Browsing by Author "Czerniewicz, Laura"
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- ItemOpen Access365 days of openness: The emergence of OER at the University of Cape Town(Athabasca University Press, 2013) Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl; Paskevicius, Michael; Cox, Glenda; Shaikh, Shihaam; Czerniewicz, Laura; Lee-Pan, Samantha; McGreal, R; Kinuthia, W; Marshall, S; McNamara, THistorically, resources such as books, journals, newspapers, audio and video recordings have been fairly well curated in university libraries. However, the same cannot be said for teaching and learning materials, unless they have been included in a textbook or study guide. With the growth in digital media, libraries have been extending their curation of scholarly resources to include electronic journals, digital books and reference guides, broadening access to these beyond the physical walls of the library. While the growth in digital technology has prompted academics to create their own customised and contextually specific digital media for use in their teaching in the form of PowerPoint presentations, manuals, handbooks, guides, media resources and websites, these resources are most often stored on personal hard drives, on departmental servers or within password-protected institutional learning management systems. Access to these digital materials is usually limited to registered students undertaking specific courses within specific institutions and usually only disseminated by individual academics or departments.
- ItemOpen AccessAcademics' online presence: a four-step guide to taking control of your visibility(2014) Goodier, Sarah; Czerniewicz, LauraThese Guidelines take academics through a four step process to improving their online presence, and taking charge of their online visibility. Step 1 - ‘Assess yourself' reviews ways to assess existing general online presence, and monitor it in future. Step 2 - ‘Your profile as an individual' - helps academics decide on a strategy for their digital footprint. Step 3 -‘Improving the availability of your output' suggests how to share and make scholarly outputs (including research, teaching and non-traditional outputs) as available and discoverable as possible. Step 4 - ‘Communicating and interacting' reviews additional strategies and tools for communicating with colleagues and interacting with those with shared interests. This resource can be used as a teaching aid or part of workshop training for academics.
- ItemOpen AccessAcademics' Online Presence: Assessing and Shaping Visibility(2012-09) Czerniewicz, LauraPresentation for academics about how to assess and shape their online presence.
- ItemOpen AccessAccess to learning resources in Post-apartheid South Africa(Massachusetts Institute of Technology & International Development Research Centre, 2018-05-01) Gray, Eve; Czerniewicz, Laura; Joe KaraganisAny inquiry into how university students get the learning resources they need for their education in post-apartheid South Africa must deal with three interrelated subjects: the legacy of apartheid, which continues to structure educational opportunities in important ways more than twenty years after the first democratic election; the organization and increasingly radical transformation of the commercial publishing market, which has been the primary source of textbooks and other materials in the system; and— common to all of the chapters in this book—the mix of new-technology-enabled strategies through which students do their best to get the textbooks and other materials they need. We track three decades of tensions around these issues, as post-apartheid leaders struggle to reform an educational system originally designed primarily to control and oppress rather than educate the majority population. Because the old system had grown up around numerous (and often colonially grounded) accommodations of the global publishing business, international copyright law, and—most important—a structural disregard for whether the system worked in more than a minimal sense, the pressure for reform has produced tensions on all of these fronts.
- ItemMetadata onlyAfrican Research Visibility Online: The Poverty Alleviation Case(African Journal of Information and Communication, 2013-01-01) Czerniewicz, Laura; Wiens, KelseyThis paper reports on an investigation into the online visibility of work undertaken in South Africa in the field of poverty alleviation. An experiment with Google searches was undertaken, motivated by concerns about the visibility of South African research and development work, particularly in a context where social inequality is extreme and poverty such a critical issue. Aware that much attention – through research and the practice of development work – is being paid to poverty alleviation , the authors set out to examine whether that work could be found easily, and what the nature of the search results would be. Significant sums of public money are invested in research, which should result in the production and dissemination of locally generated knowledge as a public good grounded in local realities. A great deal of national and international funding is also spent. Thus, research published online should inform and reflect on national and regional development practice, while contributing perspectives from the South to the global corpus of poverty research. Research to understand poverty and inform the design and targeting of poverty alleviation programmes needs to be freely available and actively shared in order for it to accumulate value. In this regard it is argued that there are exponentially beneficial linkages between research, scholarly publication and social development, which originate with local knowledge production and are amplified by the availability and discoverability of that research. Availability and discoverability add breadth and depth to the potential use, value and impact of the knowledge produced.
