Browsing by Author "Walji, Sukaina"
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- 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 AccessDeveloping world MOOCs: A curriculum view of the MOOC landscape(Journal of Global Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies, 2014-07) Czerniewicz, Laura; Deacon, Andrew; Small, Janet; Walji, SukainaMOOCs offer opportunities but are also pose the danger of further exacerbating existing educational divisions and deepening the homogeneity of global knowledge systems. Like many universities globally, South African university leaders and those responsible for course, curriculum, and learning technology development are coming to grips with the implications and possibilities of online and open education for their own institutions. What opportunities do they offer to universities, especially from the point of view of research-focused campus-based institutions which have not yet engaged with MOOCs and have little history with online courses? Given the complexities of the MOOC-scape, this paper provides a means for contextualising the options within an institutional landscape of educational provision as possibilities for MOOC creation, use and adaptation. This takes into account what is currently available and identifies what new opportunities can be explored. Refining this further, a categorisation of existing MOOCs is provided that maps to broad institutional interests. The notion of courses offered by universities as being either primarily ‘inward’ or ‘outward’ facing is explained. Five categories of MOOCs are described: Category One, Teaching Showcase; Category Two, Gateway Skills; Category Three, Graduate Skills; Category Four, Professional Skills and Category Five, Research Showcase. These are elaborated on and examples provided. This taxonomy provides a nuanced way of understanding MOOCs and MOOC type courses in order for educators to strategically prioritise and decision makers to support the full gamut of emergent opportunities.
- ItemOpen AccessDimensions of open research: critical reflections on openness in the ROER4D project(Open Praxis, 2016) King, Thomas; Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl-Ann; Willmers, Michelle; Walji, SukainaOpen Research has the potential to advance the scientific process by improving the transparency, rigour, scope and reach of research, but choosing to experiment with Open Research carries with it a set of ideological, legal, technical and operational considerations. Researchers, especially those in resource-constrained situations, may not be aware of the complex interrelations between these different domains of open practice, the additional resources required, or how Open Research can support traditional research practices. Using the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project as an example, this paper attempts to demonstrate the interrelation between ideological, legal, technical and operational openness; the resources that conducting Open Research requires; and the benefits of an iterative, strategic approach to one’s own Open Research practice. In this paper we discuss the value of a critical approach towards Open Research to ensure better coherence between ‘open’ ideology (embodied in strategic intention) and ‘open’ practice (the everyday operationalisation of open principles). This paper first appeared in Open Praxis, Volume 8 Number 2.
- ItemOpen AccessIssues for universities using private companies for online education(University of Cape Town, 2019-02) Czerniewicz, Laura; Walji, SukainaThis briefing is aimed at universities who are thinking of using - or already using - private companies to develop or expand their online programmes or courses. It raises the issues to be thought about and the implications of decisions made, and it considers the roles and relationships of the companies with the universities.
- ItemOpen AccessLearning through engagement: MOOCs as an emergent form of provision(Distance Education, 2016-06-01) Walji, Sukaina; Deacon, Andrew; Small, Janet; Czerniewicz, LauraMassive open online courses (MOOCs) are a new form of educational provision occupying a space between formal online courses and informal learning. Adopting measures used with formal online courses to assess the outcomes of MOOCs is often not informative because the context is very different. The particular affordances of MOOCs shaping learning environments comprise scale (in terms of numbers of students) and diversity (in terms of the types of students). As learning designers, we focus on understanding the particular tools and pedagogical affordances of the MOOC platform to support learner engagement. Drawing on research into learner engagement conducted in the broader field of online learning, we consider how learner engagement in a MOOC might be designed for by looking at three pedagogical aspects: teacher presence, social learning, and peer learning.
