The inadequate density and distribution of health care providers is having a profoundly negative effect on health outcomes around the globe. In Africa in particular, too few physicians and supporting health care professionals are being trained to meet local needs. A key barrier to educating more health care providers is the lack of instructors to teach both basic and clinical sciences. This is complicated by the duplication of faculty efforts at multiple sites for courses which can now be completed online.In this planning grant, we will:Develop a low-cost and scalable process (dScribe) for converting existing educational materials into Open Educational Resources.Convert a set of educational materials from the medical, dental, and public health schools at the University of Michigan as a proof of concept.Develop a website with an integrated learning management system to facilitate delivery of educational materials based on specific diseases, educational outcomes, or entire curricular paths.Establish the commitments of all University of Michigan health sciences schools to the vision of Open Educational Resources for all curricular materials.Convene meetings with colleagues in South Africa and Ghana to identify how they could add their own materials to the site, adapt existing materials, or jointly generate materials with Michigan-African collaboration.Track costs and resources needed for all activities in preparation for a full proposal to be submitted by November 15, 2008.We believe this model will succeed because it responds to an imperative need, it capitalizes on our existing information technology used to train physicians and other health care providers, and builds on our existing long-term partnerships in Africa.

The University of Michigan, OER Africa, and four African university partners will develop a long term logic model and scalable, sustainable, collaborative content development programs for comprehensive, open, health professions curriculaIn 2008, Michigan used a Hewlett Foundation planning grant to hold a successful workshop and follow-up campus meetings. We now propose a one year effort to develop a sustainable and scalable OER program to support health education, particularly in developing countries. This effort will be a collaboration among the University of Michigan, OER Africa, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the University of Ghana, the University of Cape Town, and the University of the Western Cape.In this design phase we will:Engage university leadership in implementing institutional policy frameworks that facilitate the success of OER.Hold faculty development workshops to build institutional capacity in OER.Enhance an innovative, low-cost, and scalable process (dScribe) for converting educational materials into OER.Collaboratively develop educational materials as OER and deploy them in our respective curricula.Promote the collaboration and its outputs through a community of practice web site.Establish a framework for a longitudinal study of faculty productivity and the effect of OER on learning outcomes and provide feedback on socio-technical aspects of collaborative OER practices.Produce an evidence-based long-term logic model for Health OER based on a vision that multiple stakeholders will own, in which funders will invest, and which institutions are committed to sustaining. This consensus-driven model will be the basis of a Global Health OER follow-on proposal.

In 2009, the University of Michigan, OER Africa, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the University of Ghana, the University of Cape Town, and the University of the Western Cape used a Hewlett Foundation grant to develop a scalable OER program to support health education. We now propose a two-year program to deepen our African Health OER initiative while eventually moving from Hewlett Foundation support to a resource model built ona community of donors committed to addressing health challenges in the Millennium Development Goals, and institutional investment that makes OER production and use an integral part of the teaching and learning process in health schools. The proposed African Health OER Network is designed to strengthen the intellectual and policy infrastructure within and between African institutions. Our objective is to systematically draw in more African and, eventually, global participants to create, adapt, share, and use OER to the benefit of health education in Africa, while developing models of collaboration and sustainability that can be replicated in other regions of the world.The proposed African Health OER Network is structured to build on the OERs created and deployed during the 2009 Design Phase. These materials were selected due to pedagogical needs within health education in Africa, such as limited training materials available for certain conditions and diseases and materials that can augment the crowded lecture and ward-based training contexts. More information on those efforts can be found in the inputs and activities sections, below.In this phase we will:Ensure that the OER infrastructure model, successfully deployed during the design phase, maintains momentum with current participants and begins growing the Network while simultaneously seeking to expand the community of support.Aggregate a critical mass of African-produced health open educational resources published through both institutional and regional (oerafrica.org) repositories.Continue to enhance (e.g., through functionality and localization) an innovative, low-cost, and scalable process (dScribe) for converting educational materials into OER.Build on pilot and formative analyses undertaken in 2009 to establish the basis for an evidence chain that connects from faculty productivity and career satisfaction measures though efficacy in learning contexts to application of acquired knowledge in health care settings.

This one-sheet handout provides a list of six discussion questions to address at the initial planning stages for organizations interested in incorporating OER into their programs, grants, or activities. These questions are applicable to OER projects across academic disciplines and levels.

These 1 - 2 page handouts were developed by the University of Michigan Open Michigan initiative for faculty, researchers, and students interested in creating and finding open educational resources. This set includes:Open Educational Resources: Getting Started handoutHow to Create Open Content handoutFinding Open Content handoutThe handouts are available in PDF and Adobe InDesign formats.For up-to-date information, visit the Open Michigan Share page.

A place for collaborating on, scheming about, planning for, and developing open educational resources.

The main objective of this course is to explore and critique the role of an open pedagogy in education. Participants will develop an understanding of the concept of open and explore its application in, primarily, the context of educational environments as well as use and assess emerging learning technologies and social media. Participants will also learn about a variety of other initiatives and projects employing an open pedagogy, learn how to both identify and create open educational resources and develop a familiarity with the legal and policy considerations (e.g. copyright) surrounding the use and creation of open content. Through reading, writing, and sharing these writings, participants will make important contributions to the ongoing and exciting conversation around the future of teaching and learning.

As part of the Hewlett Foundation grant for the African Health OER Network, Professor Ken Harley (University of KwaZulu-Natal) conducts an annual external evaluation of the project. For his 2009 evaluation, Prof Harley interviewed participants at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), University of Ghana (UG), University of Cape Town (UCT), University of the Western Cape (UWC), the South African Institute of Distance Education (Saide) and the University of Michigan (U-M). In 2010, he conducted follow-up interviews with the same institutions. The 2010 evaluation was aimed at exploring institutional experiences, to establish how the project was being consolidated, and to start assessing issues of sustainability. Based on document analysis and institutional interviews, broadly, the evaluation concludes that:The African Health OER Network has supported institutions to develop OER based on institutional needs and choices. This in itself is a signifier of sustainability.Because of the modelling of OER production along institutional needs and choices, institutions have produced OER that are consistent with their Ňethos, contextual realities, strategies and resources.Ó In other words, what is being produced will be utilised in the institution and is not designed for Ôshow and tellŐ to meet funder requirements.The development of OER has encouraged institutions to reconsider their policies on OER and also how they can support OER within their own means.

OER may be distributed in a variety of formats, including electronically online, removable media (e.g. CD/DVD, or USB), and/or paper hard copies. In order to maximize its reach and visibility, OER is often distributed online which introduces new considerations such as managing file size and selecting appropriate descriptive data (commonly referred to as metadata). File size is an especially important consideration as small manageable files can be more easily downloaded in bandwidth-constrained areas. As part of the African Health OER Network, completed OER are often hosted on multiple servers: an institutional server, the official Network web space with OER Africa, and on the University of Michigan (U-M) Open Michigan website.The aim of these guidelines is to encourage the creation of OER that is easily discoverable, accessible, and adaptable.