Ms Kerry de Hart (Deputy Chair: Department of Taxation) & Prof Truida Oosthuizen (CEMS Manager: Tuition) (2nd & 3rd from left) with delegates from other countries at the Open Educational Resources symposium that was recently held in Malaysia
Unisa compares well with international practices in the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs), says Prof Truida Oosthuizen (CEMS Manager: Tuition). She and Ms Kerry de Hart (Deputy Chair: Department of Taxation) recently presented an overview of Unisa’s stance with regard to contributing to OERs, the practice thereof and the use of OERs at Unisa.
They presented a paper entitled “An overview of the strategic OER positioning of the only dedicated ODL university in southern Africa” at a regional symposium on Open Educational Resources in Malaysia.
They argued that if Unisa does not want to miss the opportunity of becoming part of the global education trend of OERs and resource-based learning, it is important to first ascertain the current status of the institution regarding OER usage. They reviewed institutional strategic documents, research papers and reports, communication by the Vice-Chancellor both within the institution and to external stakeholders, as well as specific academic practices in this regard.
From this they concluded that, despite challenges, the institution has a strong commitment towards the OER initiative. Unisa is one of 14 founding anchor partners of the Open Education Resources University (OERu). And at the 2012 World Open Educational Resources Congress, UNESCO, Paris, Unisa became a signatory to the 2012 Paris OER Declaration. At the time the institutional statement strongly emphasised Unisa’s commitment to OERs. This commitment was emphasised in June 2012 when Prof Mandla Makhanya signed the Berlin Declaration for Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.
Education is increasingly using technology for delivery of content, and so they reviewed a way to share open resources or courseware through the use of repositories and portals.
They reported that the university’s open portal (where at the time, about 5 000 items were available for sharing) already receives about 200 000 hits per month. In terms of CEMS, there are important contributions including an Econ tutor to explain economic terms and principles.
One of the pillars of OER is collaboration and communities of practice for making courseware and resources openly available. An example of collaboration that is unfolding is the establishment of SATEA (South African Tax Educators Association). SATEA was initiated by Unisa staff members and includes founding members from most of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountant (SAICA) accredited universities. SATEA creates a coalition where tax academics in South Africa will work together to inform research and to collaborate on tuition issues.
Taxation is a subject where content changes annually because of the changes to the Income Tax Act. The content of university courses at the accredited universities is onerous and prescribed by the professional body so that students can pass a professional qualifying exam. Tax academics have thus formed a unit that will initially produce podcasts/vodcasts as open resources that will be freely available on YouTube Edu. It is envisaged that this collaboration will lead to the development of taxation open courseware and research outputs.
The researchers also reported on institutional research that found that older policies need to be revisited so that all procedures in the university are aligned. One incongruity is the policy for prescribing textbooks which should state that OER must first be evaluated before a “copyright” or proprietary textbook may be prescribed.
While the challenges of a growing demand for higher education in developing countries, especially in Africa, seem insurmountable, OERs can assist Unisa in meeting the need for further and higher education. The university can be a conduit through which education becomes the right and responsibility of the masses both within South Africa and on the African continent, they concluded.
*Story submitted by Ilze Crous