- ItemOpen AccessMOOC-making and Open Educational Practices(Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 2016-12-05) Czerniewicz, Laura; Deacon, Andrew; Walji, SukainaMOOCs have been seen as holding promise for advancing Open Education. While the pedagogical design of the first MOOCs grew out of the Open Education Movement, the current trend has MOOCs exhibiting fewer of the original openness goals than anticipated. The aim of this study is to examine the practices and attitudes of MOOC educators at an African university and ask whether and how their practices and attitudes become open after creating and teaching a MOOC. Activity Theory is used to contextually locate the educators’ motivations and to analyse their practices in terms of striving towards an object. With this lens we describe how educators’ openness-related practices and attitudes change over time in two different MOOCs. Two sets of conceptions of open practices are used to detect instances of change, providing four dimensions of changed open educational practices. Semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and artefacts provide data for this rare study, which considers these issues from the perspective of the Global South. Through studying the educators’ practices in relation to openness, it becomes evident how open practices are emergent and responsive.
- ItemOpen AccessMOOCs, openness and changing educator practices: an Activity Theory case study(10th International Conference on Networking Learning 2016, 2017-03-06) Czerniewicz, Laura; Glover, Michael; Deacon, Andrew; Walji, SukainaThe practices and perceptions of educators formed through the creation and running of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provide a case study of how educators understandings of ‘openness’ change (Beetham et al 2012, p 3). We are interested in how educators engage with open education resources (OER) and openness as part of developing open online courses, and how this informs their practices and attitudes afterwards. Deepening understandings of these changes is important for informing strategies involving helping educators in adopting productive open educational practices. Our research question is how do educators’ practices change or not change when using - or not using - OER in and as a MOOC? We are interested in whether and why educators adopt open practices in their MOOCs. We employ an Activity Theory (AT) conceptual framework as a heuristic tool to track and thickly describe educators’ practices and perceptions. This frame enables us to locate educators’ practices - in a context of mediating nodes, i.e., tools/artefacts, rules, divisions of labour, and community – as they strive towards and consider their object. The object upon which the educators act is the development of a new interdisciplinary field. We focus on the role of two mediating artefacts introduced into the activity system, namely Creative Commons (CC) licenses and the ‘MOOC design’. We describe how the open aspect of these artefacts mediate and affect educator’s perceptions, attitudes and educational practices in the context of their object-directed activity system. We draw predominantly on semi-structured interviews with the MOOC lead educators and the MOOC learning designers. Interviews were conducted at two time intervals, before and after the MOOC has run. From this we craft two activity systems. We have categorised our findings according to Beetham et al’s dimensions of open practices. Further, two broad themes emerged from the data analysis. These are Affordances of the MOOC and Reflection on educational practices
- ItemOpen AccessMOOCs, openness and changing educator practices: an Activity Theory case study(International Council on Distance Education, 2017-03-15) Czerniewicz, Laura; Glover, Michael; Deacon, Andrew; Walji, SukainaThe practices and perceptions of educators formed through the creation and running of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provide a case study of how educators understandings of ‘openness’ change (Beetham et al 2012, p 3). We are interested in how educators engage with open education resources (OER) and openness as part of developing open online courses, and how this informs their practices and attitudes afterwards. Deepening understandings of these changes is important for informing strategies involving helping educators in adopting productive open educational practices. Our research question is how do educators’ practices change or not change when using - or not using - OER in and as a MOOC? We are interested in whether and why educators adopt open practices in their MOOCs. We employ an Activity Theory (AT) conceptual framework as a heuristic tool to track and thickly describe educators’ practices and perceptions. This frame enables us to locate educators’ practices - in a context of mediating nodes, i.e., tools/artefacts, rules, divisions of labour, and community – as they strive towards and consider their object. The object upon which the educators act is the development of a new interdisciplinary field. We focus on the role of two mediating artefacts introduced into the activity system, namely Creative Commons (CC) licenses and the ‘MOOC design’. We describe how the open aspect of these artefacts mediate and affect educator’s perceptions, attitudes and educational practices in the context of their object-directed activity system. We draw predominantly on semi-structured interviews with the MOOC lead educators and the MOOC learning designers. Interviews were conducted at two time intervals, before and after the MOOC has run. From this we craft two activity systems. We have categorised our findings according to Beetham et al’s dimensions of open practices. Further, two broad themes emerged from the data analysis. These are Affordances of the MOOC and Reflection on educational practices.
