Instruction for metacognition in science classrooms: Harsh realities and a way forward?

The development and enhancement of science students' metacognition should be an important goal of science education. The extent to which it is, however, is questionable. The explosion of science information (and misinformation) around issues such as climate change, COVID-19, the Anthropocene, and sustainability makes developing students' potentials to be aware of how to manage and monitor the quality of their science learning a priority for consideration by science educators. This is because individuals' science learning will need to continue long after they complete formal schooling. However, attempts to prioritize instruction for metacognition in science education have faltered, stagnated, and lack momentum. This chapter identifies key reasons for this situation and proposes considerations to (re)elevate instruction for metacognition into science classrooms. The considerations involve reorienting research perspectives in the field of metacognition research in science education, considering increasing attention to metacognition in pre- and in-service teacher education, being realistic about our expectations for instruction for metacognition in science learning contexts, and considering the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs) such as podcasts and websites that can be accessed across countries by pre-service and practicing teachers and teacher educators to inform them about metacognition and about instruction for metacognition. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

Teaching without PANTS! (Pandemic Accelerated, Novel Technology Symptoms): How affordable learning solutions enabled rapid response instruction

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting closures of in-person interactions required colleges and universities on a worldwide scale to rapidly establish alternative modalities of instructional delivery. Educators quickly converted courses to a digital format, and their efforts were often met with PANTS (i.e., Pandemic Accelerated, Novel Technology Symptoms). As faculty and students are burdened with PANTS, students' learning experiences may be compromised with the addition of home, health, financial, and technological stressors. Data assessing concerns pertaining to the "virtual university" transition were collected from 1,038 students at one public university in southern California. Findings indicate that students are predominantly concerned with experiencing a disconnection with their instructors, disengagement with the course material, and an increase in workload due to the online transition. Guided by Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner U, Morris PA, The bioecological model of human development. In Damon W, Lerner RM (eds) Handbook of child psychology, 6th edn. Volume one: theoretical models of human development. Wiley, pp 793-823, 2006) and Koehler and Mishra's (2009) TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) Framework, this chapter proposes strategies instructors can utilize, such as the implementation of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the strains associated with PANTS. Faculty are encouraged to "teach without PANTS," which requires recognizing the unique learning needs of a diverse body of students amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

Work in Progress: Benefits of Learning Engineering Sciences to Transition from Face-to-Face to Virtual Learning of Engineering, Technology, and Computing due to COVID-19

For equatorial African countries such as Rwanda the power grid in some regions is either absent or highly unreliable even though these locations are blessed with reliable solar radiation most of the time. Designing and implementing solar power systems capable of supporting micro-computer systems such as Raspberry Pi devices that can be used in educational environments is a way to overcome grid challenges while at the same time imparting valuable lessons covering Engineering, Technology, and Computing. Using Learning Engineering Sciences best practices effectively mitigates how COVID-19 that has required standard face-to-face project and learning strategies to transition to virtual or hybrid strategies that utilize Open Educational Resources (OER). These strategies include video conferencing, file sharing platforms, and messaging applications to generate learning activities, create courses to construct the learning program for training teachers in the use of OER and Raspberry Pi desktop devices. © 2023 IEEE.

Zoom in: Open educational resources for informal online learning during COVID-19 and beyond

Institutions, organisations, and policymakers use open educational resources (OERs) to promote student equity and social inclusion. The global COVID-19 crisis highlighted the need for lifelong learning and underscored the importance of the higher education system in this endeavour. This study describes informal learning among adults through OERs, during the COVID-19 crisis, distinguishing between employed and unemployed individuals and between professional and personal development. A questionnaire distributed during the COVID-19 lockdown focused on three themes: (1) types of OERs used for learning during this period;(2) perceived OERs' usefulness;and (3) changes in OER use due to the crisis. Our findings revealed group differences in types of OERs used and in changes brought about by COVID-19, as well as within-group differences based on personal characteristics. Only a few participants reported using massive open online courses (MOOCs). Moreover, videoconferencing usage increased despite low perceived usefulness ratings, pointing to a change in informal learning modes. This exploratory research provides insights into the preferences of individual groups. These insights may be used to reduce socioeconomic disparities, especially among those who have lost their jobs, and to develop effective models for open education. Implications for practice or policy: • Enhancing the discussions about the future of open education by reflecting a wide picture of OERs use. • Redesigning OERs for the labour market by distinguishing between employed and unemployed, and professional and personal development. • OER preferences according to personal characteristics can be used to achieve better engagement with learning. © Articles published in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) are available under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Authors retain copyright in their work and grant AJET right of first publication under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Critical multimodal literacy practices in student‐created comics

