OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INITIATIVE AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA: CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED

This paper is one of the six series of studies that describes the process of designing and development of an OER based course titled Academic Digital Fluency for 21st Century Lecturers at the Open University of Tanzania. Through a descriptive research design approach, the study employed documentary analysis (particularly of the proceedings and records from the course development workshops and planning meetings) and review of literature to systematically describe the process of designing and development of the OER course on Academic Digital Fluency. The study has demonstrated that, given the institutional commitment at OUT and the critical role that OER will play in the university, it was feasible to produce five (5) initial drafts of the modules of the OER course on Academic Digital Fluency within the shortest time possible. All course designers worked tirelessly to ensure that the drafts were ready in time for review. On the other hand, the reviewers also played their part very well by providing timely and constructive comments which enabled further refining of the contents and improvement of the courses in order to produce high quality OER course materials before being uploaded into the MOODLE Learning Management System (LMS) of the OUT. However, despite being interesting, the process of designing and development of an OER course is often quite challenging because it is an added load to the lecturers. Furthermore, it demands team work and also to undertake a comprehensive review of literature and the available course materials. The experience from OUT was shared with the ACDE member institutions during the meeting of the Technical Committee on Collaboration (TCC) of the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) as well as the ACDE Executive Board meeting, held in 14th July, 2014 in Nairobi-Kenya