OPEN, READY AND AGILE: DEVELOPING A

COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY FOR THE ROER4D

PROJECT

Walji, S.;

;

© 2018, WALJI, S.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly credited.

Cette œuvre est mise à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons

Attribution (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode), qui permet

l’utilisation, la distribution et la reproduction sans restriction, pourvu que le mérite de la

création originale soit adéquatement reconnu.

IDRC Grant/ Subvention du CRDI: 107311-001-Research into Open Educational Resources for

Development

Sukaina Walji

University of Cape Town

Open Education Global Conference 2015

23 April 2015

Open, ready and agile: developing a communications

strategy for the ROER4D project

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Overview

Introduce the ROER4D project

Research communications

Developing the ROER4D research strategy

Enabling factors: Readiness, Agility & Openness

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http://oermap.org/oer-evidence-map/

Most OER research taking place in Global North

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Results um:

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in the Global South

In what ways, and under what

circumstances, can the adoption of

OER impact upon the increasing

demand for accessible, relevant,

high-quality, and affordable

education in the Global South?

Research on OER for Development

IDRC 38 CRDI E35.’-.E:;Fi9uE5:}pMg‘ V)

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Research on Open Educational Resources for Development in the Global Sou

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1. Build an empirical knowledge base on the use and impact of OER in education

2. Develop the capacity of OER researchers

3. Build a network of OER scholars

4. Communicate research to inform education policy and practice

5. Curate research documents produced and data collected as open data

ROER4D Objectives

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Factors affecting nature of research

communications

Orgs/funders keen on seeing

research impact and uptake [1]

Changes in discourses around how and what of

research communications

[2]

Increasing number of channels, media

and formats

Media and content consumption habits and

expectations of research

‘recipients’

Our work is situated in field of research

communications

[1] Doemeland D; Trevino. J. 2014. Which World Bank reports are widely read ?. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS

6851. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

[2]Lewin, T., & Patterson, Z. (2012). Approaches to Development Research Communication. IDS Bulletin, 43(5), 38-44.

doi:10.1111/j.1759-5436.2012.00361.x

A need for an informed and deliberate approach to

communicating research about OER

Communicate OER research in Global South

• Northern OER research has louder voice

• People unaware of what is happening in OER or open ed in developing countries

• We know more about OER activities but not enough about evidence to inform policy

Communicating to non-OER communities

• The “iceberg model” of OER engagement (Weller, 2014)[1]

• Communicating to constituencies for whom OER is not a primary activity but a means to an end or a happy by-product

[1] http://blog.edtechie.net/oer/the-iceberg-model-of-oer-engagement/

An IDRC funded research

project to build and mentor

Communication and

Evaluation for IDRC flagship

projects

http://evaluationandcommunicationin

practice.ca/

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ROER4D Communication and Evaluation supported by DECI-2

Ricardo Ramirez

Dal Brodhead

Wendy Quarry(IDRC DECI-2 Project)

Julius Nyangaga

(Kenya)

Charles Dhewa

(Zimbabwe)

Sarah Goodier

(Evaluation)

Sukaina Walji

(Communication)

(South Africa)

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Steps in the DECI-2 Research Communications process

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1. ASSESSING

PROGRAM 3. PURPOSES

READINESS

2. SITUATIONAL

ANALYSIS

5. METHODS 8. 4. AUDIENCES

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COMMUNICATION COMMUNICATION

OBJECTIVES STRATEGY DESIGN

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Progression through the process

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The steps

are

iterative,

not linear

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1. ASSESSING

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READINESS

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Developing the communications strategy

Developing a communications strategy with DECI-2 team at Feb 2014 workshop

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Defining purposes, objectives, methods and media

Purpose

Media

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Four key purposes for ROER4D Communications

1. Visibility for project

2. Knowledge generation

3. Networking

4. Research capacity development

These have informed our

communications activities

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Project

events

Resources

SlideShare

Blog Twitter

Facebook Page

CMS (Vula)

Website

Email

Virtual meetings

(Skype, Adobe

Connect)

Internal communications External communications

Conferences

ROER4D Communications overview

OpenUCT

repositoryNewsletter

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Tweets per week

Average: 7.75 tweets per week

Data downloaded from Twitter Analytics; analysis conducted in Excel: grouped

individual tweets into tweets per week

Number of tweets per week

2.3.2

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2::22

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22..:2..

