Advancing social justice through small grants for the development of open educational resources at the University of Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology

The Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) draftOpen Learning Policy Framework (OLPF) for Post-School Education and Training(PSET) situates the creation and sharing of open educational resources (OER) at theheart of the open learning agenda. The OLFP suggests a range of diverse fundingstrategies to support the development of OER in the PSET sector. This study aimsto explore the use of one funding strategy, namely small OER grants, at two highereducation institutions in South Africa. This case study employs a qualitative researchmethodology, and interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of OER grantmanagers and grant recipients (lecturers and support staff) at the University of CapeTown and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in order to highlight how thesesmall-scale OER grants have supported the development of OER at their respectiveinstitutions. Moving from the premise that DHET’s conception of open learning hasa social justice intent, the study uses Nancy Fraser’s (2005) theory of social justice,which includes the economic, cultural, and political dimensions of social justice, toappraise in what ways, if at all, these funding initiatives may be contributing to sociallyjust education. This study found that economic support in the form of small grantsalleviated OER development costs, although, in some instances, the funds did notcover the full costs of development. The creation of OER enabled a degree of culturalrecognition of marginalized groups through the translation and production of locallycontextualised resources. From the standpoint of political representation, most grantrecipients collaborated with students and thus, to some extent, incorporated thestudent voice into the creation of resources. The study is important in that it providesrecommendations on how DHET could provide relatively modest, targeted resourcingto support OER development projects so that these resources can be re-used by otherinstitutions or as individual learners.