OER adaptation and reuse across cultural contexts in sub Saharan Africa: lessons from the TESSA consortium

Much is written of the potential of Open Educational Resources (OERs) to contribute to improvements in the quality of and access to education, particularly in environments such as Sub-Saharan Africa. But some of the greatest challenges lie in the processes of adaptation and re-use and as yet little has been reported on how best to support user communities to harness and integrate OERs for their own systems and cultures. This article describes an empirically based approach to understanding and representing the OER adaptation processes as it occurred across the TESSA consortium. The authors draw on a range of studies to make explicit the kinds of knowledge, skills and support employed in the adaptation process, the role of the structured template in supporting this process and the problems encountered. The article suggests that OERs will only fulfil their promise if issues of user access as well as understandings of their purpose, construction and underlying pedagogy are examined in detail. Finally the paper offers suggestions for guidance to support other users in adapting OERs for their own context whilst maintaining the quality of the OERs and working towards self-sustaining communities of users