(African Minds, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project., 2017) Edited by Williams, Cheryl Hodgkinson; Edited Arinto, Patricia
The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project was
proposed to investigate in what ways and under what circumstances the adoption of Open
Educational Resources (OER) could address the increasing demand for accessible, relevant,
high-quality and affordable education in the Global South. The project was originally
intended to focus on post-secondary education, but the scope was expanded to include
basic education teachers and government funding when it launched in 2013. In 2014, the
research agenda was further expanded to include the potential impact of OER adoption and
associated Open Educational Practices (OEP).
ROER4D was funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the
UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Open Society Foundations
(OFS), and built upon prior research undertaken by a previous IDRC-funded initiative, the
PAN Asia Networking Distance and Open Resources Access (PANdora) project.
This chapter presents the overall context in which the ROER4D project was located
and investigated, drawing attention to the key challenges confronting education in the
Global South and citing related studies on how OER can help to address these issues. It
provides an abbreviated history of the project and a snapshot of the geographic location of
the studies it comprises, the constituent research agendas, the methodologies adopted and
the research-participant profile. It also provides an overview of the other 15 chapters in this
volume and explains the peer review process.