In the wake of grim events such as Russian invasion on Ukraine, Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, the death of George Floyd in America and mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, all occurring amid the pandemic of COVID‐19, it became increasingly more important to recognise literacy work that promotes a critically informed and just society. Thus, through the lens of critical literacy and intersectionality, this study sought to examine how pre‐service teachers drew on critical multimodal literacy practices to create open educational resources (OER) or openly licensed comics that motivate local, global and/or transnational literacy education. Data collection took place at a four‐year public university in Upstate New York. They included student‐created comics, student reflections, researcher's fieldnotes and course syllabus. Findings from the study reveal that the pre‐service teachers incorporated either a local, global or transnational connection to enact a social change. Further analysis shows that the OER or student‐created comics inherently involve actions which are aligned with the three principles of social justice: redistributive justice, recognitive justice and representational justice.

Virtual Services in the Health Sciences Library: A Handbook

Pope reviews Virtual Services in the Health Sciences Library: A Handbook edited by Amanda R. Scull.

Analysis on Use of Open Educational Resources during EmergencyRemote Education due to Covid-19: A Case Study in Turkey.

During the mass curfews, travel bans, school shutdowns, face-to-face education was discontinued, and many universities had to urgently switch to online education. Academics, most of whom are not familiar with digital pedagogy, had to adapt their lectures to online learning. The aim of this study is to analyze how Open Educational Resources (OERs) are used in practice during emergency remote teaching (ERT) and whether this influences the regular practice of academics on a global level and in Turkey in the longer term. Methodologically, we adopt a mixed-methods approach in two stages: (i) an empirical study conducted in Turkey to find out what prior knowledge and experience academics have with OERs and how they use OERs during ERT; (ii) a complimentary desk study on the global situation of OER use. Our results show that academics who did not know about OERs before the pandemic are still hesitant to use them, even though they have prior experience with online teaching. In addition, academics with higher rank and academics in architecture, philology, and arts have the most negative opinion about campus education being fully accessible online.

Uso de bibliotecas digitales solares para la enseñanza del cambio climático en comunidades rurales

Este artículo presenta una investigación educativa realizada con el objetivo de generar información sobre el uso de la biblioteca digital SolarSPELL, como una estrategia de innovación educativa para la enseñanza del cambio climático en comunidades rurales de las islas Fiyi. SolarSPELL funciona con la energía que generan sus paneles solares y brinda acceso a través de su propia red wifi;además, ofrece una variedad de recursos educativos abiertos, seleccionados por su potencial para fortalecer las prácticas educativas y el logro de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la Agenda 2030. Con base en la pregunta de investigación se seleccionó un estudio de caso, pues permite estudiar con intensidad un fenómeno complejo en un corto periodo de tiempo y analizar el objeto de estudio en un contexto especifico. Se aplicó el instrumento DIAPASON en las bibliotecas comunitarias o escolares que participan en el programa piloto. En los resultados se observa que la SolarSPELL coadyuva a la transformación digital de las prácticas educativas y los bibliotecarios valoran poder contar con un mayor número de recursos bibliográficos sobre el cambio climático. En la actualidad, el proyecto "Escuelas que Aprenden Post COVID-19” retomó estos resultados para realizar un piloto en comunidades rurales de Chiapas, México. En los resultados se enfatiza la necesidad de que el bibliotecario del futuro incorpore a su labor acciones enfocadas a la mejora de la calidad de la educación y que permitan potencializar el desarrollo sostenible de sus comunidades, para mejorar el conocimiento colectivo y crear conciencia sobre este fenómeno.Alternate : This article presents an educational research carried out with the aim of generating information on the use of the SolarSPELL Digital Library, as an educational innovation strategy for teaching climate change in rural communities of the Fiji Islands. SolarSPELL works with the energy generated by an integrated solar panel and provides access through its own wifi network. It offers a variety of open educational resources, selected for their potential to strengthen educational practices and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. Based on the research question, a case study was selected, as it allows intensive study a complex phenomenon in a short period of time and analyzes the object of study in a specific context. The DIAPASON instrument was applied in the community or school libraries that participate in the pilot program. The results show that SolarSPELL contributes to the digital transformation of educational practices and the value of the librarians being able to have a greater number of bibliographic resources on climate change. Currently, the project "Schools that Learn Post COVID-19" took up these results to carry out a pilot in rural communities in Chiapas, Mexico. The results emphasize the need for the librarian of the future to incorporate into their work, actions focused on improving the quality of education that allow potentiating the sustainable development of their communities, improving collective knowledge and raising awareness about this phenomenon.