- ItemOpen AccessMOOCs, openness and changing educator practices: an Activity Theory case study(Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Networked Learning 2016, 2016-05-19) Czerniewicz, Laura; Glover, Michael; Deacon, Andrew; Walji, SukainaThe practices and perceptions of educators formed through the creation and running of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provide a case study of how educators understandings of ‘openness’ change (Beetham et al 2012, p 3). We are interested in how educators engage with open education resources (OER) and openness as part of developing open online courses, and how this informs their practices and attitudes afterwards. Deepening understandings of these changes is important for informing strategies involving helping educators in adopting productive open educational practices. Our research question is how do educators’ practices change or not change when using - or not using - OER in and as a MOOC? We are interested in whether and why educators adopt open practices in their MOOCs. We employ an Activity Theory (AT) conceptual framework as a heuristic tool to track and thickly describe educators’ practices and perceptions. This frame enables us to locate educators’ practices - in a context of mediating nodes, i.e., tools/artefacts, rules, divisions of labour, and community – as they strive towards and consider their object. The object upon which the educators act is the development of a new interdisciplinary field. We focus on the role of two mediating artefacts introduced into the activity system, namely Creative Commons (CC) licenses and the ‘MOOC design’. We describe how the open aspect of these artefacts mediate and affect educator’s perceptions, attitudes and educational practices in the context of their object-directed activity system. We draw predominantly on semi-structured interviews with the MOOC lead educators and the MOOC learning designers. Interviews were conducted at two time intervals, before and after the MOOC has run. From this we craft two activity systems. We have categorised our findings according to Beetham et al’s dimensions of open practices. Further, two broad themes emerged from the data analysis. These are Affordances of the MOOC and Reflection on educational practices.
- ItemOpen AccessMOOCs: A UCT Discussion(2014-11-05) Czerniewicz, Laura; Walji, Sukaina; Small, Janet; Deacon, AndrewThis is a presentation by MOOC Task Team to inform the discussion around MOOCs in the UCT Course provision landscape. The presentation took place at the Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CILT), Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) here at UCT on 31 March 2014.
- ItemOpen AccessOER in and as MOOCs(African Minds, International Development Research Centre & Research on Open Educational Resources for Development, 2017-11-10) Czerniewicz, Laura; Deacon, Andrew; Walji, Sukaina; Glover, Michael; Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams; Patricia ArintoThis chapter reports on the investigation into the production and rollout of four Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa, and on the experiences of the educators involved in their production. The overarching aim of this study is to address the question: How does MOOC-making with Open Educational Resources (OER) influence educators’ Open Educational Practices (OEP)? The authors were interested to know why UCT educators wanted to make MOOCs, whether they adopted OER, whether their practices become more open after making a MOOC, and in which ways. Drawing on Beetham et al. (2012) and Hodgkinson-Williams (2014), an analytic framework of OEP was developed comprising three dimensions: legal, pedagogical and financial. The research methodology is qualitative, using semi-structured interviews and data from MOOC discussion forums. Six MOOC lead educators were interviewed at three intervals: before their MOOCs ran, immediately after their MOOC’s first run, and six to 10 months later. Transcripts were coded using OEP concepts. The findings offer insights into the relationships between educators’ motivations for making MOOCs, their MOOC design tools, the OEP that can be identified and the contradictions they experienced in making MOOCs. Despite the challenges that educators faced, they largely achieved their purposes of making MOOCs and manifested legal, pedagogical and financial dimensions of OEP. The impact on educators’ open practices was observed in several subsequent projects after the MOOCs were first run. Tensions involved in making MOOCs, adopting OER and enacting OEP point to how educators could be better supported to become more open in their educational practices. No negative experiences were attributed to the creation of OER and, indeed, MOOC-making with OER appeared to be conducive to OER adoption in general. However, more time would be needed to conclude whether these educators could become OER advocates or could function autonomously in creating and sharing OER.
