Open education

Choosing to share one’s teaching materials as an open educational resource (OER) is a personal choice that many lecturers choose not to make, despite the potential of sharing their work with a global audience.

According to Dr Glenda Cox, lecturer and researcher at UCT, “open educational resources are freely available teaching materials (ranging from entire courses to images and models) that can be accessed by anyone, usually online.” Through her research, Dr Cox analyses the barriers and enablers of OER adoption at three South African universities, including UCT, in order to better understand why South African lecturers adopt – or do not adopt – OER.

“I believe that sharing teaching materials gives lecturers, students and self-learners access to content that was previously behind closed university doors,” she says.

Dr Cox will be presenting some of her research at this year’s OE Global conference, which is being held 8–10 March in Cape Town.