Towards Sustainable Open Educational Practices: The NWU OER Fellows as a Case Study

In order to create an enabling environment for widespread uptake of open educational resources (OERs) at a South African university, it was decided to establish an OER Fellowship Programme. This programme was designed to empower lecturers in order to adapt or create OERs for their classrooms and do research about the process. For the sake of effective implementation and learning with OERs, this paper proposes that lecturers should become self-directed in terms of the learning of aspects required for successful open education. Under this OER Fellowship programme pedagogical and technical support was provided to the fellows to facilitate the process creation, adoption and adaption of OERs. The Fellowship programme also involved a research component which involved fellows researching an aspect of their choice regarding the development process or use of OERs. This research involved qualitative collection of data based on reflections by the OER Fellows as well as the facilitators of the programme. The study also provides insight into the overall process of envisioning, designing and executing the Fellowship along with the challenges encountered. The pedagogical aspects and shifts resulting by use of OERs and open pedagogy within the unique South African context will also be reported on. Finally, the affordances and future prospects of such an incentive-driven fellowship for OERs and its implications is discussed.