching Mathematics etc. The
implication is that those students taught by an Economics graduate
will be good mainly in the area of Statistics where the Economics
graduate has bias while those thought by the Geography graduate will
be good in the area of "Longitute & Lattitute" - an area where he has
bias too. Reason, we lack sufficient Mathematics graduates teachers to
round the country.

My understanding therefore via this OER project and e-learning
framework is that we can use the few qualified teachers in the
Federal, State and select Private schools in cities and certain other
locations to teach other students in remote locations without either
party leaving their usual environment. This is what we refer to as
ICT4D (Information and Communication Technology for Development - in
this case for Educational development). The purpose therefore is not
to replace the traditional teaching method but to complement it and
bridge the gap where the traditional teaching method does not address
existing problems.

As we go along in this discussion, I will continue to make my
contribution. It is my hope that those of us engaged in the forum
should have a proper understanding of what we are doing and be able to
communicate same to others effectively.

Kind Regards,

Olutoyin J. Oloniteru
Executive Vice-Chairman
Knowledge Age Africa Limited
Lagos, Nigera
Mobile: +2348022920006
Tel: +234-1-2706601-6, ext. 1111
Email: toyin.o...@knowledgeageafrica.com

Country Organizer - Nigeria
UNeGov.net Community of Practice for Electronic Governance
http://www.unegov.net

Nettel@Africa Programme - ICT Policy & Regulations
Department of Systems Engineers, School of Postgraduate Studies
University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. http://www.unilag.edu
http://www.nettelafrica.org; http://kng.nettelafrica.org

2008/6/11 Richard Heller <Dick....@manchester.ac.uk>:

--
Toyin Oloniteru
Lagos, Nigeria
Email: toyin.o...@gmail.com
Cell:2348022920006

[Felix Olakulehin]

Dear All,

 

I believe you mus have followed discussions last week when a number of challenges confronting us in African with respect to OERs were discussed. I am enthused by the issues raised by Omo Oaiya, especially S/n 1, 3 & 4. Although I am not a medical person, but I am interested in health issues; and I am aware that people in the medical field [in Africa] tend to consider 'remote learning or some of forms of distance education ' as lacking in quality and substance. Therefore I have some questions:

For Peoples-Uni: Is it possibe to train people in the critical field of public health strictly through the application of OERs or are Open content resources meant to be complementary to resources/knowledge provided in face-to-face situations?

 

For Peoples-Uni and healthcare practitioners and policymakers: Are there complimentarity and I think there should be, between the concerns of the UK Royal Society for Health and Health and Medical Regulation bodies in Africa and the developing world for quality of medical education and practice? If not, where are the gaps? Is there a need to block them? Can OERs help?

regards,

 

Felix

--
Quality is not an act, It's a Habit!
...........................................................
Felix Kayode Olakulehin
Research Fellow
Regional Training and Research Institute for Open and Distance Learning
National Open University of Nigeria
14/16 Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island
Lagos - Nigeria
+234-805-544-7164
folak...@nou.edu.ng, felix...@gmail.com
...........................................................
---------------------------------------------------------
RETRIDAL is an International Training & Research Institute co-established by the National Open University of Nigeria and The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to develop a strong corps of experts in various areas of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) within the West African sub-region.

[Terry Anderson]

Greetings Colleagues and friends

I have enjoyed the discussions of OER in an African Context. 

By way of introduction I am an academic and a researcher at Athabasca University- Canada's Open University and also editor of an open access journal the International Review of Research on Open and Distance Learning www.irrodl.org.

I have had interest first in so-called learning objects and more recently Open Educational resources and have attended a number of conferences and made presentation on the topic. Specifically I have been interested in ways that social software can be used either formally in courses or professional development activities or less formally by learners to create communities of inquiry and support each other while learning. 

Felix asks:  Is it possibe to train people in the critical field of public health strictly through the application of OERs or are Open content resources meant to be complementary to resources/knowledge provided in face-to-face situations?  My response is that OERs 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).  It is sometimes helpful to think of OERs use in similar fashion to text books, they can be (and are) used in all sorts of ways in all sorts of educational and learning contexts. OERs can include highly mediated forms of content, but they can also be textbooks.

One of the very nice benefits of OERs is that they are not only inexpensive and accessible, they are also transparent  in that they let learners, other teachers, government officials - everyone, see what the education is all about. This transparency is increasingly important as we struggle to find ways to broaden the capacity for educational opportunity throughout the globe.

