International Journal of Education and Development using ICT

International Journal of Education and Development using ICT > Vol. 15, No. 4 (2019)

Exploring the institutional OER policy landscape in South Africa: dominant discourses and assumptions

Patricia Rudo Chikuni, University of Capetown, Digital Library Services
Glenda Cox, University of Capetown, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching
Laura Czerniewicz, University of Capetown, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching

Abstract
ABSTRACT A number of universities in South Africa are sharing teaching materials online making them freely available as Open Educational Resources (OER). The open sharing of teaching materials has been coupled with a number of institutional policy initiatives. This paper seeks to explore the institutional policy landscape of OER in South Africa in order to first understand the discourses and assumptions that underpin OER policies and second, to critique and problematize the major discourses and assumptions that underpin OER policies. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used as a tool for identifying dominant discourses in OER. Findings show that OER policies in public universities in South Africa are underpinned by three dominant discourses on access, collaboration and transformation. The extent to which OER can democratise access to education and redress socio-historic inequalities in the provision of educational resources is not guaranteed. Some scholars argue that OER could in some contexts perpetuate inequalities if the same barriers of accessing education in a traditional classroom have not been dealt with. OER policies are written as optimistic accounts on how to publish OER but they do not do a good job in encouraging reuse.

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