Open Education Resources and the Covid 19 Lockdown in Uganda
As a follow up to the e-checkin on 25th August 2020, CC Uganda has published a resource with alternatives to traditional ways of learning, that have been used during the COVID-19 lockdown, including a list of useful resources available to Ugandan students.
Check out the publication on this attachment.
CC UgandaEChat
On the 25th of August 2020 we were able to make time for the e-checkin hosted by Primah Kwagala. The participation was greatly appreciated as we started just 14 and ended 18people in the discussion. These are the highlights;
1. Health and Welbeing
All members that participated are COVID-19 free, keeping healthy and observing safety guidelines.
A number of the community members highlighted loss of business opportunities and difficulties making money as physical meetings are banned. For our colleagues who basically work online, there was more happiness, more engagements and certainly happier returns.
All members said they were coping with the new normal, with those working in the GLAM & Education sector reporting a new shift to operating online for their clientele. Eric got a grant to document some OER experiences and GLAM work in remote areas in Uganda. Congratulations! and here’s to looking forward to the exciting results of what you find out there.
2. Open Education Resources & how we can engage/support online.
Francis and Primah are leading us in developing a guiding briefing document on what OER is, and how educational institutions can adopt e-learning opportunities to keep their student communities active. (Francis has worked on a successful model with the Gombe Educational Services) – over the next 10days
Eric & Florence will peer review the document over 2 days after sharing it.
Nicholas Kyanda will design the document & Douglas will publish the same. (One day each).
Our next check-in and presentation will be on the 22nd day of September, 2020.
Discussions at each stage will be via our Whatsapp function.
3. What to lookout for
CC Conference still happening between 19-24 October, 2020 free online
Colleagues herein interested in making presentations please look out for the call for proposals that Douglas has shared and be active.
Open Movement Meet up
We held this on the 25th of October,2019 at Makerere University’s Innovation Centre at the college of Information, Communication and Technology in Kampala. The meeting was attended by among others members of the Consortium for Uganda University Libraries (CUUL), MTN (a Mobile Telecom Network), Wikimedia and Creative Commons.
All groups shared what they do and current projects they are implementing in the open movement. The Wikimedia group talked about open street maps and the need for more volunteers to map Kampala and its periphery. CUUL colleagues announced their Open Access projects across all universities and called upon CC members to share information on how to utilise CC licensing models to make their works easily accessible to people.
We engaged the meeting in a survey on how well they understood CC and the application of CC licenses to their work. Even though 90% knew about licenses, 70% did not know what particular license to apply to their work.
Many were afraid of plagiarism of their work and or exploitation. It was resolved that we do more in helping our communities understand how to apply CC license to their works and content online.
As a next step it was agreed:
- Hold a session to chart out a path on how to apply CC licenses to creative and literary works for members in the open movement.
CC Uganda Chapter Meet up
This was held on 25th September, 2019 at Kampala’s Endiro Café. We discussed CC community activities, what members were up to and got feedback from Brian who attended the CC global summit. Brian encouraged members to attend the next summit in Lisbon as many other countries are usually represented.
Colleagues in the Wikimedia community announced a new GLAM project they were working on and called on CC members with the expertise in Libraries and Archives to join in so as to ensure there is no duplication of efforts. It was agreed on the following as next steps;
- Share the application link to the 2020 CC global summit to ensure more representation from the CC Uganda community.
- Follow up with Alice (Wikimedia) on how CC members can contribute to the wiki-GLAM project.
- Hold a joint open meet and greet with other colleagues in the open movement to learn, share and explore what is happening so we can plan joint projects.