OER: What's new in 2015?

Championing openness is a key objective for Prof Laura Czerniewicz who was elected as UCT’s Director for the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) in 2014. She has driven the establishment of the OpenUCT repository that now falls under the management of Jill Claasen in the main library. Resources for teaching and research are now easily findable from a wide range of academics in the 9 different categories that are colour coded.

As a Faculty, we’re striving ahead through individuals who are creating and making their teaching resources available to all through publications with creative commons licenses. Tricky Topics is a new resource by Dr Charles Slater (Human Anatomy) featuring a series of videos created on the iPad App, Explain Everything. He cleverly explains some tripping topics through the combination of voice, and animation annotated diagrams. Other resources from several departments are sizzling and soon to be released.

Have you heard that UCT is launching two MOOCs this year with a strong component drawn from the Health Sciences Faculty? Prof Steve Reid (Primary Health Care Director) together with Prof Susan Levine (Anthropology Dept) and other invited lecturers will be starting their MOOC titled Medicine and the arts: Humanizing healthcare. Anyone anywhere in the world with internet access can enrol and progress on this 8 week course run in conjunction with FutureLearn.  Another MOOC created by a Clinician in our Faculty is due to be released later in the year. Watch this space for more details!

For up-to-date global information on OER, we recommend Martin Weller’s OER Research Hub report 

Your last chance to apply for an OER grant will be in March this year. Please consider this invaluable opportunity for assistance in publishing your resources without the usual copyright restrictions.