University of Zambia OER experience by Dr. Vitalicy Chifwepa
Introduction
The University of Zambia, through Dr Chifwepa and others, has two main experiences in open education resources. These are:
- The African Virtual University teacher education programme
- Agricultural Open Educational Resources Workshop, 5th - 7th June 2007
Below is an account of Dr. Chifwepa's involvement. As Director of the Directorate of Distance Education, Dr. Chifwepa is expected to pass these experiences on to the rest of the University of Zambia.
The African Virtual University Teacher Education Experience
I have been involved in the African Virtual University (AVU) project in which ten African countries,including Zambia, are working together to create common open source curricula and content in Mathematics and science education. The broad aim is to form a consortium of universities in which a common approach will be adopted to educate and train maths and science teachers using Open Distance eLearning (ODeL) methodologies. Core curricula have been establshed in the following subject areas:
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Mathematics
- Physics
- Basic information communication technologies (ICTs)
Subject matter experts (SMEs) from the ten Universities have been involved at the stages of curriculum development and content development in all the five areas named above. The University of Zambia,therefore is gaing experience and contributing to the OER. As a subject matter expert (SME) in ICT, I was a member of a team of four that developed a total of four modules in Basic ICT skills. The modules are created under the conditions of the creative commons. The module I have developed is of the title: ICT Basic Skills 3: Graphics and Information Management Systems
The Agricultural Open Educational Resources Workshop
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) organised a workshop of agricultural and distance educators from the 5th to 7th June 2007 at the ICRAF Centre. The workshop involved a number of countries. From Zambia was a team of myself, Professor Richard Siaciwena (also from the University of Zambia) and Mr. Mungule Chikoye from the Inservice Training Trust (ISTT). The workshop aimed at exposing to and training the educators on the use of the WikiEducators platfoam. It was at this workshop that I joined the Wiki Educators' community. This has been a very rich experience.