- ItemOpen AccessAnd that's a wrap: Open Access Week 2013(2013-11) Goodier, Sarah; Naidoo, Uvania; Czerniewicz, LauraOpen Access (OA) Week 2013 came to an end last Friday here at UCT. Instead of the traditional scholar-scholar focus, we focused on scholar-student and scholar-community access with the overall theme this year of access. This was summed up by our panel discussion title: "Out in the cold: accessing scholarly resources beyond the ivory tower". Our events explored what OA is as well as disparities in access to scholarly materials between well-resourced institutions (such as UCT) and organisations or individuals outside of this enabling environment. Some highlights.
- ItemOpen AccessApproaches from the literature: Activity Theory, new tools and changing educators' practices(2016-02-03) Glover, Michael; Czerniewicz, Laura; Walji, Sukaina; Deacon, Andrew; Small, JanetFor a study being undertaken to investigate if and how educator practices change through MOOC development and engagement with open education, Activity Theory provides a heuristic to observe contradictions and changing educator practices after the addition of new tools to a learning environment. Ours is a longitudinal study with cross case analysis of lead educators in 3-4 MOOCs, examining themes and contradictions emerging from the semi-structured data analysis to observe change in practices. In this poster we explore the question: how and why has activity theory been used to examine the introduction of new tools/mediating artefacts into the learning environment. A fuller version of our literature review is available at http://bit.ly/1jwyit3; our study’s design amalgamates the three approaches below. Our study is conducted by Laura Czerniewicz and the MOOC team at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching
- ItemOpen Access‘Being parties in the work’: A view of the changing digitally-mediated teaching and learning landscape(Heltasa, 2013-10-28) Czerniewicz, LauraThis presentation outlines the changing and diverse nature of the higher education landscape in South Africa in 2013, with a focus on how technology usage is changing and can potentially continue to transform educational practice, both to increase the effectiveness and scope of higher education instruction.
- ItemMetadata onlyBorn into the Digital Age in the South of Africa: the reconfiguration of the “digital citizen(University of Lancaster, 2017-07-04) Czerniewicz, Laura; Brown, CherylThis presentation discusses the nature of the term 'digital native' as it applies to the case of South African students.
- ItemOpen AccessBottlenecks in the Open-Access System: Voices from Around the Globe(2014) Bonaccorso, Elisa; Bozhankova, Reneta; Cadena, Carlos D; Čapská, Veronika; Czerniewicz, Laura; Emmett, Ada; Oludayo, Folorunso F; Glukhova, Natalia; Greenberg, Marc L; Hladnik, Miran; Grillet, María E; Indrawan, Mochamad; Kapović, Mate; Kleiner, YuriA level playing field is key for global participation in science and scholarship, particularly with regard to how scientific publications are financed and subsequently accessed. However, there are potential pitfalls of the so-called "Gold" open-access (OA) route, in which author-paid publication charges cover the costs of production and publication. Gold OA plans in which author charges are required may not solve the access problem, but rather may shift the access barrier from reader to writer. Under such plans, everyone may be free to read papers, but it may still be prohibitively expensive to publish them. In a scholarly community that is increasingly global, spread over more and more regions and countries of the world, these publication access barriers may be quite significant. In the present paper, a global suite of colleagues in academe joins this debate. The group of colleagues, a network of researchers active in scholarly publishing, spans four continents and multiple disciplines in the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences, as well as diverse political and economic situations. We believe that this global sampling of researchers can provide the nuance and perspective necessary to grasp this complex problem. The group was assembled without an attempt to achieve global coverage through random sampling. This contribution differs from other approaches to the open-access problem in several fundamental ways. (A) It is scholar-driven, and thus can represent the ‘other side of the coin' of scholarly communication. (B) It focuses on narrative report, where scholars were free to orient their responses as they saw fit, rather than being confined to binary or scalar choices. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, (C) it distinguishes among institutions and countries and situations, highlighting inequalities of access among wealthy and economically-challenged nations, and also within countries depending on the size and location of particular institutions.
