Overview

The African Virtual University (AVU) launched its OER initiative called OER@AVU in 2011. It was part of a larger project designed to increase access to affordable education at AVU’s 27 partner institutions spanning 22 countries. It sought to encourage the collaborative creation and sharing of open, distance, and e-learning resources.

African Storybook (ASb) is a multilingual literacy project that works with educators and authors to create and publish openly licensed storybooks for early reading in African languages. The initiative was launched in 2014 to address the need for accessible storybooks and improved literacy. It is an initiative of Saide, a registered non-profit organization governed by a trust and based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is South Africa’s oldest university and one of Africa’s leading teaching and research institutions. The university has a long history of involvement in open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEPs). UCT has spearheaded several open education projects, including OER UCT and the Health OER Project. The University is a member of the Open Education Consortium, an international consortium with approximately 300 universities that make their teaching materials openly available for sharing. This case study examines four of the institution’s key OER initiatives: the OpenUCT Initiative (2011–2014); Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) (2021–2017); the UCT Vice Chancellor’s OER Adaptation Project (2013–2016); and Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) (2018–2021). Each has been selected because of its focus and influence on OER advocacy, practice, and policy for Africa academics.