On Distance Learning, Open Educational Resources, and the Role of University Libraries in These Processes

Objective. The article is aimed to improve the understanding of university communities (teachers, students, librarians) concerning the development of distance learning, open educational resources, and the new role of university libraries in these processes. Methods. The main data on the development of distance learning, OER, and increasing the role of university libraries in these processes were obtained due to the analysis of professional publications in periodicals and on the university websites of around the world, the application of methods of method of participant and non-participant observation, a description of the authors' own experience (the director of the scientific library, the associate professor of IT disciplines and the heads of the scientific library departments) who work at the Ukrainian State University of Science and Technology (Dnipro, Ukraine). Results. It has been established that the implementation of distance learning systems, the use and availability of open (preferably free) information sources on open access platforms or open educational resources (OER), exchange of scientific research in the digital scientific space, etc. – these components are closely interconnected and used among teachers, scientists, students. Distance education requires inclusion in the processes of both teachers – authors of open educational resources, and employees of certain services providing information and IT support for both teachers and the resources created by them. Such structures are university libraries, which were among the first to support the philosophy of openness and to join the processes of supporting open access, open science, and open education based on intellectual information systems and technologies. The experience of the scientific library of USUST is considered – a structure that enables online access to text and non-text OER as a necessary element while ensuring limited personal interaction between a teacher and a student. Conclusions. Today, during the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the foundations are being actively laid to make the provision of educational services at universities, in particular distance education, dynamic and multidimensional. It is necessary to integrate electronic library resources with distance learning platforms to ensure unhindered access for students and teachers. © T. O. Kolesnykova, O. V. Gorbova, T. G. Shcherbatiuk, 2022.

European Practices of Overcoming Language Barriers in Times of Crisis: Open Educational Resources

Objective. In any given country, the national language and education not only help to impart knowledge but also broaden the horizons of students, teaching them to be more tolerant of different cultures. Today, the Ukrainian language as an important component of national identity and state building is one of the main goals of Russia in its war against Ukraine. That is why one of the main challenges for higher education in Ukraine during wartime is to create modern and high-quality educational materials in the national language as quickly as possible, in order to facilitate remote teaching, learning and research processes at universities. The mechanism for responding to this challenge is to turn to the experience of creating, adapting and using Open Educational Resources (OER) in Europe and the rest of the world. The aim of the study is to consider the practices of creating, adapting and using OER in European universities and libraries in the context of their benefits, including the possibilities of overcoming language barriers in times of crisis. Methods. This article is based on the analysis of the literature on OER practices in facilitating the overcoming of language barriers, on the activities of ENOEL, on the practices of librarians and educationalists of several European universities, as well as on self-reflection and direct experience of the circumstances of the war by Ukrainian librarians, who continue information support of the educational process. Results. The theoretical aspects and implemented practical solutions demonstrate that OER can be an effective solution in times of crisis (whether a pandemic or a war) to the issue of quality information support of distance education with materials in the national language in any country in Europe and the world. In the context of higher education in Ukraine, OER is a means and one of the methods of overcoming linguocide by the Russian Federation – the purposeful destruction of the Ukrainian language as the main feature of the ethnic group. The experience of working with OER of the USUST Scientific Library (Dnipro, Ukraine) is the story of a library that was looking for opportunities to answer its local challenges and resolve problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, and found solutions that became necessary during the war with Russia. Conclusions. The authors hope that Ukrainian-language OER will soon become a mandatory element in the cultural environment of Ukrainian universities. And it is OER that can help overcome Ukrainian linguocide in educational resources. The experience of librarians of the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL) proves that one of the most important roles in this is played by university librarians. © T. O. Kolesnykova, P. Corti, M. Buist-Zhuk, 2022.

