Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams

Developing communities of practice within and outside higher education institutions

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are largely built on the assumption that learning is an individual process best encouraged by explicit teaching that is, on the whole, separated from social engagement with those outside the university community. This perspective has been theoretically challenged by those who argue for a social constructivist learning theory and a more collaborative approach to learning. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) afford lecturers and students an opportunity for extending the boundaries of a learning experience, not merely beyond the lone individual, but beyond the limits of discipline boundaries within a specific university community and beyond the institution into the local community. This paper illustrates how a collaborative effort between lecturers and students from the Computer Science and Education Departments at Rhodes University, teachers from the local community, the provincial Department of Education and a non-governmental organisation developed into an unfolding virtual and physical community of practice which enabled ICT take-up in a number of schools in the Grahamstown District, South Africa. This discussion of what has become known as the e-Yethu project provides an example of how ICTs, underpinned by the insights of social constructivism, the notion of ‘community of practice’ and in particular Hoadley and Kilners C4P Framework for Communities of Practice, can serve to help HEIs understand ways in which ICTs can provide opportunities for developing collaborative learning within HEIs, and between the HEI and the local community.

Enabling and constraining ICT practice in secondary schools: case studies in South Africa

The use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in education is being seen as a way of widening access to education, particularly in developing countries. This paper addresses the issue of ICT implementation in secondary schools and focuses specifically on the practices that enable or constrain the successful implementation of ICT for teaching and learning activities. It reflects upon the lessons learned from a collective case study undertaken in 12 of the 13 secondary schools in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape in South Africa. School principals and designated IT teachers were interviewed and on-site infrastructure audits conducted. This paper identifies a number of key enabling and constraining factors surrounding practical issues, including sufficient hardware, appropriate software and affordable connectivity, sufficient technical support and training, policy-related issues such as the role of national, provincial and school policy, the vital contribution of principal leadership and champion teachers as well as ongoing teacher professional development coupled with a willingness to change.

The role of postgraduate students in co-authoring open educational resources to promote social inclusion: a case study at the University of Cape Town

Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER still remains a challenge. In this article, we report on an empirical study of how UCT postgraduate students have assisted in the process of reworking the academics’ teaching materials as OER. Using the concept of contradictions (Engeström, 2001), we endeavor to surface the various disturbances or conflicts with which the postgraduate students had to engage to make OER socially inclusive, as well as Engeström’s “layers of causality” (2011, p. 609) to explain postgraduate students’ growing sense of agency as they experienced the OER development process as being socially inclusive.

Wi-Fi as a Last Mile Access Technology and The Tragedy of the Commons

With an alarmingly low teledensity in South Africa, just 12%, and not much hope of further wired infrastructure at the local loop level, as the costs incurred are high compared to potential revenue, wireless connectivity could be a great asset and service in South Africa. However, the use of unlicensed spectrum in building wireless networks can be comparable to “The Tragedy of the Commons”, the result of selfish behaviour towards common and limited resources. This paper evaluates the use of 802.11 wireless technologies in building a broadband wireless network and the effects of high amounts of interference on such a network. The paper concludes that for urban areas 802.11 technologies using unlicensed spectrum is not advisable, unless used in point-to-point links, while its use in rapid rural development (where there is less interference) is very promising.

Factors Influencing Open Educational Practices And Oer In The Global South: Meta-Synthesis Of The Roer4D Project