Regards

Terry Anderson

[Tunde Ipaye]

Dear All,

I have enjoyed the discussions so far.  However, it seems I am missing one thing.  I do know that health and education matters are no longer within the capability of governments alone especially in developing nations.  I have missed any reference to the role of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) or not-for -profit-organisations inthe development, creation and publicising of OER in the two areas of health and education.  Do they have any role? have they been playing any roles? If so, let us  learn what they have been doing or could do.

 

Professor Babatunde Ipaye.

Greetings Colleagues and friends

234-805-310-1919

[Toyin Oloniteru]

I think we need to start first and consider the regulatory issues
later. We must have something to regulate. For practical purpose we
know that in the very rural areas in Africa or some part of it,
non-qualified practitioners sometime act as expert or specialist
simply because there is not enough qualified professional to serve the
entire country. The status has not changed as we speak.

Therefore, the concern is not about having OERs as replacement or
complementary to the traditional face-to-face medium but that it may
just be a cost-effective viable alternative to enable us meet
increasing need for qualified health professionals in this part of the
world. This is the area I will like us to see it from.

It is my belief that by having health professionals, ICT experts and
other interest group coming together we will be able to bring synergy
into the work and service we intend to render. For example, we may be
able to make basic health related information and services available
to rurual areas via kiosk-like terminals such like we have ATMs
together, and this could be available via the Internet, VPN on private
network and through other electronic means.

I sincerely believe we should start and then try to improve. We could
work with necessary regulatory bodies (NMA, Public Health agencies
etc) from the government side for standardization and regulations
later. We can always get there.

Thank you.

Olutoyin J. Oloniteru
Director, Knowledge Age Africa Ltd
Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: +2348022920006

2008/6/12 Felix Olakulehin <felix...@gmail.com>:

--

[Richard Heller]

Very valuable insights, many thanks. The role of the NGO is important,
both in terms of the support and provision of education, and as
recipients (many NGOs working in the Public Health field have their
own needs for capacity building!). The UK Royal Society for Public
Health is keen to engage with other NGOs and organisations, although
it does not wish a regulatory role for itself. To amplify what Terry
has said, actually when we look for OERs in Public Health, many are
documents or other resources, such as from the World Health
Organisation, not originally intended as educational resources. And to
try to answer Felix, the point is that the educational context is more
important than the OER themselves. Thus, Peoples-uni which operates
fully on-line but which could easily collaborate with other
organisations wishing to offer a face-to-face component, provides
access to OER having first identified the competence which the OER is
expected to help build, and then offers a discussion to amplify the
issue and exchange experience and ideas. There is then assessment to
see if the competence has been obtained.

Those are our ideas - do they seem reasonable to others?

Dick

Dick Heller
Coordinator, Peoples-uni

Quoting Tunde Ipaye <bip...@gmail.com>:

>>> <sip%3A...@forum.org.ng<sip%253...@forum.org.ng>

>>> <sip%3A...@forum.org.ng<sip%253...@forum.org.ng>

>>> >
>>> >> http://www.datasphir.com
>>> >>
>>> >> >
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Quality is not an act, It's a Habit!
>> ...........................................................
>> Felix Kayode Olakulehin
>> Research Fellow
>> Regional Training and Research Institute for Open and Distance Learning
>> National Open University of Nigeria
>> 14/16 Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island
>> Lagos - Nigeria
>> +234-805-544-7164
>> folak...@nou.edu.ng, felix...@gmail.com
>> ...........................................................
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> RETRIDAL is an International Training & Research Institute co-established
>> by the National Open University of Nigeria and The Commonwealth of Learning
>> (COL) to develop a strong corps of experts in various areas of Open and
>> Distance Learning (ODL) within the West African sub-region.
>>
>> >
>>
>
>

> --
> Professor Babatunde Ipaye
> Educo-Health Project
> 234-803-310-1920
> 234-805-310-1919
>
> >
>

[wale wale adesina]

Dear All,

The Peoples-Uni, to me is doing a wonderful job in its approach of using OERs to providing rich content for use by health professionals. This will definitely go a long way in increasing the knowledge level of professionals in Africa and it offers a great avenue for collaboration and further development of available resources.

I believe the upcoming ACDE2008 conference will further enlighten health professionals on the wealth of materials being made available and many will be willing to contribute to the development.

 By following the links provided by Omo, I could see that Peoples-Uni is using an open source content learning management platform Moodle for a test demonstration course on maternal mortality (http://moodle.cawd.net/course/view.php?id=2). The site mentioned a pilot project that lasted from October to December 2007. What were the key results from the pilot project? How has been the access level/enrollment to the course from learners in Africa? How has been the experience of using open source platform for delivery of content to learners and what are the challenges one should seek to overcome when using such system.

