Open Education Resources in Health: Perspectives from Eastern Africa

1
Open Education Resources in Health Perspectives
from Eastern Africa
Prof. David Serwadda Dean Makerere
University School of Public Health
2
Outline of Presentation

• The human resource gap in Africa
• Rising demand for Public health Training
• Common Health Problems in Eastern Africa
• From Shared Curricula to shared content
• Benefits of Open Access Resources
• Contribution of MUSPH to open resources
• Benefits to MUSPH
• The way forward

3
Lack of human resources

• The current health worker population ratio is the
  lowest in the world
• Brain drain of highly qualified workers seeking
  better working conditions

4
(No Transcript)
5
Background

• In 1994, MUSPH expanded its mandate to provide
  quality public health training
• The MPH Programme was developed in response to
  the growing demand for health care managers

• Makerere University School of Public Health

6
MPH Full time Program Trends in intake
7
Demand For Distance Education
8
Advantages of the Distance Education Program

• Demand for distance education far exceeds the
  fulltime programme
• Now able to admit larger numbers of students
• It has allowed us to better utilize the limited
  space and staff

9
Opportunities from Distance Education

• Distance Education provides an opportunity for
  individuals to study while working
• Distance Students develop skills for Life Long
  Learning

10
Challenges in Distance Learning

• Reference materials (textbooks, journals,
  articles) too costly for students
• It requires a high investment in learning
  materials

11
Possible Solutions

• Increase access to free and open courseware
• Improve students support through use of e-learning

12
Collaboration to develop training programmes

• The Major Health problems in East Africa are
  similar
• The demand for quality public health training
  exceeds our capacity for intake

13
Malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS

• Malaria
• Endemic with 12 million cases/year
• Leading cause of mortality and morbidity of
  children lt 5 years
• TB
• One of highest TB burdens
• HIV/AIDS
• 8 sero-prevalence
• 1.5 people living with HIV
• 60 adult deaths attributed to HIV/AIDS
• 1 million children orphaned by AIDS

14
Newer epidemics

• Avian flu has spanned three continents and Africa
  has been one of them
• Increased national and international mobility is
  enhancing the spread of many pathogens
• Haemorrhagic Fevers, Ebola, Marburg,..

15
Non-communicable diseases

• Increased rates of diseases of lifestyle
  Diabetes, hypertension
• Increased longevity rate results in higher rates
  of disabilities associated with aging.
• Cancers in both children and adults

16
Co-curriculum Development

• At least 5 Schools in the region share a similar
  MPH curriculum
• Initial focus of collaboration between
  institutions was on curriculum development
• Partnerships have been forged to facilitate
  development of quality programmes

17
Examples of Networks in the Africa Region

• TEPHINET and AFENET
• The AFRICOMNET Network
• The AFRIHEALTH Project
• The Co-curriculum Development Project (CCD)
• The LIPHEA Network
• All involved in co-curriculum development

18
Genesis of the Open Education Resources in
Eastern Africa

• In order to remain relevant, collaborations
  needed to move a step beyond development of
  programmes
• Analysis of Public Health Training Programmes in
  over 7 Institutions in Africa shows that they
  share at least 5 core courses

19
Justification for Shared Resources

• Key questions
• Since health problems are shared, why should the
  courses be taught differently across countries?
• Since the curricula are similar, isnt the
  content similar?
• If the content is similar, why should it be
  developed discretely and differently between
  institutions?

20
Why Share Resources?

• Not all the Schools have the required number and
  expertise of faculty to develop courses
• The average cost of developing content for one
  course on our MPH Distance Programme is at least
  5000 US Dollars

21
Why Share Resources?

• There is a shortage of reference materials that
  can be used in developing content
• Reference materials are expensive and
  institutions cannot afford to buy the latest
  editions of textbooks and journals

22
Why Share Resources?

• Training institutions are therefore only able to
  purchase a few titles and for a limited number of
  students
• All this strengthens the case for sharing
  education resources

23
Opportunities

• Analysis of the teaching habits of instructors
  shows that they tend to recycle the same content
  every year
• OER can help update content?

24
Benefits of Open Course Ware

• Provides a wider range of teaching resources
• Provides an opportunity for improving the
  available learning objects though peer review
• Reduces the costs of materials development

25
Benefits of Open Course Ware

• Reduces the costs of procurement of expensive
  reference materials
• Frees up instructors time to concentrate on
  research and students support
• Promotes better instruction through the use of
  high impact learning objects

26
Contribution of MUSPH

• Under AFENET, co-development of several shared
  teaching resources for field epidemiology
  training
• Collaborating with 7 Public Health Institutions
  in East Africa in developing leadership training

27
Contribution of MUSPH

• Collaboration with TUFTS MUSPH has uploaded
  content for 5 core courses to be shared with
  partner institutions
• With the AFRICOM Network Participated in
  development of 5 short courses on health
  communication

28
How have we benefited?

• Our students have accessed the shared content
  from TUFTS University and partner institutions
• We use several case studies developed by the CDC
  for teaching Epidemiology
• We have made a shortlist of some OCW Sites and
  distributed them students
• Many readers for our Distance Students are
  generated from Open Course Ware

29
How have we benefited?

• With support from LIPHEA and Tulane University,
  several Faculty have been trained in Technology
  supported instruction

30
Our Challenge

• Our contribution to the volume of available open
  course ware is still inadequate
• The content on many open courseware sites is not
  of adequate quality
• - committed leadership within Institution
• Increase awareness / Marketing
• Infrastructure, ICT

31
Way forward

• Need to increase the volume of shared content
• Collaboration to develop high impact re-usable
  learning objects
• Better mechanisms for knowledge management

32
Food for Thought

• Every year, we generate over 300 short study
  reports and 50 Dissertations from students can
  these be shared?

33
End!

• We owe advances in Science to those who
  endeavour to find-out and share what there is of
  everything Physicist James Maxwell (1831-1879)