Open Education Agenda in CILT
The Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) enjoys a long-standing history of more than a decade in hosting large-scale research and implementation initiatives addressing open approaches to knowledge dissemination. There has been a focus on open access and open educational resources (OER) but also on open data and open scholarship in general. In conducting this work, the unit has established specialised expertise in designing and conducting open education research, as well as in overseeing and undertaking a wide range of technical implementation initiatives.
The work has been supported by grant funders such as the IDRC and the Andrew Mellon Foundation and in collaboration with various parties such as UCT Libraries and the Open Air Project / the UCT IP Law Unit.
CILT plays an ongoing role in advocacy work, engaging institutional managers and policy-makers at UCT and other institutions in higher education as well as in government to promote a deeper understanding of open education policy issues in the South African context.
CILT was the primary intermediary in establishing UCT’s membership of the Open Education Consortium, a non-profit, global, member-based network of open education institutions and organisations which provides advocacy and leadership around the advancement of open education. The Director of CILT has been a member of the OEC Board from 2017 to 2019.
The unit hosts visitors, presents seminars and runs workshops on open education, OER, open education practices, open scholarship, as well as copyright and open licensing. It also provides support and advice to individual academics interested in pursuing more open approaches to knowledge-sharing.
CILT has hosted or a key partner in the following projects:
- Opening Scholarship (2007)
- OER UCT (2008 – 2009)
- Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) (2010 – 2014)
- OpenUCT Initiative (2011 – 2014)
- Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (2012 – 2018)
- The Vice-Chancellor’s Open Educational Resources Adaptation Project (2013 – 2016)
- Digital Open Textbooks for Development (2018 – 2020)