Post-pandemic digital writing instruction will be Resilient, Open, and Inclusive

During the pandemic three widespread shifts in teaching cultures affected digital writing pedagogies: resilient teaching, open teaching, and inclusive teaching. Resilient teaching design emerged as a strategy to counter the unpredictability of public health policies on class delivery modes, and emphasised designing for maximising student interactions as a response. Open teaching started as a response to a lack of access to textbooks and evolved to transform functions normally reserved for teaching into learning activities. In addition, inclusive teaching practices, developed as a response to racial and social injustices, resulted in deliberate emphasis on class structure to incorporate all students. Although seemingly disparate and disconnected from the issues of technology that normally influence the teaching of digital writing, each shift focused on student needs and predict a future for digital writing pedagogy. Practitioner Notes 1. Resilient teaching design, or the development of alternative delivery modes as a contingency, provides the best insurance against destabilisation and can provide teachers peace of mind when faced with the prospect of temporary or long-term classroom disruptions, ranging from network outages, to inclement weather, to public health emergencies. 2. Open Educational Resources are helpful for increasing student access to textbooks and course materials, and also increase students' abilities to learn through disruptions. 3. Open Educational Practices are premised on de-centering the classroom, providing teachers of digital writing the ability to share with students many classroom functions traditionally reserved for faculty alone, including content invention, teaching, and assessment. 4. Inclusive teaching is premised upon enabling all students to find success in any course by increasing the structure of learning experiences: faculty can lower the amount and complexity of pre-class readings, state specific objectives for all in-class exercises, and ensure that post-class work explicitly reinforces learning objectives. 5. Examine educational technology for use of AI, especially in testing or assessment applications, as these tools tend to replicate racist assumptions in their databases. © 2023, University of Wollongong. All rights reserved.

Using Educational Robotics in Pre-Service Teacher Training: Orchestration between an Exploration Guide and Teacher Role

The proper integration of technology in teaching and learning processes must consider the role of teachers and students, as well as the design of tasks and the context in which they are implemented. Teachers' perceived self-efficacy significantly influences their willingness to integrate educational robotics (ER) into their practice, so initial teacher training should provide opportunities for teachers to participate in structured activities that integrate ER. In this study, a class of pre-service teachers from an initial teacher training programme were provided with their first contact with an ER platform through the use of a simulator. We present the design process of a student exploration guide and teacher guide, developed over three iterative cycles of implementation, assessment and redesign. The analysis of the data collected allowed for improvements in the design of the tasks, the graphic component of the student exploration guide, and more precise indications for the teacher's actions. The main contribution of this study is the chain orchestration between the simulator, student exploration guide and teacher guide, which allowed pre-service teachers to solve a set of challenges of increasing complexity, thereby progressively decreasing their difficulties and contributing to an adequate integration of ER in their future teaching practices.

Formation and Use of Open Access Resources in University Libraries during the Pandemic and Martial Law in Ukraine

Objective. The research is aimed at revealing the repository as an important tool for storing and promoting open access resources and open educational resources (OER) as a component of open access resources, and the role of the library in these processes. Methods. To achieve the purpose of the research, a complex of scientific methods was applied, including analysis and synthesis, comparison, statistical method and direct study of practical experience through the analysis of library reports. Results. During the research it was summarized the information about open access resources, in particular OER;examples of the national policy of forming repositories were considered;the experience of the formation and use of institutional repositories in the technical universities of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv was studied;the foreign experience of creating and functioning of repositories of the information-library profile was considered. Conclusions. The further direction of the university library in the promotion of the OER initiative is substantiated, namely, convergence of library activities with educational activities in the aspect of creating, planning, and organizing access to open educational electronic resources. © H. V. Shemaieva, T. M. Kostyrko, 2022.

