Or: Building a ‘New Generation University’ Dick Heller John Sandars

1. Developing a People's Open Access University of Health: overcoming the digital divide with a web 2.0 approach • Or: Building a ‘New Generation University’ • Dick Heller • John Sandars • TENCompetence Open Workshop, January 11th, 2007

2. Background • UK Universities charge high overseas student fees, which limits their ability to contribute to capacity building in low- to middle-income countries • Increasing amounts of open source educational material, as well as delivery mechanisms, are available through the Internet

3. So: • How about we try to make open source materials available, guide students through them and assess achieved competencies? • And do this outside the traditional university system? • Hence the idea for a ‘Peoples’ Open Access University’ or: ‘New Generation University’

4. Inspirations • Free and open source software (FOSS) • Open Educational Resources (OER) – ‘digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners…. universal educational resource available for the whole of humanity’ • Learning Content: • Tools: Software to support the development, use, re-use and delivery of learning content…. • Implementation Resources: Intellectual property licenses to promote open publishing of materials, design principles of best practice, and localization of content. • http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=Main_Page • Personal experience

5. What do we need? • Educational materials • Delivery mechanism (ICT and tutors) • Accreditation of learned competencies • thus develop an educational context around FOSS and OERs (a New Generation University)

6. Who will do the teaching? • UK/US universities (who would donate some of their courses) • Local universities • Volunteers • Emigrants who want to ‘give something back’ • Retired academics • Graduates of the New Generation University

7. Where to start? • Public Health problems abound in many developing countries, and capacity to deal with them is limited • MPH courses, where they exist, are heavily oversubscribed in many developing countries

8. Some examples of available resources • Universities: • http://ocw.jhsph.edu/ • http://ocw.tufts.edu/Schools/1 • http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=48 • Other organisations: • http://www.uic.edu/sph/prepare/ • http://phpartners.org/tutorial/04-ebph/index.html • Volunteers: • http://www.globalhealth-ec.org/ • http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/

9. Examples of published Public Health competencies • Australia • http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/pht/pages/competency.html • http://www.phlr.anaphi.unsw.edu.au/comp/comp.htm • Canada • http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/php-psp/core_competencies_for_ph_index_e.html • US • http://www.phf.org/Link.htm • UK • http://www.fphm.org.uk/training/curriculum/learning_outcomes_framework/default.asp

10. Where do Web 2.0 and Education 3.0 come in? • Web 2.0, refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Internet based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users • Education 1.0 – largely one-way process • Education 2.0 – uses web 2.0 technology, but education itself is not transformed • Education 3.0 - cross-institutional, cross-cultural educational opportunities within which the learners themselves play a key role as creators of knowledge which is shared (Keats:http://elearn.uwc.ac.za/usrfiles/content/fsoftelearn/documents/education-3.0-V3.pdf)

11. ‘In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter’ ‘And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.’ Now might be the time

12. Progress to date • An on-line discussion has taken place, hosted by CAWD (a charity aiming to increase availability of education through ICT for rural Nigeria) • The key messages were: • Any development must strengthen and not compete with local universities • Education must be both credible and affordable • There are likely to be country-specific solutions • Four working parties are planned

13. Planned next steps • 1. Situation analysis working party. Perform and collect situation analyses in different countries and settings. A draft questionnaire to guide these analyses has been prepared. • 2. OER working party. Take one potential course module, list the competencies required, identify the on-line resources which are currently available to meet these competencies, see whether they are peer-reviewed, and thus determine the needs for future development. This can then act as an example of what a single course module might look like. • 3. Accreditation working party. Identify possible accreditation mechanisms, how will it work and who might offer the accreditation. • 4. ICT working party. Identify possible systems for course delivery and registration (is Moodle enough?) and for managed and personal learning environments (MLE, PLE).

14. Help and advice • In order for this to progress, much work remains • In the spirit of Web 2.0 and Education 3.0, we wish to keep the process open and collaborative • Help, advice, contributions to the working parties or any other aspect of the development are welcomed