How do students access the resources they need? Survey finds only one in five obtain all resources legally

Laura Czerniewicz presents an overview of findings from a study on the practices of university students accessing learning resources at a research-intensive university in South Africa. There is a grey zone in the access of resources that is now simply part of normal life in a new communication and information order. The students’ perspectives raise critical issues for new models of publishing, for digital literacies and for open scholarship

Inequitable power dynamics of global knowledge production and exchange must be confronted head on

The research environment in the global South faces many pressing challenges given resource inequality. Technical and financial issues aside, Laura Czerniewicz asserts it is the values and practices shaped by the Northern research agenda which contribute just as much to the imbalance. In order to confront these inequities, perceptions of “science” and research outputs must be broadened, and the open access movement needs to also broaden its focus from access to knowledge to full participation in knowledge creation and in scholarly communication

Educational technology - mapping the terrain with Bernstein as cartographer

This is the accepted version of the following article: Czerniewicz, L. 2010. Educational technology - mapping the terrain with Bernstein as cartographer. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 26(6): 523-534., which has been published in final form at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00359.x.This paper uses the literature of educational technology as the site of analysis in order to map the field of educational technology. Having considered Kuhn and Bourdieu's theories, the paper frames the analysis of the field in Bernsteinian terms as a horizontal knowledge structure in a vertical knowledge discourse. Using the concepts of interacting discursive planes, the paper maps the field in terms of its general approach planes and its problem planes. Finally, the paper shows that researchers in the field themselves acknowledge its weak grammar, and calls for commensurability of approaches to be acknowledged in order for robust knowledge to be developed and the legitimacy of the field to be enhanced

Open Education - the video

Multilingualism, multimodal resources and open education, all knitted together as concepts in one video (Open Education- A Local Issue) , and all in 3 minutes

Developing a framework for education policy analysis : the case of the Western Cape's textbook procurement policy

Bibliography: pages 105-109.This study develops a conceptual framework for policy analysis and uses it as the basis for an analytical framework to describe the Western Cape's textbook procurement policy (WCTPP). The study starts by defining policy as a purposeful intervention with key attributes, these being: intention; action; practice; status; resources and capacity; and power. The conceptual framework attempts to answer the question, "Are there features which consistently characterise the policy-making process and do the factors which gave shape to policy consistently fall into particular categories?" The framework suggests factors which shape, locate and give rise to policy can be described in terms of contexts and frames which denote arenas within which policy can be constrained or enabled, politically and practically. The key contexts necessary for policy analysis are spatial and historical and the key frames are the frame of discourses of state, the resources/ capacity frame and the legislative/ regulatory frame. The key features characterising policy are that policy-making is characterised by fluidity and that policy is the expression of a balance or a compromise of interests. The framework is then used to develop an analytic framework for the WCTPP. The analysis attempts to answer the question, "What are the key features of this policy and what factors have shaped its emergence?" The analysis suggests that as the WCTPP was conceived, developed and translated into practice within the province, it has a coherence not always possible within an education system characterised by national/ provincial policy fragmentation. As a policy, it is shaped by the relatively well-resourced province from which it emerges. The analysis shows that resources and capacity are a factor at all the sites (department private sector suppliers and schools) involved in the state-private sector partnership that is exemplified in this policy. This policy is given form by the selective recruitment of divergent discourse of the state with two key discourses being manifest, these being that of a democratic, developmental state which sets parameters to and regulates the private sector, and a neo-liberal state, which supports free market forces. Through the legislative/regulatory frame the analysis also shows the inter-dependence of the WCTPP and other policies. The key features which characterise policy-making are portrayed as its on-going nature, and the fact that this policy represents a fragile balancing of competing interests. Educational interests harness commercial interests for educational ends. The analysis allows for a description of the policy that expresses both its functionality and its fragility. The study concludes that the framework developed provides for a dynamic iteration thus illustrating that policy analysis requires an understanding of how policy develops out of the interplay between the contexts, frames and features identified

Power and politics in a changing scholarly communication landscape

Scholarship in transition: mapping the changing ecology The entire scholarship ecology has been changing shape as scholarly practices become digitally-mediated as a norm, and as openness in the higher education terrain becomes more mainstream. Every dimension of traditional scholarly cycles are affected: the conceptualisation of research, data collection and data analysis, the publishing and sharing of findings, as well as the translation of findings through teaching and engaged scholarship. In a context where communication is visible, content now intrinsically includes communication; expectations are for two-way interaction, new relationships are formed and old ones change shape with emergent roles and activities which previously did not exist. Understandings of impact and value are under scrutiny with the rise of non – traditional outputs and the development of alternative metrics of impact. This presentation will map these changes, provide examples of new tools and trends, and consider the power plays, threats and opportunities for the role players involved

Students make a plan: understanding student agency in constraining conditions

Drawing on Archer’s perspectives on the agency / structure relationship, this paper explains situations where students in varied, challenging circumstances find ways to negotiate difficult conditions. The paper firstly reports specific findings of a study on student access and use of technology in three universities in South Africa; and then uses Archer’s concept of agency to explain the findings. The context of the study is a South African higher education system clearly committed to preparing university students for participation in the knowledge society as is evident in numerous policy documents. However, the response to this rapid worldwide social and economic transformation has occurred simultaneously with the substantial restructuring of a fragmented, divided and unequal sector, the legacy of racially demarcated and differentially resourced apartheid institutions (Department of Education, 2001, Gillard, 2004). Additionally, social demands on South African higher education institutions have intensified in recent years. Increased participation by a diverse range of students has resulted in massification of the sector within a context of limited or even reduced funding (Maasen and Cloete, 2002). As is the case internationally, there are both more and different students entering the sector

OERs and MOOCs: untangling "open"

During Open Education Week, we at UCT were not the only ones taking the opportunity to discuss the differences and overlaps between MOOCs and OERs. Using a matrix I have previously showed the open content, online learning and MOOCs in terms of a range of dimensions including access, licensing etc. In our talk on OERs and MOOCs my colleague Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams and I focused on bringing together the idea of degrees of openness as well as the continuum of formal-informal along which MOOCs lie as a type of online learning. The discussion hinges on what is understood by openness. In the MOOC world, open means free access to join a course without any required educational or competence requirements. In a paper under review, we (colleagues Andrew Deacon, Janet Small, Sukaina Walji) have described the course provision landscape in terms of curriculum integration, and have suggested that MOOCs are in the online semi-formal to non-formal space, as illustrated here

Researcher practices in context: a framework

Like many others, I subscribe to the fine discourse of open networked scholarship with its associated values of participation, engagement and transparency. I hold dear the possibilities of existing unequal forms of legitimacy and power relations in global knowledge production and dissemination being challenged through the enabling affordances of networked technologies

Educational technology for equity

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published their first ebook, Rebooting the Academy, which arose from the interviews they did for a piece earlier in the year on "tech innovators". The essay I wrote on educational technology for equity was declared "too academic", and definitely no footnotes allowed, which was an interesting exercise in genres and attribution, from my perspective! So here is the original piece, footnotes and all