atingi is an example of a freely available digital learning service that aims to provide access to education and knowledge, especially for people in the Global South. The courses in the atingi content library are therefore freely accessible: ensuring open access.
You are a (potential) partner of atingi, and you would like to reuse or build upon an existing atingi course directly on atingi or other platforms? This document will guide you in the process of using Open Educational Resources (OER) and why they might be a good choice for your own e-learning production. This guide aims to provide you information on what reuse (with atingi) means and how we can assist you along the way. At the end, you will find references to other resources, which may be relevant for your e-learning production process.
At atingi, reuse involves the practice of using existing educational content, such as course materials, modules, or entire courses, in a new context or for a different purpose without significant modification. Reuse aims to leverage previously developed educational assets to save time, effort, and resources.
Reuse is always connected to the license type of the resource.
Content reuse with atingi: how can I reuse existing atingi courses/resources?
You have found content that could be beneficial to your own e-learning project? Then you can start assessing the cost-efficiency and feasibility of reusing materials.
You can assess the feasibility and options for reuse, adapt or improve, by checking the following pieces of the content and ask yourself some reflective questions.
1. Check the license (Am I allowed to reuse?)
You can check this by opening a course on atingi and read the license information in the course description.
2. Check the production (How was the resource produced and may this become a problem for
re-production? Do you have access to and knowledge of this tool?)
You can check this by opening a course on atingi and go to the “information” tab. If the course provider shared the information, you can find it under “authoring tool”. If there is no information visible, please reach out to help@atingi.org.
3. Check the content and design (Is the target group, educational level, learning duration and are the learning objectives specified and adjustable to my own purpose?)
You can check this by opening a course on atingi and read through the target group information (Who is this course for?) as well as through the duration and learning objectives. To get a better understanding of the course as a whole, it is recommended for you to actually go through the course and check the module content in detail.
4. Check the tech (Is the course mobile responsive, offline ready or ready for translation?)
You can check this by opening the website and then use the right click to “inspect” the URL you have opened. You can choose from different mobile views, to assess the mobile responsiveness.
A course can be considered offline-ready if there are little or no external links or resources used. To check this in great details, you need to open all modules of the course and go through them.
Ready for translation refers to the simple possibility of copy/pasting content to prepare it for a translation agency/tool. If you come across a lot of visual content (e.g., jpg or png) through which information is conveyed, this may be considered not ready for translation and further time, for re-creating the information, needs to be planned with.
5. Check the quality (Is the course aligned with my own quality standards, e.g., interactivity, simple language, or cultural relevance?)
You can check this by assessing your own standards against the standards you identify in a course you go through. This is a highly subjective task, which should not be underestimated.
Course development vs reusing atingi content
Please note that this guide specifically focuses on reusing existing atingi courses. Any external material reused on atingi will need to go through our Quality Assurance Process, meet atingi Quality Assurance criteria and might therefore need to be amended in order to be published on atingi. The reuse limitations described in this guide (e.g., authoring tools and types of LMS) would also apply to scenario. Therefore, if you want to reuse external material on atingi, please reach out to your account manager or help@atingi.org to know more about the different steps of a content creation partnership with atingi.
Interested in discovering what reuse service levels atingi offers? Check the following link: re-use content - atingi service levels
Interested in learning more about OERs and Open Licences? Check the following atingi course: Course: Open Educational Resources | atingi