On the 8th of July, a workshop on “Promoting the Use and Creation OpenCourseWare in Rwanda” was held at the National Curriculum Development Center in Kigali. The Rwandan Ministry of Education, OLE Rwanda and the OpenCourseWare Consortium co-hosted the event.
After opening remarks by Dr. Niwagaba Alfred, Director of Policy, Research and Planning for the Ministry of Education, Meena Hwang of the OpenCourseWare Consortium gave an introductory talk on the nature of OpenCourseWare. The talk focused on the utilization of materials and key considerations for online sharing. The presentation introduced different types of OCW projects and discussed the benefits of using Creative Commons for academic work.
A heated discussion followed on the why and how of “open.” Much concern was voiced regarding the need to develop content relevant to Rwandan classrooms and the need for access not only to course content, but also to scholarly journals. We all agreed that there were many factors to consider when trying to “open up” our classrooms. The discussion on opening and sharing content led to a broader discussion of how we might teach our students to respect intellectual property and how we can assist the faculty to use ICT more wisely and effectively in the classroom. Many of those present offered significant insight, and we came to see that transparency and openness in the classroom could not happen without a concurrent effort to improve the fundamentals of our teaching and learning practices.
Jacques Murinda of OLE Rwanda spoke about constructing a mirror site using an external hard disk drive that had all the course content from MIT OCW. Many showed an interest in setting up their own mirror sites for use by the students of Rwanda. Presentations from the two speakers from the National University of Rwanda again made us see that we have common concerns when it comes to improving the quality of education. Bizimana Muhebera, Director of Libraries, spoke on the library’s effort to utilize open contents, and Gilbert Munyemana, Deputy Director of the Center for Instructional Technology, addressed the challenges to and current status of ICT use in classrooms. He also spoke about the prerequisites for opening and sharing; everyone empathized with his points.
Dr. Youngsup Kim of Handong Global University talked about the UNESCO-UNITWIN project and asked the participants to submit proposals. Reymonds Mwesigye and Ildephonse Bikino of Rwanda Education Commons presented their project to make a repository for open contents. All presentations and discussions demonstrated very high awareness and interest in the practice of sharing.
The workshop maintained a high energy level throughout the day. As people were parting, there were many promises to work together to broaden access to education for all. We hope to host this workshop again next year, and when we do, we hope to see many more people using and creating OCW. If you are interested in taking part in this, or similar conversations, please let us know. We are “open” to talking with more people.