- ItemOpen AccessThe Case for Openness: Access to Knowledge, Visibility, Influence, Participation and Quality(2011-10) Czerniewicz, LauraThis paper introduces some ‘open' terminology (definitions given) and gives a case for openness. Evidence and research is being gathered about the value of openness for those in developing countries. For African universities, access to knowledge is about both using resources from international universities and contributing their locally-generated content. Opening up of scholarly resources overcomes the barrier of increasing costs (e.g. journal subscriptions). Open publishing increases visibility and the possibility of impact as well as enabling participation and collaboration, and can raise the institutional profile of the university. This participation requires investment in technology and institutional policy, feedback mechanisms (track use) and planning for this can only be advantageous and "ensure full participation in the global knowledge society".
- ItemOpen AccessThe case of OpenUCT: Increasing access to UCT's research and teaching outputs(2013-07) Goodier, Sarah; Czerniewicz, LauraThis is a print version of our ePoster presented at the 5th African Conference for Digital Scholarship & Curation, held in Durban from 26 to 28 July 2013. The print version presents a slightly more detailed look at our online presence work with 16 UCT academics.
- ItemMetadata onlyThe case of OpenUCT: Increasing access to UCT's research and teaching outputs(2013-06) Goodier, Sarah; Czerniewicz, LauraOpenUCT's ePoster submission to the 5th African Conference for Digital Scholarship and Curation (ADSC5), held in Durban (26 -- 28 June 2013). That the research and teaching output of universities is largely hidden is well documented. Ironically the rise of open access policies in the global north (see http://sparceurope.org/analysis-of-funder-open-access-policies-around-the-world/ for many policies requiring this) means that there is a danger of academic outputs from the global south become even more invisible and marginalised. Through the OpenUCT Initiative we worked with 16 local academics from a broad range of faculties and departments to improve their online visibility. They are unlikely to be typical of all academics as they were a self-selecting sample, all interested in and to varying extents with an existing online presence. This poster reports on our investigation into their online visibility and the extent to which their outputs were available openly. These academics were searched for on Google Scholar by name and the findings showed that of the average 7.69 relevant outputs per academic in the top ten results, only 2.94 were openly available (i.e. did not require a subscription to access the full text). It also reports on a sub set of the group who explicitly set out to improve the online visibility of their work, and the results of those efforts. In conclusion, drawing on this small study, this poster will discuss some lessons learnt regarding of the curation of academic outputs and the challenges of sharing and promoting content in the online space.
- ItemOpen AccessCase study: Open Data in the governance of South African higher education(2014-04-01) van Schalkwyk, Francois; Willmers, Michelle; Czerniewicz, LauraThe availability and accessibility of open data has the potential to increase transparency and accountability and, in turn, the potential to improve the governance of universities as public institutions. In addition, it is suggested that open data is likely to increase the quality, efficacy and efficiency of research and analysis of the national higher education system by providing a shared empirical base for critical interrogation and reinterpretation. The Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) has developed an online, open data platform providing institutional-level data on South African higher education. However, other than anecdotal feedback, little is known about how the data is being used. Using CHET as a case study, this project studied the use of the CHET open data initiative by university planners as well as by higher education studies researchers. It did so by considering the supply of and demand for open data as well as the roles of intermediaries in the South African higher education governance ecosystem. The study found that (i) CHET’s open data is being used by university planners and higher education studies researchers, albeit infrequently; (ii) the government’s higher education database is a closed and isolated data source in the data ecosystem; (iii) there are concerns at both government and university levels about how data will be used and (mis)interpreted; (iv) open data intermediaries increase the accessibility and utility of data; (v) open data intermediaries provide both supply-side as well as demand- side value; (vi) intermediaries may assume the role of a ‘keystone species’ in a data ecosystem; (vii) intermediaries have the potential to democratise the impacts and use of open data – intermediaries play an important role in curtailing the ‘de-ameliorating’ effects of data-driven disciplinary surveillance.. The report concludes as follows: (i) despite poor data provision by government, the public university governance open data ecosystem has evolved because of the presence of intermediaries in the ecosystem; (ii) by providing a richer information context and/or by making the data interoperable, government could improve the uptake of data by new users and intermediaries, as well as by the existing intermediaries; and (iii) increasing the fluidity of government open data could remove uncertainties around both the degree of access provided by intermediaries and the financial sustainability of the open platforms provided by intermediaries.