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222:2

Tweets per week

Average: 7.75 tweets per week

GO-GN and

OCWC, Slovenia

(end April 2014)

GO-GN and

OpenEd,

USA (end

November

2014)OER Asia

Symposiu

m,

Penang

(end June

2014)

UCT T&L

Conf. (20

Oct 2014)

Number of tweets per week

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222:2222.2

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32:2

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2.2:22

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2::22

22.2.2.22.22:22

2.25.2

22..:2..

$23.2

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22:22

222:2

Activity around tweets (per week)

A

....;§._§..

Activity around tweets (per week)

GO-GN and

OCWC, Slovenia

(end April 2014)

GO-GN and

OpenEd, USA

(end November

2014)OER Asia

Symposium

, Penang

(end June

2014)

A

....;§._§..

Activity around tweets (per week)

GO-GN and

OCWC, Slovenia

(end April 2014)

GO-GN and

OpenEd, USA

(end November

2014)OER Asia

Symposium

, Penang

(end June

2014)

Recommendation:

Continue tweeting around events as this draws higher levels of engagement

A

....;§._§..

“ROER4D” search: replies and mentions(at 2 March)

Going to track over time

Data fetched from Twitter’s API via NodeXL; Frucherman-Reingo algorithm

graph constructed in NodeXL

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“ROER4D” search: replies and mentions(at 2 March)

Going to track over time

Data fetched from Twitter’s API via NodeXL; graph constructed in NodeXL

Recommendation:

Pick up conversations with key people identified from these snapshots

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Enabling factors for research communications

Readiness

Agility

Openness

IDRC 38 CRDI E35.’-.E:;Fi9uE5:}pMg‘ V)

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Readiness

The DECI-2 approach specified organisational readiness as key to starting a

Communications (and Evaluation)

Staff: skills and attitudes (not all researchers want to communicate!)

Time and resources

Enabling environment, management support

But too many unknowns to be really ready.

We need to be “ready to be un-ready”

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Agility

What is agile?

“successive approximation aka iterative development is central to agile

methodology. It’s how you proactively gather feedback…so you can further

improve”

Examples

• Rapid and incremental re-design of website and information design of

pages - ongoing

• Audience analysis – newsletter as well as social media

• Amending objectives as new information comes to light

• Responding to evaluation data and making changes

Why does agile feel natural?

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Conceptual Framework/s

Methods

Instrument questions

Data

Analysis tools

Findings

Proposal

Literature

Review

Open

Research

process

Openness and open research

http://tinyurl.com/

ROER4D-

Bibliography

IDRC 38 CRDI E35.’-.E:;Fi9uE5:}pMg‘ V)

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Enabling principles for research communications

Openness

Agility

Readiness

IDRC 38 CRDI E35.’-.E:;Fi9uE5:}pMg‘ V)

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Thank you!Questions?

Comments?

Links

Website: www.roer4d.org

Contact Author

sukaina.walji@uct.ac.za

Follow us: http://twitter.com/roer4D

Presentations: www.slideshare.com/roer4D

IDRC 38 CRDI E35.’-.E:;Fi9uE5:}pMg‘ V)

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Acknowledgments & Attribution

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Written by Sukaina WaljiWith acknowledgement to Cheryl

Hodgkinson-Williams and Sarah GoodierContact:

Sukaina.Walji@uct.ac.za

IDRC 38 CRDI E35.’-.E:;Fi9uE5:}pMg‘ V)

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