Festival of eLearning – Call for Proposals now open

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We invite you to join our online festival taking place 9–20 July 2018. Our submission for proposals is now OPEN (Second call) and will remain open until 23 April 2018. For more information please see below. Please visit our festival website which contains further information about the theme, publication opportunities, timeline and registration information.

Festival Theme: Growing e-learning capacity together

After several decades of experience across projects rolling out educational technology it is well understood that the availability of technology is just one of several preconditions for success. Effective integration of technology to enhance learning and teaching requires the development and use of technical, organisational and pedagogical capabilities. This online festival is about the development of deep capacity for e-learning by African higher education in an increasingly networked world.

e/merge 2018 will convene a welcoming space and a diverse, dynamic community across multiple networks to discuss, debate, review, showcase and celebrate e-learning in higher education in Africa. Our focus is on e-learning in African higher education and on joining up the African and global conversations about e-learning research and practice. Presenters and workshop leaders from all continents who are working with or researching e-learning in Africa are encouraged to submit proposals. The presenters and conference interactions will be supported by a team of trained and experienced online facilitators from across Africa.

e/merge 2018 grows out of the series of e/merge online conferences in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2012, the Transform 2015 online conference and the e/merge Africa network for educational technology practitioners and researchers in African higher education which has presented regular online professional development events since 2014.

Publication Opportunities from e/merge 2018

All the e/merge 2018 presentations and papers will appear in the public online proceedings of the conference. Authors of the best presentations and papers in e/merge 2018 will be invited to submit improved versions of their papers for publication in the International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (IJEDICT). There are also likely to be other post-conference publication opportunities for e/merge 2018 authors.

Timeline
22/3/2018: Deadline for proposals (First Call)
23/4/2018: Deadline for proposals (Second Call) – extended – note new date
16/4/2018: Participant registration opens
4/5/2018: Feedback to authors and presenters
22/6/2018: Deadline for submission of papers and files for upload
22/6/2018: Unconference collaboration space opens
6/7/2018: Conference site goes live
9/7 – 20/7/2018: e/merge 2018

27 March: Research data management, publication and collaboration: Insights from the ROER4D project

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Presenters: Michelle Wilmers & Thomas King, Research on Open Educational Resources (ROER4D), University of Cape Town, South Africa

Time and Date: Tuesday 27 March 2018, 1 pm SAST

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How do researchers develop their data curation skills in order to participate in the emerging field of data management and sharing, and do so in an ethical, legal way?

In this presentation, Michelle Willmers and Thomas King from the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project will share their experiences and insights around curating and publishing data in a large-scale Global South networked project. Focusing on the increasing importance of data-sharing mandates and funder requirements around data management as well as the personal and collaborative benefits of data stewardship, the presentation will focus on practical strategies for improving data management practice in qualitative and quantitative contexts.  

The session will provide researchers with guidelines on how to undertake data management planning in the research scoping and grant proposal stages, and how to prepare data for publication and reuse.

We encourage you to engage with some of the curated resources linked to this event before the session. While the findings of the project is not the focus of discussion, these are likely to be of interest to those with a shared interest in research on OERs in the global south.

Resources:


Michelle Willmers is the Publishing & Curation Manager of the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project, a Global South networked initiative engaging over 100 researchers in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. She has a background in academic and scholarly publishing and has worked as project manager, researcher, editor and publisher in the open access, open educational resources and open data terrain since 2008.


Thomas King is the Project Curator for the Research in Open Educational Resources for Development programme. Previously, he served as the student coordinator for the Vice-Chancellor’s Open Educational Resources Adaptation project and as a Research Assistant for the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme. His primary research interests revolve around Open Educational Resources, qualitative Open Data de-identification and management, and quantifying/analysing ‘impact’ in research and education. He holds a Masters in Education, focusing on OER production and adaptation by postgraduate students at UCT.

This event has finished please see resources here

13 March: Peer-assist: Re-engineering pedagogy – New time

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Please notice we have decided to run this event again as Dr. Kellen Kiambati was unable to attend in February. Please do join us! 

Peer Assistee: Dr. Kellen Kiambati, senior lecturer, University Human Resource Development Department, Karatina University, Kenya

Peer Assist lead: Dr. Alice Barlow-Zambodla, e/merge Africa

Time and Date: Tuesday 13 March 2018 at 1 pm SAST

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Our first request for a peer assist this year comes from Dr. Kellen Kiambati, senior lecturer  at Human Resource Development Department, Karatina University in Kenya. Her challenge is about how to re-engineer pedagogy to improve the instructional abilities of teaching faculty.

As part of the peer assist process and through discussion around this the challenge presenter will gain greater insight into the challenge and how to address it. Attendees are encouraged to be active participants and to share questions of clarification, assumptions and later, possible solutions. Let us share in Kellen’s challenge and assist her towards some solutions.

Join us for this session and give Dr. Kellen Kiambati your input

About the peer assist process The peer assist process offers simple yet effective steps to a group of peers address a challenge brought by a colleague. We identify and question assumptions, then share knowledge and insights which can facilitate the development of innovative and context sensitive solutions.

 

This event has finished. To submit your own professional challenge please contact us

Dr. Kellen Kiambati holds a PhD in Business Administration with a focus in Strategic Management from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and MBA in Strategic Management from the Kenya Methodist University. She is a Strategic Management Consultant with very wide experience spanning over ten years. Currently she is a senior lecturer at Karatina University, Kenya

Dr Alice Barlow-Zambodla e/Merge Africa Network Regional Coordinator for Southern and East Africa
I have a multi-disciplinary background in Agriculture, Botany and ICTs for education resulting in lecturing and research experience totalling more than 25 years at the Universities of Transkei and Kwa-Zulu-Natal, South Africa. My more recent experiences involve working as a Programme Specialist for 7.5 years at SAIDE, an educational research and development NGO. This work involved working with various tertiary institutions on the continent focussing mainly on open and distance learning programmes,  the development and use of open education resources, ICTs for Education and development, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of educational interventions. In my capacity as a Vodacom Change the World volunteer 2014-2016  I have been working with the Buffelshoek Trust  to set up and capacitate 11 ICT Centres situated at 9 rural schools in Bushbuckridge Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa.