The different faces of open in Egypt

The different faces of open in Egypt

Department

Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT)

Abstract

MOOC discourses originating from the Global North can appear potentially colonizing to educators in the Global South. Even though the initial hype around MOOCs has died down, there is still an overall belief in the liberating potential of open education which ignores the shortcomings of the practice on the ground. In this chapter, we contextualize open education from an Egyptian perspective and refer to different open educational practices we have been involved in, including the creation of Arabic content based on Western models (e.g., Edraak MOOCs, Wikipedia Arabic, and Tahrir Academy). Bali and Aboulmagd also discuss the creation of local OERs using local models, the reuse of existing English-language Global North content (e.g., MITx with AUC/AUB, translating edX content in Edraak, etc.), and participation in existing connectivist MOOCs as facilitators. These authors also describe an open project co-founded by one of the authors called “Virtually Connecting”. Importantly, this project challenges the marginalization of Global South scholars and others in education such as contingent academics, graduate students, and others. In doing so, they highlight how openness, when contextualized to different regions, can look different and have multiple faces.

Publication Date

2019

Document Type

Book Chapter

Book Title

MOOCs and Open Education Across Emerging Economies: Challenges, Successes, and Opportunities

Editors

Ke Zhang, Curtis J. Bonk, Thomas C. Reeves, and Thomas H. Reynolds

ISBN

9780367025779

Publisher

Routledge

City

New York

First Page

45

Last Page

55

Keywords

MOOCs, Open education, Open Educational Resources, Global South

Disciplines

Education

The different faces of open in Egypt

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