OER Mainstreaming in Tonga

In the race towards achieving the Education 2030 agenda, open educational resources (OER) act as a key enabler for sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4). Leading to the 2014 Regional Focal Points Meeting, Commonwealth of Learning’s (COL) Focal Point for Tonga had identified top priorities for the country where COL can further support the national agenda till 2021. Based on these needs, the Strategic OER Implementation Project in Tonga was initiated by COL in response to a request by the Ministry of Education and Training (MET) of Tonga. The project aims to assist MET in (a) developing a framework for fully utilizing the new fiber optic network infrastructure to deliver online learning to Tongans distributed in the 45 islands; and (b) improve the chances of sustainable livelihoods for Tongan youth by training them in life skills tailored to higher education and employment opportunities in Australia and New Zealand. This paper details the use of the horizontal framework for OER mainstreaming and the OER mainstreaming checklist within this project. The novelty of this project is its approach to mainstreaming OER at an institution in a systemic manner. The contribution this paper makes is to provide a proven plan for sustainable OER mainstreaming in a development setting.


Résumé de l'article
In the race towards achieving the Education 2030 agenda, open educational resources (OER) act as a key enabler for sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4). Leading to the 2014 Regional Focal Points Meeting, Commonwealth of Learning's (COL) Focal Point for Tonga had identified top priorities for the country where COL can further support the national agenda till 2021. Based on these needs, the Strategic OER Implementation Project in Tonga was initiated by COL in response to a request by the Ministry of Education and Training (MET) of Tonga. The project aims to assist MET in (a) developing a framework for fully utilizing the new fiber optic network infrastructure to deliver online learning to Tongans distributed in the 45 islands; and (b) improve the chances of sustainable livelihoods for Tongan youth by training them in life skills tailored to higher education and employment opportunities in Australia and New Zealand. This paper details the use of the horizontal framework for OER mainstreaming and the OER mainstreaming checklist within this project. The novelty of this project is its approach to mainstreaming OER at an institution in a systemic manner. The contribution this paper makes is to provide a proven plan for sustainable OER mainstreaming in a development setting.

Introduction
The Kingdom of Tonga, unique among Pacific nations, never completely lost its indigenous governance. In 1845, the archipelagos of islands were united into a Polynesian kingdom, then became a constitutional monarchy in 1875, and a British protectorate in 1900. In 1970, Tonga withdrew from the protectorate and joined the Commonwealth of Nations remaining the only monarchy in the Pacific. A major political reform took place in 2010 where the King relinquished his powers and allowed the people to elect 17 representatives of the people. These representatives, in turn, select the Prime Minister. This reform was implemented in 2011 when the first Prime Minister was elected by the people.
Tonga consists of approximately 170 islands scattered across an area of the central Pacific Ocean, to the east of Fiji, although only 45 islands are inhabited (Kaitani & McMurray, 2006). The country has a population of 106,479 with a migration rate of -17.8 migrants/1000 population (Index Mundi, 2018). Tonga's economic freedom score is 63.1, which makes it the 76 th freest in 2018. It is also ranked 17 th among 43 countries in the Asia-Pacific region with an overall score above the regional and world averages (The Heritage Foundation, 2018 The TIHE is a tertiary education branch of the Ministry of Education and Training (MET) of Tonga. Its umbrella spans several programs that focus on educating students in a variety of professional aptitudes and vocations (The Tonga Institute of Higher Education, 2018). TIOE strives to provide relevant teacher education programs to contribute to producing Tongan teachers who will meet the needs and expectations of its stakeholders (Ministry of Education and Training, 2017). Based on the priorities identified, this paper details the mainstreaming of open educational resources (OER) at the TIHE and TIOE under Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Strategic OER Implementation Project in Tonga. The novelty of this project is its approach to mainstreaming OER at an institution in a systemic manner. The contribution this paper makes is to provide a proven plan for sustainable OER mainstreaming in a development setting.

Methodology
In the race towards achieving the Education 2030 agenda (UNESCO, 2015), OER act as a key enabler for sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4). The Ljubljana Action Plan defines OER as:   267 9. Mastery of learning outcomes 9.1 Are assessments correctly mapped against the learning outcomes? 9.2 Learner exceeds the requirement, meets the requirement or needs improvement?
Note. Adapted from "An empirical framework for mainstreaming OER in an academic institution," by I.S.  The activities, outputs and expected outcomes of the project are summarized in the project evaluation chart ( Table 2). The various stages of the project model that correspond to the key stakeholders are detailed in

Results
Following

Discussion
The evaluation of this project is twofold. First, the outcomes of the project are evaluated based on the project evaluation chart (  Table 2 against the results, we consider the outcomes of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this project to be successfully achieved. Second, the methodology for this project is structured around the horizontal framework for OER mainstreaming in an institution (Figure 1) and the OER mainstreaming checklist (Table 1). According to Abeywardena (2017), each process in the OER mainstreaming checklist vis-à-vis the mainstreaming tasks, need to be completed for the successful mainstreaming of OER in an institution. Table 3 summarizes the outputs of Phase 1 and 2 of the project against the mainstreaming checklist.

