OER@UCT

Well it’s been two weeks since we launched the new UCT OpenContent website.  We have had numerous visits and have generated quite a bit of buzz in the UCT community as well as around the world. We are still tweaking the site to provide the best experience possible and welcome any constructive feedback the community may have.  

I often wonder how the site appears and is interpreted by the visitors.  I am most wary of the UCT student, who can visit the site and log in, but is not able to contribute be default. 

Here is my call to students, if you want to share teaching and learning resources please get in touch with us via the feedback form and let us know.  We can find a way for you to contribute as well. 

Particularly student groups such as SHAWCO which certainly have a wealth of community based learning resources.  Use the feedback form on the site to reach us.

While many additional UCT academics have expressed an interest to share their teaching and learning resources, we are faced with the challenge of intellectual property and ownership of teaching materials.  Please know that while the OER UCT team believes these to be real and challenging issues, we do not believe them insurmountable.  We will work with you to ensure that your material can be shared using an open license.  We are actively engaging with the Innovation and Intellectual Property Management unit at UCT and they have been very supportive of open educational resources at UCT!

T-Shirt says: I gave away intellectual property at UCT and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!!!  A collectors item for the original OER UCT contributors. 

The Centre for Educational Technology is pleased to announce the launch of the OpenContent open educational resource directory at the University of Cape Town.  The directory is the culmination of a years worth of project work, funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, with aims to help UCT academics share their teaching and learning resources on a grander scale. 

The OpenContent directory is a place for UCT staff and students to share their teaching resources with the rest of the world. Often teaching material resides on our computer hard drives, or on our local learning management system-Vula where it is only available to select members of the UCT community. The OpenContent directory provides a space in which to share resources beyond UCT, so that others can use them in their own teaching and learning environments.

Open content is also referred to as 'open courseware' or 'open educational resources' (OER). They are openly licensed educational materials (usually digital) that can be used by anyone, shared freely and adapted to suit a particular educational purpose. 

The global nature of the internet and its ever-increasing culture of sharing have enabled the growth of the OER movement. Teaching and learning resources that were once only shared within departments and communities of practice, or at a cost, can now be made freely available to educators and students worldwide. Furthermore, in this age of abundance where it can be difficult to find suitable high quality resources for teaching and learning, OER offers educators and students access to top quality materials that can be adapted to suit their specific needs.

We are thrilled to share this new website with the UCT community and the world at large.

Visit the OpenContent website!