Open Scholarship research began in CILT in 2007. Initial projects funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation looked at case studies in the sharing of teaching materials. This pioneering work led to CILT receiving funding from the Mellon Foundation to create a portal or directory for sharing open education resources (teaching materials of any kind, available online and openly licensed).
UCT’s first open content directory, OpenContent, was developed from this Mellon grant. The purpose of the initial directory was to provide a place for UCT academics to share OER. That same OER is now shared in the new OpenUCT repository (http://open.uct.ac.za/), launched in June 2014 and managed by the UCT Library. Contribution to the UCT OC directory is voluntary.
The University of Cape Town is a member of the Open Education consortium, an international consortium with around 300 universities that also make their teaching materials openly available for sharing (https://www.oeconsortium.org/).
Research:
CILT hosted the Research for Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project, an international research project studying OER adoption involving over 100 researchers across the Global South. More information about the project is available at the project website (http://www.roer4d.org) and on this website (http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/cilt/special-projects#roer4d).
In July 2018, CILT launched a new project called the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) project (http://www.cilt.uct.ac.za/cilt/dot4d). This project has a large research component, as well as supporting academics who wish to create and share open textbooks through technical and publishing advice, as well as a number of small developmental grants.
Workshops and presentations:
CILT also runs introductory or advanced workshops on Open education, open education resources,open education practices, open scholarship, copyright and open licensing specifically Creative Commons.
Advice and support:
We are also available for any support and advice on open licensing and open education on a one-to-one basis or small group basis. For more information, please contact Glenda Cox at: Glenda.cox@uct.ac.za