OER and OEP in the Global South: Implications and recommendations for social inclusion

The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project was undertaken to provide a better understanding of the uptake of Open Educational Resources (OER) and their impact on education in the Global South. The 18 sub-projects that comprise the larger project investigated the extent of OER adoption by educators and students; the factors influencing OER adoption; and the impact of OER adoption on access to educational resources, the quality of teaching and learning, and some of the costs of education provision in 21 countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. The findings of each of the sub-projects are discussed in the various chapters comprising this volume, and a meta-synthesis of these findings is presented in Chapter 2. Using a social realist lens, the meta-synthesis provides a comparative analysis of OER use, adaptation and creation across the research sites, and identifies the structural, cultural and agential factors that enable and constrain these Open Educational Practices (OEP). It points out disjunctures in adoption processes in the countries and institutions studied, and draws insights regarding the extent to which OER adoption can expand access to educational materials, enhance the quality of educational resources and educators’ pedagogical perspectives and practices, and improve the affordability and sustainability of education in the Global South. This concluding chapter explores the implications of the main research findings presented in the meta-synthesis for the attainment of social inclusion, which lies at the heart of the Open Education movement. The Paris OER Declaration of 20121 explicitly calls upon states to “[p]romote and use OER to … contribut[e] to social inclusion, gender equity and special needs education [and i]mprove both cost-efficiency and quality of teaching and learning outcomes”2 (emphasis added). The Ljubljana OER Action Plan of 20173 likewise recognises that, “[t]oward the realization of inclusive Knowledge Societies ... [OER] support quality education that is equitable, inclusive, open and participatory”. Understanding how OER, OEP and Open Education more generally, can help to achieve social inclusion is particularly critical in the Global South where increased demand, lack of resources and high costs limit the capacity of education systems to provide accessible, relevant, highquality and affordable education. This chapter aims to contribute to this understanding the potential of OER and their accompanying OEP through a critical exploration of the ROER4D findings in terms of whether and how OER adoption promotes equitable access, participatory education and empowerment of teachers and students, and thus helps to achieve social inclusion. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the relationship between OER and social inclusion, details the implications of ROER4D’s findings as they pertain to social inclusion, and concludes with recommendations for advocacy, policy, practice and further research in OER and OEP in the Global South

Adoption and Impact of OER in the Global South

Education in the Global South faces several key interrelated challenges, for which Open Educational Resources (OER) are seen to be part of the solution. These challenges include: unequal access to education; variable quality of educational resources, teaching, and student performance; and increasing cost and concern about the sustainability of education. The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project seeks to build on and contribute to the body of research on how OER can help to improve access, enhance quality and reduce the cost of education in the Global South. This volume examines aspects of educator and student adoption of OER and engagement in Open Educational Practices (OEP) in secondary and tertiary education as well as teacher professional development in 21 countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. The ROER4D studies and syntheses presented here aim to help inform Open Education advocacy, policy, practice and research in developing countries

Research on Open Educational Resources for Development in the Global South: Project landscape

The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project was proposed to investigate in what ways and under what circumstances the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) could address the increasing demand for accessible, relevant, high-quality and affordable education in the Global South. The project was originally intended to focus on post-secondary education, but the scope was expanded to include basic education teachers and government funding when it launched in 2013. In 2014, the research agenda was further expanded to include the potential impact of OER adoption and associated Open Educational Practices (OEP). ROER4D was funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Open Society Foundations (OFS), and built upon prior research undertaken by a previous IDRC-funded initiative, the PAN Asia Networking Distance and Open Resources Access (PANdora) project. This chapter presents the overall context in which the ROER4D project was located and investigated, drawing attention to the key challenges confronting education in the Global South and citing related studies on how OER can help to address these issues. It provides an abbreviated history of the project and a snapshot of the geographic location of the studies it comprises, the constituent research agendas, the methodologies adopted and the research-participant profile. It also provides an overview of the other 15 chapters in this volume and explains the peer review process

Communication for social change : seldom a stand alone, and rarely verified

Communication for social change is rarely a stand-alone initiative. It is often combined with multiple communication purposes, like networking, organizational visibility, information dissemination, or behavioural change. The article reports on an inter-disciplinary, capacity building experiment that combines communication strategy development with Utilization-Focused Evaluation (UFE). An external evaluation of the DECI-2 project observes that the combined decision-making process enabled partners to become better at adaptive management

Evaluation : a means to gain insights into and improve the ROER4D project

The presentation provides details of evaluation methods in relation to research into open educational resources for development (ROER4D). Key evaluation areas are: 1) capacity of OER researchers 2) networks of OER scholars 3) research dissemination to inform education policy and practice 4) curated outputs as open content. It also covers the utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) methodology, which works as a decision-making framework

Researching OER adoption and impact in the Global South : an overview of the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project

This one page graphic delineates the objectives, extent and size of the ROER4D project; the definition and premise of Open Educational Resources (OER); ROER4D research practices and the why of Open Research; ROER4D basic bibliographical resources; and operationalization of open research through sharing where ROER4D research outputs (documents and data) are published as legally shareable resources under Creative Commons licences. Some initial findings are also provided

Adoption and impact of OEP and OER in the Global South : theoretical, conceptual & methodological framework for the ROER4D project meta-synthesis

While still respecting the integrity of individual reports, the meta-synthesis framework serves to integrate themes and insights gained from individual qualitative research into a higher order synthesis. Because educational challenges emerge in various regions, institutions, and departments by educators and students, research studies need to draw on a wide variety of conceptual and theoretical frameworks. Challenges serve as benchmarks for judging the impact of the take-up/adoption of open educational practices and resources, and need to be identified up-front. The meta-synthesis approach can promote broader understanding of the entire body of Research in Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D)

Iterative engagement between curation and evaluation in an open research project : a utilization-focused approach

Researching “in the open” - a practice of releasing interim or draft outputs, early data sets and project planning documents during the course of project activity - requires that researchers and projects take control over curating their own outputs and data. Using a utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) framework, this paper outlines the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) curation strategy and evaluation of the project objective. Opportunities and challenges in developing and evaluating a curation strategy for large-scale open research projects are highlighted. An objective of ROER4D is to curate research documents produced, and data collected, as open data

Grappling with the concepts of “impact” and “openness” in relation to OER : current developments in the ROER4D project

This paper traces deliberations around what is meant by “impact” and “openness” in relation to the study of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Global South contexts. Researchers are able to comment on the concepts and provide alternative ideas via the collaborative space in a Google Doc: “ROER4D Research Concepts.” Types of re-useability of OER can be described in terms of: reuse, revision, translation, remixing, retaining, and redistribution. The impact of the use and adoption of OER can be better grasped by referring back to the original problems OER aimed to address