- ItemMetadata onlyChallenges for conceptualising EU MOOCs for vulnerable learner groups(European Commission, 2017-07-04) Czerniewicz, Laura; Gallagher, Michael Sean; Willems, Julie; Zelezny-Green, Ronda; de Waard, Inge; Downes, Stephen; Kukulska-Hulme, AgnesThis exploratory paper picks up elements from the European Commission’s educational vision and philosophy behind Opening up Education, the resulting initiative of the OpenupEd.eu MOOC platform and takes this as a starting point to look at potential challenges for developing MOOCs that include vulnerable learner groups. In order to align the future conceptualization of MOOCs with the vision and philosophy of Europe, potential tensions of contemporary and future education are listed. The current dichotomy of xMOOC and cMOOC are used to mark some of the unexplored MOOC territory. Practical answers to contemporary, ICT supported educational challenges are provided as options to fuel the debate. The challenges and options for future online education initiatives are based on insights and ideas of international scholars and researchers reflecting on potential barriers for learners and online education. This paper aims to stimulate discussion of the potential for new educational technologies to ensure social inclusion for virtual and physical vulnerable learner groups.
- ItemOpen AccessChallenging Open Education(Asian Association of Open Universities, 2016) Czerniewicz, LauraThis presentation focuses on critiquing some of the assumptions about Open Education as a response to global educational challenges. It was presented at the 30th Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Open Universities in Manila, Philippines.
- ItemOpen AccessChanging Centres of Teaching and Learning an analytical review(UCT, 2021) Czerniewicz, LauraThis analytical review reflects on the ways that centres for teaching and learning in universities are formulated and how they might change to best respond to and address the changing needs of students, academics and institutions in a post pandemic era. Drawing on discussions with experts, personal experience and grey literature, the key considerations to be addressed are articulated, in order to spell out the options for CTLs in a variety of contexts
- ItemOpen AccessThe Changing Journals Landscape(2011-10) Gray, Eve; Czerniewicz, LauraJournals, exchange of ideas and sharing of knowledge in a community of scholars are all important in effective communication with a wider audience. The journal crisis – increasing cost of publishing and subscribing - is a growing issue for universities and researchers. With scholarship going digital and journals moving online, linking to data resources becomes important and this connected and open system allows for more collaboration and interdisciplinary research. Open access emerges.
- ItemOpen AccessChanging Research Communication Practices and Open Scholarship: A Framework for Analysis(University of Cape Town. Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme, 2014-04) Czerniewicz, Laura; Kell, Catherine; Willmers, Michelle; King, Thomas"It is important that academics’ research communication practices are explored to complement these system approaches. How do we think about these issues in order to investigate and illuminate changing forms of knowledge creation and communication? The project from which this paper is drawn was interested to answer three interrelated questions: • What are the research communication practices of academics? • What enables or constrains the flow of research communication within these practices? • How closed or open are academics’ scholarly communication practices? This paper describes our thinking as we developed the analytical framework that would enable us to answer these questions. The analytical framework was developed from the conceptual framework we used to shape our study through an iterative process with the data collected."
- ItemOpen AccessThe Changing Scholarly Communication and Content Landscape(2012-05) Czerniewicz, LauraTalk by Laura Czerniewicz to the CHEC board for the Emerging Researcher Programme (ERP) workshop hosted by the Research Office at UCT discussing scholarship content and communication: creating knowledge and disseminating it (diagrams). Digital content changes the way we communicate – goes online and becomes visible. Includes diagrams of what is happening to scholarly content and discusses what needs to be done.