Teaching the Simple Network Management Protocol Using the Packet Tracer Anywhere Network Simulator

The new reality of the coronavirus lockdown has prohibited the students' physical presence in laboratories. Administrators, teachers, and students had to think of new alternatives to hold meetings by adopting a virtual format through the development of rapidly available and broadly accessible online resources. Online Open Educational Resources (OERs) can be used in the form of cloud applications to virtualize computers or other physical sciences laboratories, which are necessary for the realization of the objectives of the courses. OERs can efficiently and effectively prepare students to be able to practice their skills. In parallel, OERs offer a degree of flexibility to the teachers, as they allow them to manage information in multiple ways and at the same time accommodate the presentation of knowledge from multiple perspectives. In this article, we propose the use of computer network simulation software as a teaching method in the form of OERs. In this context, we support the teaching of the administrative perspective of a computer network management course utilizing OERs. We explore the effectiveness of the network simulation software Packet Tracer anywhere in online learning of both synchronous and asynchronous education environments. In particular, we examine its suitability and usability in light of group activities at the level of higher education. We investigate its functionality and the teaching benefits that arise through collaborative learning scenarios in a computer lab suitable for the course of network management. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Perceived usefulness of open educational resources: Impact of switching to online learning for face-to-face and distance learners.

This paper reports a study on the perceived usefulness of university students on open educational resources (OER) in relation to the switch of learning mode to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants involved two groups of students, one studying in a face-to-face mode and the other in a distance learning mode. They took part in a survey which was conducted in 2019 before the pandemic (with a total of 912 responses) and 2021 during the pandemic (with a total of 1,018 responses). The results show that both groups of students generally perceived OER to be more useful during the pandemic. The specific types of OER which were perceived as relatively more useful include open online courses and open access textbooks. Face-to-face students showed a higher level of perceived usefulness of OER for preparing tests and examinations, while distance learning students perceived OER as more useful for supplementing course materials. They both concerned about the limitations of OER, especially on accuracy and comprehensiveness. The findings suggest the importance of recognizing the diverse needs of the two groups of students and offering appropriate OER support for them.

Digital educational resources as support tools for teaching general pathology in undergraduate health courses / Recursos educativos digitales como herramientas de apoyo para la enseñanza de patología general en cursos de pregrado del área de la salud

Los recursos educativos digitales se han transformado en un importante material de apoyo al proceso de enseñanza- aprendizaje, especialmente durante la pandemia por COVID-19. Estos corresponden a recursos de autoaprendizaje, generalmente en línea y de dominio público cuya disponibilidad inmediata a todo tipo de dispositivos electrónicos permite una rápida interacción del estudiante con materiales didácticos programados. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar el grado de satisfacción de cinco recursos educativos digitales, desarrollados como herramientas de apoyo para la enseñanza de la patología general, en estudiantes de carreras de pregrado del área de la salud de la Universidad Austral de Chile. Estudio descriptivo y exploratorio. Se desarrollaron cinco recursos educativos digitales donde se visualizan imágenes microscópicas correspondientes a procesos patológicos ocurridos en diferentes tejidos. Estos recursos fueron alojados en repositorios de la universidad y se encuentran actualmente disponibles en el canal de YouTube. Para conocer el grado de satisfacción, en sus aspectos pedagógicos y técnicos, se realizó una encuesta digital, anónima y voluntaria a estudiantes que cursaron asignaturas de patología, la que contempló cuatro dominios con sus respectivas preguntas: forma; control de usuario; contenido educativo y valoración global. El 94 % de los estudiantes calificaron el recurso de excelente o muy bueno y todos los dominios obtuvieron sobre el 80 % de satisfacción. Los contenidos representan lo que el recurso dice ofrecer, ayuda a resolver dudas y facilita la comprensión de la materia. El tamaño y color del texto es el adecuado y las imágenes presentan una excelente calidad y resolución. Los recursos cumplen con una alta calidad técnica y pedagógica, que asegura un gran potencial de uso para la enseñanza de la patología general, guiar el trabajo autónomo del estudiante y las actividades prácticas con el microscopio.

SUMMARY: Digital educational resources have become an important material to support the teaching-learning process, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. These correspond to self-learning resources, generally online and the public domain, whose immediate availability to all types of electronic devices allows for rapid learner interaction with programmed didactic materials. The public domain and its immediate availability to all types of electronic devices allows a quick interaction of the student with self-explanatory didactic materials. The objective of this study was to evaluate the degree of satisfaction of five digital educational resources, developed as support tools for the teaching of general pathology, in undergraduate students of the health area of the Universidad Austral de Chile. Descriptive and exploratory study. Five digital educational resources have been developed where microscopic images corresponding to pathological processes occurring in different tissues are visualized these resources were hosted in university repositories and uploaded to the YouTube channel. To determine the degree of satisfaction, in their pedagogical and technical aspects, an anonymous and voluntary digital survey was carried out among students taking pathology courses, which included four domains with their respective questions: form; user control; educational content and overall assessment. The 94 % of the students evaluated the resource as excellent or very good and all domains obtained over 80 % satisfaction. The contents represent what the resource says it offers, helps to resolve doubts and facilitates the understanding of the subject. The size and color of the text is adequate, and the images present excellent quality and resolution. The resources developed offer a high technical and pedagogical quality, which guarantees a great potential for use in the teaching of general pathology, guiding the student's autonomous work and practical activities with the microscope.

