We are having our second round of seminars on using and creating open educational resources (OER) at the University of Cape Town. Looking back on our first seminar is an interesting way to gauge how far we have come and how much has changed in terms of our own understanding of the OER movement and how we share it with our colleagues.
The digital age has rung in profound changes for the higher education endeavour – not least of which has been a revolution in the way teaching materials are generated, shared and re-appropriated by means of alternative licensing on the internet.
The OER movement is a worldwide community effort providing a framework for sharing teaching materials via the internet. The term ‘OER’ refers to all learning materials offered freely and openly, and includes learning content (from full courses to lecture notes) as well as learning tools (such as software).
In 2008, UCT joined the move towards openness in education by becoming a signatory to the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. The initiative to cement UCT’s place in this global sharing community has been furthered by the establishment of the OER UCT Project in the Centre for Educational Technology.
Supported by the Shuttleworth Foundation, the OER UCT Project aims to showcase the teaching efforts of UCT academics by encouraging the publication of teaching materials as OER and establishing a directory listing the UCT Collection of OER.
If you would like to know more about this realm or are interested in attending an introductory seminar on OER please leave a comment on this blog and we will contact you.
The seminar will run this Thursday September 29 at 1pm. Refreshements will be served.
Open Teaching in a Digital Age
Hoerikwaggo 3A, 13h00 – 14h00
Sign up: http://teaching.cet.uct.ac.za/events/signup/222