Postgraduate students as OER capacitators

Abstract

A comprehensive theoretical, legal and practical basis for OER has been developed over the past fifteen years, supported by the expansion of open source curation platforms and the work of advocacy groups and international bodies. OER’s potential has been sufficiently documented; the question remains how best to support, integrate and normalise OER activity within the academic community in a sustainable fashion. This paper draws on the experiences of the Vice Chancellor’s Open Educational Resources Adaptation project in the University of Cape Town, which explored whether postgraduate students, with their blend of developing subject knowledge, greater time resources, and experience of teaching artefacts from both a learner’s and educator’s perspective, may be a valuable resource for lecturers or institutions eager to engage in OER but lacking the requisite support structures. It was found that postgraduates were best employed as capacitating agents, focusing on the non-pedagogical elements of OER adaptation.