Identified representatives from
The aims of the project were set (a) to develop a framework for fully utilizing the new fiber optic network infrastructure enabling the delivery of online learning to Tongans distributed in the 45 islands; and (b) to improve the chances of sustainable livelihoods for Tongan youth by training them in life skills tailored to higher education and employment opportunities in Australia and New Zealand. In the short-term, four pilot OER courses on life skills were proposed to be developed and delivered online using the Moodle LMS. In the medium-term, the project builds capacity of staff to develop and deliver OER based courses online. In the long-term, the use of OER and online delivery improves access to education for Tongans and leads to sustainable livelihoods.
Representatives from academic staff, IT support, educational technology unit, library, and management participated in phase 1 and phase 2 of each stakeholder group for task teams? the project. Learners will be involved in phase 3 and phase 4. The technology infrastructure at the TIHE and TIOE is at its infancy. However, the project has prompted the need for upgrading the infrastructure and budgetary allocations for new infrastructure development based on future requirements.
IT support staff are available for basic day-to-day support. However, they had limited expertise and resources in terms of setup and support of the Moodle LMS. As an interim arrangement, Moodle support is provided by COL for a duration of two years until the infrastructure is put in place and the staff trained.
The MET is exploring the use of Moodle Cloud as a long-term solution.
The setup of an OER repository hasn't been discussed yet due to the lack of infrastructure and technical support. The OER policy draft provides guidelines for establishing QA teams within the institution. This has been initiated at TIHE and TIOE during the course development process.
The four courses were subjected to the institutional QA checks and balances prior to offering. COL's External Review Toolkit for ODL and eLearning Courses was used to quality assure the courses in terms of course planning, course information, orientation to learning, course content, multimedia, learning activities, assessment, user-friendly design, and evaluation and continuous improvement. The toolkit further covers QA aspects of OER including licensing and technology.
Staff from IT services, educational technology unit and library were trained on supporting OER based online course delivery. 9 Mastery of learning outcomes 9.1 Are assessments correctly mapped against the learning outcomes?
In the capacity building workshop conducted under phase 1, a one-hour session on outcomes based education (OBE) and assessment of learning outcomes was used to sensitize the staff on the expectations of phase 2 and phase 3. This session briefly introduced how to define interrelated learning outcomes in sub-units, units, courses, and programs followed by assessment blueprints and outcome evaluation rubrics. Further, the concept of 9.2 Learner exceeds the requirement, meets the requirement or needs improvement?
continuous quality improvement (CQI) based on achievement of learning outcomes was explained. The concepts of OBE and assessment of learning outcomes were integrated in to the course design during the course development workshop conducted under phase 2.
Achievement of learning outcomes will be assessed during the "outcomes based evaluation and CQI" workshop scheduled for June 2018 under phase 3 of the project. There will be pre and post workshop sessions conducted online where the COL expert will work with the course teams at TIHE and TIOE to formulate the CQI strategy for the institutions.
Based on the project outputs summarized in Table 3, we believe that almost all mainstreaming tasks have been addressed during phase 1 and phase 2 of the project. Once phase 3 is complete, we believe that OER will be successfully mainstreamed at the TIHE and TIOE in a sustainable manner. When the two institutions achieve sustainability, COL will exit the partnership as shown in Figure 3.
Among the challenges faced during the course development process, limited computer skills and subject matter expertise were prominent. These challenges were addressed through increased guidance and contact time from the COL expert. In terms of Moodle, the COL appointed administrator worked closely with the course development teams to setup the platform to suit their teaching needs. However, there were initial delays due to the lack of experience by teaching staff in the use of the LMS. These delays were soon addressed by establishing procedures for communication, requests, and turnaround times.

Conclusion
In 2017, the Ljubljana Action Plan identifies five main challenges to mainstreaming OER. In response, the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) recommends several concrete actions to mainstream OER. To guide the implementation of these recommendations in a practical scenario, Abeywardena (2017) proposes the horizontal framework for OER mainstreaming and the OER mainstreaming checklist. This paper details the use of the horizontal framework for OER mainstreaming and the OER mainstreaming checklist within the Strategic OER Implementation Project in Tonga. By evaluating the targets of the project against the results and by addressing almost all the mainstreaming tasks outlined in the OER mainstreaming checklist, we consider the outcomes of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of this project to be successfully achieved. The novelty of this project is its approach to mainstreaming OER at an institution in a systemic manner. The contribution this paper makes is to provide a proven plan for sustainable OER mainstreaming in a development setting.
The discussion details the findings of phase 1 and phase 2 of the project. Overall the horizontal framework for OER mainstreaming and the OER mainstreaming checklist have been proven to deliver on their aims