 
A health issue that affects many families in Africa is that of HIV/AIDS. What initiative(s) does Peoples-Uni have regarding provision of high quality on line resources on HIV/AIDS?

 
Sustainability of an initiative is an area of importance in any worthwhile project. Akin in an earlier submission made references to lofty initiatives started in 2003/2004 but have since become inactive. The projects had great potentials but they still went down the drain. What measures are being taken by Peoples-Uni to ensure that the initiative runs for a long time to come?

Adewale Adesina

[Omo Oaiya]

Greetings All,

Always nice to be complimented. Thanks Wale. :-).  The pilot involved 38 participants from eight countries with about half a dozen from Africa. An evaluation of the course was undertaken to assess how well it met the needs of the participants and gaining knowledge and skills were rated as more important than academic credit while the academic value of the course was judged excellent or good by 15 of the 19 respondents. There will be more detailed presentation and discussion of the results/feedback from the study in the workshop but the pilot successfully demonstrated the potentials of the approach and raised some of the questions posed at the beginning of this forum. 

We chose Moodle because of our familiarity with the LMS, its ease of use and the large community behind it and the learners in the pilot had very few problems with the platform itself although they acknowledged the role and value of the good user support provided. In moving forward from the pilot, a number of courses are currently being developed at the course site including one on HIV/AIDS and this forum/subsequent engagements with the intended audience will help determine the sort of response we will get from Africa.

Sustainability - that's question # 5 - we welcome any ideas and perspectives on how this can be achieved especially in Africa.  I believe that this could be achieved through partnerships with local stakeholders at both course development and institutional levels and look forward to more responses to our questions.

BR

Omo

--
Omo Oaiya
Datasphir
Mobile: 08051064095, 07028034569
Skype: kodion
sip:o...@forum.org.ng

http://www.datasphir.com

Greetings Colleagues and friends

>> +44 (0)7769880087+44 (0)1315554493

>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Omo Oaiya
>> Datasphir
>> Mobile: 08051064095, 07028034569
>> Skype: kodion
>> sip:o...@forum.org.ng <sip%3A...@forum.org.ng>
>> http://www.datasphir.com
>>
>> >
>>
>
> >
>

[Dr. Sunday A. Reju]

Dear Friends,

The discussions on the OER for capacity building in health have been interesting. Terry made a vital
point worth emphasising, viz, the issue of Transparency of OERs. To my mind, transparency of content is one of the adorning distinctives of ODL, still absent in traditional learning environments. This transparency of content becomes more critical in health capacity building because of the sensitivity involved - 'health is life', as some say. Thus for the public good, it's quite essential for our health practioners and trainers to embrace OERs for the sake of their transparency, among many other merits. Glad to meet Terry again, this time, online (after 2007 Cambridge Conference in the same Home Group).

Before taking my break, there are many health-related reports out there which can be re-packaged in structured learning formats, both for the public and as additional resources in formal training. Capacity building in health is not limited to just health workers alone, but for families, Care services personnel, old people's care attendants, and OERs will meet some basic knowledge/skill needs of these categories of carers. My paper at the conference closely related to transparency will elucidate some issues.

Thanks

Sunday
Director, RETRIDAL, NOUN

[Richard Kajumbula]

Greetings members.

I will start by introducing myself. Am called Richard Kajumbula from
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. I am incharge of Student Support
Services in the Department of Distance Education.

I am very glad to be part of the online discussion to do with OERs. This is
an entirely new concept in Uganda. In the department where I work, it is
almost unheard of. I have been reading the contributions and I am compiling
them so as to educate my workmakes. I hope to ask more at the conference (in
case I attend).

However, I agree with the concerns raised. Olutoyin said that we should
start then try to improve. Much as I agree with this (because I have missed
a few opportunities by failing to start), it is also important that caution
is taken. We need to do some needs assessment, set up the project, train the
administrators, pay visits to say the Peoples-uni managers, make funding
available, market the idea, plan for its sustainability, then probably
start.

My fellow Africans know that it is difficult to communicate to someone when
you are not looking at them. Infact in some cultures it is rude. This has
been carried forward into the education setting where it is believed that
the only way one can communicate (teach and learn) is when facing the other
party physically. This has created skepticism by individuals on the success
of Distance Education (DE) even where there is limited face-to-face like in
Makerere University where I work. As we, the disciples or ambassadors of
Distance Education, are still on an uphill task of educating skeptical
administrators on DE’s potential, then here comes OERs. And when it comes
to OERs or public health, issues of accuracy of material, transparency,
ethics, adaptability and ability to handle practical aspects come in. This
perhaps is the view by Dr. Sunday A. Reju. And I am in support of it.

