Transcript Slide 1

Developing a People's Open Access
University of Health: overcoming the digital
divide with a web 2.0 approach
• Or: Building a ‘New Generation University’
• Dick Heller
• John Sandars
• TENCompetence Open Workshop, January 11th, 2007
Background
• UK Universities charge high overseas
student fees, which limits their ability to
contribute to capacity building in low- to
middle-income countries
• Increasing amounts of open source
educational material, as well as delivery
mechanisms, are available through the
Internet
So:
• How about we try to make open source
materials available, guide students
through them and assess achieved
competencies?
• And do this outside the traditional
university system?
• Hence the idea for a ‘Peoples’ Open
Access University’ or: ‘New Generation
University’
Inspirations
• Free and open source software (FOSS)
• Open Educational Resources (OER) – ‘digitized materials offered
freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners….
universal educational resource available for the whole of humanity’
– Learning Content:
– Tools: Software to support the development, use, re-use and delivery of
learning content….
– Implementation Resources: Intellectual property licenses to promote
open publishing of materials, design principles of best practice, and
localization of content.
– http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
• Personal experience
What do we need?
• Educational materials
• Delivery mechanism (ICT and tutors)
• Accreditation of learned competencies
– thus develop an educational context around
FOSS and OERs (a New Generation
University)
Who will do the teaching?
• UK/US universities (who would donate
some of their courses)
• Local universities
• Volunteers
– Emigrants who want to ‘give something back’
– Retired academics
– Graduates of the New Generation University
Where to start?
• Public Health problems abound in many
developing countries, and capacity to deal
with them is limited
• MPH courses, where they exist, are
heavily oversubscribed in many
developing countries
Some examples of available resources
• Universities:
– http://ocw.jhsph.edu/
– http://ocw.tufts.edu/Schools/1
– http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=48
• Other organisations:
– http://www.uic.edu/sph/prepare/
– http://phpartners.org/tutorial/04-ebph/index.html
• Volunteers:
– http://www.globalhealth-ec.org/
– http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/
Examples of published Public Health
competencies
• Australia
– http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/publichealth/pht/pages/competency.html
– http://www.phlr.anaphi.unsw.edu.au/comp/comp.htm
• Canada
– http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/phppsp/core_competencies_for_ph_index_e.html
• US
– http://www.phf.org/Link.htm
• UK
– http://www.fphm.org.uk/training/curriculum/learning_outcomes_fr
amework/default.asp
Where do Web 2.0 and Education 3.0 come
in?
• Web 2.0, refers to a perceived or proposed second
generation of Internet based services that emphasize
online collaboration and sharing among users
• Education 1.0 – largely one-way process
• Education 2.0 – uses web 2.0 technology, but education
itself is not transformed
• Education 3.0 - cross-institutional, cross-cultural
educational opportunities within which the learners
themselves play a key role as creators of knowledge
which is shared (Keats:
http://elearn.uwc.ac.za/usrfiles/content/fsoftelearn/documents/education-3.0-V3.pdf)
Now might be the time
• ‘In 2006, the World Wide Web
became a tool for bringing
together the small
contributions of millions of
people and making them
matter’
• ‘And for seizing the reins of the
global media, for founding and
framing the new digital
democracy, for working for
nothing and beating the pros at
their own game, TIME's
Person of the Year for 2006 is
you.’
Progress to date
• An on-line discussion has taken place, hosted by
CAWD (a charity aiming to increase availability
of education through ICT for rural Nigeria)
• The key messages were:
– Any development must strengthen and not compete
with local universities
– Education must be both credible and affordable
– There are likely to be country-specific solutions
• Four working parties are planned
Planned next steps
• 1. Situation analysis working party. Perform and collect situation
analyses in different countries and settings. A draft questionnaire to
guide these analyses has been prepared.
• 2. OER working party. Take one potential course module, list the
competencies required, identify the on-line resources which are
currently available to meet these competencies, see whether they
are peer-reviewed, and thus determine the needs for future
development. This can then act as an example of what a single
course module might look like.
• 3. Accreditation working party. Identify possible accreditation
mechanisms, how will it work and who might offer the accreditation.
• 4. ICT working party. Identify possible systems for course delivery
and registration (is Moodle enough?) and for managed and personal
learning environments (MLE, PLE).
Help and advice
• In order for this to progress, much work
remains
• In the spirit of Web 2.0 and Education 3.0,
we wish to keep the process open and
collaborative
• Help, advice, contributions to the working
parties or any other aspect of the
development are welcomed