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Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Case Study

OER Africa
OER Africa
Authored on
KNUST case study cover page

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is based in Kumasi, Ghana. It introduced the use of open educational resources (OER) in 2008 through its College of Health Sciences (CHS), when the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation sponsored a project to develop health-related OER.  The CHS identified three strategic priorities for health education, which they sought to achieve through the Health OER Initiative:

  • develop contextually appropriate teaching resources,
  • increase student engagement with the local curriculum, and
  • strengthen the core curriculum.

The initiative focused on policy, practice, and research regarding health-related OER. It covered eleven disciplines at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The initiative was inspired by the reality that CHS had an increasing number of medical students and therefore an increased demand for practical sessions. However, students were often unable to see what was happening in practical sessions because of their large numbers.

This case study is based on interviews with the former head of web application services for the initiative (based at KNUST), the head of the technical team from OER Africa, and a College of Science librarian at KNUST.