Makerere University currently runs a Masters in Publich Health by distance
and I think my participation in this online discussion and attendance of the
conference will give me an insight into applicability of OES generally and
in public health specifically And how it affects quality of the graduates.
The issue of partnership is very important given the structural and
sometimes bureaucratic policy problems especially in Africa.

As regards spread, I agree with the participants that computer usage, though
increasing, is still low in Africa, let alone internet connectivity.
Piloting the project is the best approach. And Issues of quality assurance
need to come in. How much physical supervision and tutor participation is
required where students depend mostly on OERs?

Regards

Richard Kajumbula
Incharge, Student Support Services
Department of Distance Education
Makerere University
Kampala, Uganda

[Ayanniyi Bako Alhassan]

Hello, Forum Facilitators and Participants

Sustainability- That’s question H5:A contribution. The inauguration of the HIV/AIDS Advisory Board for sub-Saharan Africa in Kampala, Uganda by Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals in 2006 was aimed at bringing together the best brains in HIV/AIDS management from time to time, to deliberate on various aspects of the disease and come up with ways of reducing the burden of the disease in the region.

There is also the need for instructional strategies used in HIV/AIDS education to be evaluated according to their effectiveness. Research into HIV/AIDS preventive educational interventions that are best suited to students of various ages, grading and developmental stages would be of great assistance to teachers by enabling them to select the most appropriate educational strategies. For example, a strategy that may have an impact on junior Secondary School Students may not be as effective for Senior Secondary School Students.

The lack of published evaluation studies means that teachers do not have documentation to decide which strategies are most effective for changing student’s risky behavior.

Thanks.

Ayanniyi, Bako Alhassan

School Of Education

NOUN, V. I Lagos. 

[Terry Anderson]

Thanks for your detailed list of issues in regard to OER's Richard.

I would like to comment on some of them. When considering the function
of OER's one should note that they are used in two quite different ways.

1. In the first (and likely most common way) they are mostly used by
teachers and course developers. The teacher is likely (and it is
assumed) they are in a position to evaluate the resources for bias,
accuracy, inclusiveness and other quality indicators of any
educational resource - much like they choose a text book). One could
imagine a site that does this quality assessment already, say a site
of OER's on HIV-Aids, but there is likely too much content and effort
to have a group vet all possible OERs. To see this type of system in
action one can go to the OER Commons at http://www.oercommons.org/
and in the search button on the top right, type in HIV and AIDS you
will get hits of 20 items - from videos, to articles, to learning
activities. Then you decide if you would like to investigate any of
these 20 further (check who authored them , age, appeal, cultural
sensitivity etc). Then you probably put a 'wrapper' (some text
introducing or explaining the resource for your audience) around the
resource or edit it so that it would be more useful if used in your
particular context and application. Then you distribute it on paper,
CD, internet, reading out loud or whatever and it becomes a cost
effective way to develop and maintain current resources in your
distance education programming

I'm not sure that use as above really needs a full blown evaluation,
needs analysis, assessment, sustainability study etc. What we need is
more active and engaged experimentation. At Athabasca I challenged 4
developers to create new courses using as many OERS as possible (well,
we called them learning objects then). The light duty evaluation of
these trials were published at http://www.itdl.org/journal/Mar_04/article02.htm

2. In the second way students or other adult learners use of OERs in
what ever way they want. OERs then become targeted, tagged and in some
ways authorized resources for anyone to learn anything. They join
WikiPedia and other resources created by anyone and shared with the
world. This is the way that the Open University and MIT are
distributing their OERs. They are parts of the programs available from
that institution, but they do not provide assessment , students
support, collaborative learning environments, and most especially
credentialing. You can study their resources all you want but you
won't be able to get a degree! This is fine for lifelong learners or
others with personal or vocational interest and appetite and has
little impact on the institution in that they are producing the
materials anyways, cost to distribute via the net is very small and
the brand promotion is good. The current frontier as worked at by
folks from the OUUK, Athabasca, Utah State etc. is to allow students
to use social software with selected OERs, to create their own
supportive learning communities at VERY low cost. In Canada these
communities as being Net based, but they could also be operating face-
to-face at the community level. The institution then takes on three
critical roles:
a) Creating, selecting and packaging OERs (and perhaps selling them if
there are paper production costs involved)
b) Creating social spaces and models for community education (I know
this is the hard part!!)
c) Assessing learning outcomes and certifying competence (usually for
a cost).

