The UCT Open Textbook Award aims to incentivise innovation in teaching and learning, recognise the efforts of open textbook authors, and promote the creation and reuse of open educational resources.
Dr Jonathan Shock, a Senior Lecturer in mathematics at UCT, is developing a mathematics open textbook for first-year students tailored to the local context in collaboration with students and colleagues.
Associate Professor Maria Keet has collaborated with colleagues and students at UCT to develop the world's first dynamic, online open textbook on ontology engineering for computer scientists.
Stella Papanicolaou, Valerie Lehabe and Maashitoh Rawoot are developing an architecture open textbook that makes historical narratives and technological developments of modern buildings in the global south more visible and accessible.
Kensleyrao Apajee is a Senior Tutor in the first-year Engineering Drawing course who is developing an open textbook to make his subject more accessible and bridge the knowledge gaps that exist between school and university.
In order to address the issue of institutional support for open textbook publishing, surface current models of open textbook production and contribute towards the development of a community of practice, the DOT4D project hosted the UCT Open Textbook Conversation event on 2 August 2019.
The DOT4D team travelled to Galway, Ireland, in April 2019 to take part in the OER19 conference and participate in a workshop with collaborators in the South Africa – Sweden University Forum (SASUF).
Students at the University of Cape Town, and at all other South African higher education institutions, navigate an array of challenges in their daily struggle to obtain an education. Not least amongst these is rising costs – not just of tuition, but of all the ancillary aspects entailed in being at a university. In recognition of these challenges, the theme of this year’s Open Education Week seminar at UCT was “Open education and social justice: Towards equitable access through participation”.
Through engaging student communities and using the #mytextbookscost hashtag in a social media conversation, DOT4D hopes to give voice to those at UCT and beyond who are frustrated with the rising cost of university textbooks in South Africa.