This chapter provides a meta-synthesis of the findings from the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) empirical studies based on the 13 sub-project chapters in this volume as well as other sub-project research reports. It does so by analysing how three phases of Open Educational Resources (OER) adoption – OER creation, use and adaptation – are observed in the studies as forms of Open Educational Practices (OEP), identifying where there are most likely to be disjunctures that inhibit optimal OER adoption processes and their longer-term sustainability. It compares the open practices reported in the ROER4D sub-project studies to an idealised or maximal set of open processes, modelled as the Open Education cycle framework. It draws upon social realist theory to uncover agential decision-making about OER creation, use and adaptation in relation to structural and cultural environments, and seeks to answer the ROER4D project’s overarching research question: Whether, how, for whom and under what circumstances can engagement with OEP and OER provide equitable access to relevant, high-quality, affordable and sustainable education in the Global South? This chapter interrogates findings from the ROER4D empirical studies using a metasynthesis approach. Following a review of sub-project research reports (including, in some cases, primary micro data), the authors used a literature-informed set of themes to create the meta-level conceptual framework for claims about OER and OEP in relation to access, quality and affordability; the Open Education cycle; and structural, cultural and agential influences on the potential impact on access, quality and affordability. Nvivo software was used to help reveal literature-informed and emergent themes in the studies, identifying the most frequently occurring themes to provide a more comprehensive and classified interpretation of the findings across the empirical studies. Insights and recommendations were then distilled according to Archer’s (2003; 2014) social realist theoretical framework which assesses social change – and its counterpart, stasis – according to dynamically interactive and structural, cultural and agential factors. The authors used these three factors to guide their analysis of the ROER4D findings, as understood in relation to the three broad phases of OER adoption (creation, use and adaptation) proposed in the Open Education cycle. Findings show that in the Global South contexts studied, the ideal or maximal Open Education cycle is incomplete in terms of optimising the benefits of OER adoption. There are five key points of disjuncture: (1) the dependence on copying of existing OER and the corollary failure to localise; (2) the adaptation of OER, but with inconsistent curation and rehosting of derivative works on publicly available platforms or in repositories, limiting access to the derivative OER; (3) limited circulation of derivative OER due, in part, to the absence of a communication strategy; (4) inconsistent quality assurance processes; and (5) a weak feedback loop for continuous improvement of the original or derivative work. The chapter concludes with a critical exploration of the range of influences of OER and associated practices on access to educational materials, the quality of educational resources, educators’ pedagogical perspectives and practices, and student performance as well as the overall affordability and sustainability of education in the Global South. It argues that full participation in the OER movement in the Global South requires that certain structural factors be put in place – including a minimum level of infrastructural support, legal permission to share materials and OER curation platforms – to curate curriculum-aligned OER in local languages. However, these structural adjustments alone are insufficient for the full value proposition of OER to be realised. While individual educators and some institutions are sharing OER, this willingness needs to be bolstered by a much stronger cultural change where communities of educators and students are given technical and pedagogical support to enable OER uptake – especially the creation and adaptation of OER produced in the Global South.

Book reviews compilation: Open access books on open scholarly communications

Communication, we explore the increasing number of open access books dealing, from a variety of perspectives, with the question of access to knowledge in a digital age in a composite book review. The books in this review article have been selected both for their broad relevance to scholarly communications and access to knowledge (A2K), as well as for practising what they preach in that they make their full texts available online for free download, alongside print versions provided for sale. They provide examples, therefore, not only of the increased access that can be provided by Open Licences (of particular importance in resource-starved African universities), but also demonstrate the success of new business models, in which openness and free access are perceived to be compatible with conventional print publication. It is particularly encouraging to note the presence of several leading academic presses now adopting this publishing model. As is argued in Adam Haupts Stealing Empire, one of the books reviewed here, the exploration of the role of the Internet in providing access to knowledge involves a range of disciplines, including law, politics, philosophy, economics, technological engineering and communication studies. There are also lessons to be learned from what is happening across different media sectors. Equally, there is a need to address the question of intellectual property law and the power of the media from the perspective of the global South, where the question of access to scientific knowledge is likely to produce different answers to those that emerge from the dominant knowledge economies of the English-speaking North in particular. The first book reviewed deals with the importance of the public domain, and the battle over its erosion, as corporate media try to capture profits in a changing digital environment. Next, two books deal with the impact of new technologies on research, teaching and learning in universities, exploring the potential for open access and open educational resources. Finally, a book that uses examples from the media, music and film sectors, explores the dynamics of cooption and resistance to global corporate power from a South African perspective. Book Reviews Book Reviews BOOK REVIEWS COMPILATION

The Use of Interactive Whiteboards to Support the Creation, Capture and Sharing of Knowledge in South African Schools

This paper illustrates how interactive whiteboards (IWBs) have been used to support the dynamic creation, capture and sharing of knowledge in primary and secondary schools in South Africa. It reports on the findings of a feasibility study undertaken by the Eastern Cape Department of Education to determine the perceived benefits and drawbacks of teachers and learners of using IWBs in the classroom. The research highlights how both teachers and learners can critically engage with multiple sources of information to construct their own knowledge, aiding learners in the learning process and helping teachers to scaffold that learning process. The study illustrates that IWBs have the potential to be beneficial in the South Africa classroom by affording teachers and learners a new medium through which they can create, capture and share knowledge.

The development of ICT networks for South African schools

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly considered valuable tools in education, promoting the development of higher cognitive processes and allowing teachers and learners access to a plethora of information. This paper reports on two pilot studies conducted in South Africa in proto-typical previously disadvantaged schools and their surrounding communities. Each pilot study deployed a local loop network within impoverished communities, connecting schools to one another and central services such as email and voice communications. The benefits of these networks were that teachers, learners and the local community had access to information, and communication and collaboration channels, providing potential test beds for investigating the use of computers as mind tools.