As I said this is the research frontier and no one has developed
effective models with these three tasks, operating at scale. But I
hope that the little description reveals the possibility of whole new
models of access to learning and of course new roles for universities.
Also pleases note the focus on OER use with increasing access - the
long term goal of all distance educators.

Terry Anderson

Terry Anderson
ter...@athabascau.ca

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[Dr. Sunday A. Reju]

Dear All,

Though we are closing this theme on health this week, I guess (however discussions will continue informally at the conference), but colleagues may wish to read about the Health Commons from http://sciencecommons.org/projects/healthcommons/.

It is all about sharing freely on health as in other Commons.

Thanks

Sunday

[Terry Anderson]

Dear colleagues
I wanted to thank all those who have contributed to this preconference
discussion to date.

I have been honored to be invited to give a keynote at the ACDE2008
conference and am looking forward to my first visit to West Africa.

But I confess, that I am more nervous about this presentation than I
would like to be. I do quite a few keynotes these days, but they
usually focus on quite advanced use of the Net for teaching and
learning. In Canada 73% of citizens of all ages use the Net and this
rises to 96% for those under 18 years of age (Stats Canada 2007). I am
well aware that this type of access is not available or affordable in
most areas of Africa and indeed the world.

Given this context and the potential for me to be blabbing about the
irrelevant, I am heartened by the intelligent discourse around OERs
that I've seen on this forum.

I'm thinking now about ways in which DE institutions can play a
pivotal role in training their own staff to begin to exploit the new
tools and resources of the Net even when that access is not available
to their students- much as this list is doing now. Such a strategy
assumes that net usage (at least via cell phones) will soon become
pervasive throughout the world and thus helping staff to get their
heads around and most importantly experience and judge for themselves
the relevancy of networked models of learning/teaching and
organizational structures MAY be relevant.

Any suggestions, requests or advice for a nervous keynoter will be
much appreciated!!
Terry

Terry Anderson, Ph.D.
Professor and
Canada Research Chair in Distance Education
Athabasca University
1200 10011 109 St.
Edmonton, AB Canada
T5J 3S8 Ph 780 497 3421
Fax 780 497 3416

[Richard Kajumbula]

Greetings Terry,

Congraturations upon that achievement. We are praying for you. What is the
topic you are going to discuss so that I see if there is something from my
University that you can include in the keynote?

Regards

Richard Kajumbula
Incharge, Student Support Services
Department of Distance Education
Makerere University
Kampala, Uganda

> much appreciated!!

[francis wegulo]

Congratulations for the privilege to present the key
note address and certainly expecting to hear words of
wisdom on DE from you.

F. Wegulo.

[Professor Olugbemiro Jegede]

Terry
Let me bell the cat in the advice I believe all of us would love to give you. Calm your nerves down as you already have the answers.
It is true that the penetration of technology in Africa is about 5percent and literacy rate is only about 50 percent in the midst of abject poverty and wanton hunger. All these are, for me, the real reasons why we must aim for technology development and indeed leap frog. But it is a catch22 situation. To leap frog means we have overcome all the problems listed above.
One thing that gladens my heart is that the few in Africa who know about or are aware of developments in technology know it so well as great as any other person in the developed world.
You may therefore wish to address 3 issues: how to get the majority to catch on and be proficent or and be helped to use existing technology while transiting to the new ones, how to use the few who are very versed in technology to pull the rest of us off from the ground and third how do we enrich our technology infrastructure outlay for it be available to everyone easily and cheaply? In some ways Africa is at the level Canada was in the 70s with technology development. In another way it is as developed today as Canada is in some areas and with pockets of excellent professionals. Your work therefore is simple: come and advise Africa on how we can get everybody catch the train of technology development and its use for ODL.
My very best wishes and looking forward to welcoming you.
Olugbemiro Jegede
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Anderson <ter...@athabascau.ca>

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:54:28
To:acde-2008-onlin...@googlegroups.com
Subject: ACDE2008 keynote

[Terry Anderson]

Thanks very much for the kind and encouraging words from Prof. David
Morely, Dr. Sunday Reju, Richard Kajumbula, and of course Professor
Olugbermiro below. I will take your suggestions and reassurances to
heart and "calm my nerves!"
I very much look forward to talking with sharing and learning from
other professional distance educators in Lagos next month!
Terry Anderson

Terry Anderson
ter...@athabascau.ca

[Professor Olugbemiro Jegede]

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Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

-----Original Message-----
From: Terry Anderson <ter...@athabascau.ca>

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:00:13
To: <acde-2008-onlin...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: ACDE2008 keynote