Open Education Global 2022

The Open Education Influencers project is based at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, South Africa. Started in 2018, the project has focussed strongly upon student empowerment through processes of doing, part of both a personal and professional development strategy for student staff in the LTCollab. An output of this process has seen the successful creation of a student empowerment online course titled ‘Becoming an Open Education Influencer’, or BOEI. BOEI has 6 modules, each intended to empower users to act as facilitators of change, most often in education up to this point, and most usually through the use and creation of Open Educational Resources (OER). In 2021, student leaders at MandelaUni took BOEI as part of their leadership development within the How2Buddies Programme at the institution, moving on to assist thousands of first year entrants into campus life. Several students and staff have supplied feedback to the experience and value of engaging with BOEI, which in this session, is shared with attendees.

In 2022: the OEI project expands its offering by aiming to additionally empower academic and professional staff into the Open sphere. Firstly, staff complete BOEI’s 6 modules, which has a pass mark of 80% per module. Successful participants who express a wish to further their engagements and explorations with Open can apply to be part of the Open Textbooks Fellowship. The OTF is a donor funded empowerment and OER creation project based at the institution under the OEI banner, funded by the Siyaphumelela Programme via the Kresge Foundation. The OTF, currently in its pilot / infancy stage at the time of submitting this proposal, heavily engages the expertise and innovation potential of members of the Open community. In the pilot running Sep to Dec 2021, this included members of Open Education for a Better World, the UCT Open Textbook initiative, and the efforts of that cohort of Open Education Influencers. The 2021 OEGlobal session reports on the pilot, and sets out the project for 2022 in more detail. As another stakeholder entrant into the 2022 activities, the Nelson Mandela Library is exploring the role it can play in the process, and this strategy will be shared and discussed in the session.

Two Open Textbooks are currently in production as first outputs; one from the 2021 pilot and the 2022 starting points: These are Dr P Kitching’s “Constructive Conversations: An Introduction to Self Coaching for Students,” and Ms N Rayepen’s “Open Education and 5 Performing Arts”. The OTF 2022 project has funding for 5 projects, with recruitment for 3 more underway as of February 2022. Additional funding is set aside to fund consultations and supporting activities to enhance the creation experience. The OEGlobal session shares developments and activities with attendees.