Saide

Saide is a nonprofit organization committed to enabling successful open learning for all through initiatives such as OER Africa, which facilitates the development and effective use of OER in higher education systems in Africa. With this grant, OER Africa will collaborate with university personnel to develop comprehensive continuous professional development (CPD) frameworks to support OER policies and related practices, an online collection of CPD OER for higher education, and a toolkit for supporting CPD at universities. The project also will establish and support a network of institutions in sharing lessons from their CPD implementations. (Substrategy: Field Building)

OER Africa was created in 2008 based on the belief that Africans must drive the development and use of OER in higher education systems in Africa. With funding support from the Hewlett Foundation, the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) integrated OER Africa within its organizational and programmatic infrastructure the following year. Since then, important questions have been raised both internally and externally about short and long term OER goals, areas of focus for both SAIDE and OER Africa, and succession planning. Funding would support a meeting of OER experts to advise SAIDE and OER Africa on these questions. The meeting will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 18 – 19 November 2013.

OER Africa, an initiative of the South African Institute for Distance Education, plays a leading role in driving the development and use of OER in higher education systems in Africa. With this proposal, OER Africa proposes to work with four African universities to deepen their OER policies and demonstrate how OER practices can transform teaching and learning. OER Africa will pursue a participatory action research agenda to document what it takes to embed OER in these institutions, and will use the findings from this research to inform its advocacy around OER with policymakers and other higher education decision makers across the continent.