Promoting Equity and Assuring Teaching and Learning Quality: Magisterial Lectures in a Philippine University during the COVID-19 Pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced universities to shift to online learning, one of the challenges to faculty and administrators was to provide students with high-quality, curriculum-based learning materials that could be accessed despite students' variable levels of Internet access. Part of the Ateneo de Manila University's response to this challenge is the production of the Magisterial Lectures, an Open Educational Resource (OER) series of video lectures by some of the University's most respected faculty members. The goals of this paper are to describe how the production of the lectures was guided by the principles of quality and equity, to discuss the use and reach of the lectures based on YouTube analytics and a survey of Ateneo students and teachers, and to measure the impact of the lectures on students' learning experience. We enact quality in terms of curricular alignment and high production value. Equity was achieved by making the resource available publicly, free of charge. We found that the videos reached over 350,000 viewers in 37 countries. A survey of Ateneo students and teachers, the primary beneficiaries, shows that these materials were effective educational tools. Their effectiveness is attributable to the grounding of the production in quality and equity, the teachers' careful integration of the recordings in their lessons, and the students' engagement with the lectures following their own learning preferences and strategies.

Crisis as Opportunity: Reimagining Global Learning Pathways through New Virtual Collaborations and Open Access during COVID-19

In the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 forced the suspension of most U.S. education abroad programs, study abroad students returned home, summer programs were canceled, and international educators pondered the unlikelihood of resuming fall 2020 study abroad, larger questions about the future of international education and global learning with limited student mobility weighed heavily, Dickinson and Haverford colleges in Pennsylvania and the membership of the Community-based Global Learning Collaborative started reimagining the future of global learning. What drove us was our collective commitment to building just, inclusive and sustainable communities, a spirit of collaboration and a desire to seek out future-forward and innovative opportunities for continued global learning. Around the world, xenophobia and nationalism were on the rise. One of the clearest continuous mechanisms for combating those horrors, student international mobility, would cease. It was clear that global educators had to do something, but what? This article is a case study about how we began to answer the question of what we could do. It follows the evolution of our thinking, emergent projects, lessons learned and new collaborative pathways.

Communicative Online Language Teaching in Disruptive Times: A Redesign of the Introductory Spanish Curriculum

In this article, the authors describe the redesign of a first-semester Spanish course at the United States Air Force Academy due to the COVID-19 crisis and the subsequent transition from traditional, face-to-face instruction to fully online language teaching during the fall of 2020. More than 200 learners were enrolled across 11 course sections that were taught by eight different instructors who were required to use the same syllabus, learning platforms, lesson plans, and assessments under the supervision of a course director. The developers integrated a series of pedagogical interventions--such as online integrated performance assessments, lessons and content that were infused with open-access, authentic materials, and a digital storytelling project--to ensure that students engaged in three modes of communication within a meaningful cultural context. The instruction of culture, intercultural communicative competence, and pragmatics figured predominantly into the course design, which could be replicated by instructors who wish to teach language communicatively online.

Funding Open Educational Resources in Higher Education: A South African Public Policy Perspective

The direct crediting of book allowances to student accounts was, among other reasons, underpinned by the belief that students would be able to substitute prescribed study material with online content. The article attempts to understand if the local open educational resources (OER) funding policy environment was prepared for this significant transformation. The paper applied a critical theory paradigm and a documentary research strategy to identify policy-level documents on OER funding in the South African higher education sector. Content analysis was then applied to review what they said about OER funding. These outcomes were then measured against the National Policy Development Framework 2020, which also dominated the study's conceptual framework. The study's significant findings were that the OER funding policy did not meet the policymaking principles of the framework, and this exposed Higher Education to a poorly funded OER environment. The study recommended hastening the finalization of OER policy and the flexible application of current policy terms to include OER as a fundable higher education cause.