- ItemOpen AccessPosition Paper: MOOCs(2015) Czerniewicz, Laura; Deacon, Andrew; Fife, Mary-Ann; Small, Janet; Walji, SukainaMassive open online courses (MOOCs) are a flexible and open form of self-directed, online learning designed for mass participation. There are no fees or entry requirements and no formal academic credit is available. While completion rates are low (on average ten per cent) due to varying motivations for enrolling in a MOOC, absolute numbers of participants who complete are usually high. While access to the course material is free, MOOC platform providers often offer certificates of completion at a cost. MOOC platforms provide institutions with cloud-based hosting environments for delivering courses, offering scale and functionality while the institution provides the course material and reputational value. This paper discusses the key aspects of Massive Open Online Courses in a South African educational context.
- ItemOpen AccessResearch on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) Infographic - June 2014(2014-09-18) Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl; Carstens, Rondine; Cartmill, Tess; Walji, Sukaina; King, ThomasInfographic depicts the Research in Open Educational Resources for Development in the Global South (ROER4D) project showing global coverage of sub-projects and research themes. This includes the general research objective which is to improve educational policy, practice and research in developing countries by better understanding of the use and impact of OER. The infographic includes the names and logos of host institutions and funders, the ROER4D logo and website link.
- ItemOpen AccessROER4D First Technical Report - June 2013-August 2014(2014-08-27) Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl; Cartmill, TessThis technical report covers the first year of the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development project, outlining the progress of the central project network and the twelve sub-projects as they fulfill their research objectives. Core areas of this report include the development of ROER4D's research capacity enhancement programme; the communications policy, networking activities, and the curation framework. It also includes reportbacks on some of the difficulties experienced in the initial stages of an international, multi-continental and multi-lingual project and includes recommendations to address some of these problems. This document was produced as part of the International Development Research Centre's requirements for the projects it funds.
- ItemOpen AccessROER4D First Workshop Evaluation(2014-09-08) Walji, SukainaThis report is an evaluation of the success of the ROER4D project's first workshop, held between 9-13 December 2013 in Cape Town. The workshop focused on research skills capacity development, and an evaluation via questionnaire was conducted after the conclusion of workshop activity to determine the success of the workshop. This report contains a summary of the evaluation activity and suggestions on how to improve capacity development in the future.
- ItemOpen AccessUCT ERT Student Experience Survey 2020(University of Cape Town, 2020-09-25) Marquard, Stephen; Walji, Sukaina; Lester, Soraya; Kefale, Kende; Deacon, AndrewFinal report of the UCT Emergency Remote Teaching Student Experience Survey 2020, an online survey of student experiences of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the 2nd term of 2020 (April to July 2020). The purpose of the survey was to inform and improve the design of courses taught online during the second semester of 2020 (August to November), and improve support for students where possible. The survey was thus a form of institutional research and followed an exploratory research design rather than setting out to confirm or disprove specific hypotheses. The report presents key concerns of students during this time period, including mental health, course workload in relation to available time, and challenges relating to course site design, assessments, social connectedness, Internet access and mobile data and preferences relating to video material and synchronous teaching. While most students experienced some difficulties arising from ERT and the COVID-19 lockdown conditions, students who no longer had access to UCT residences after the start of ERT were particularly adversely affected.
- ItemOpen AccessUCT Open Education Week 2015(2015-04-07) King, Thomas; Cox, Glenda; Makwande, Tinashe; Kawana, MondeOn 13 March 2015 the Vice Chancellor's Open Educational Resources Adaptation project hosted an event which focused on the Open Educational activities underway at the University of Cape Town. Emeritus Professor Martin Hall provided the keynote address with '50 Shades of Openness', giving the audience some feedback on the history of the Open movement and sharing insights from his time as XXXX of Jisc, the British library consortium. He was followed by Mark Horner, talking about Open Textbooks in South African schools; Tobias Schonwetter, who provided a brief look at the legal frameworks behind open licensing; Sukaina Walhi, reporting on UCT's MOOCs project; Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams, talkiing about the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development project; Jill Claassen, the manager of the OpenUCT repository; and Juan Klopper, sharing his experiences of providing Open Education.