Differentiation in Access to, and the Use and Sharing of (Open) Educational Resources among Students and Lecturers at Technical and Comprehensive Ghanaian Universities

Abstract

This paper is the second in a series of three with a common goal to present a fair OER picture for Sub-Saharan Africa, represented by large-scale studies in three countries: Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa. This paper examines a deliberate selection of four Ghanaian universities with randomly sampled students and lecturers. Distinct questionnaires for students and the lecturers have been used, which generated a response from in total 818 students and 38 lecturers. The major outcomes based on the empirical data are: (i) there is a significant digital differentiation among lecturers and students at technical versus comprehensive universities in terms of their proficiency and internet accessibility; and (ii) the awareness and appreciation of the OER concept and open licensing is low but from the actual variety and types of processing by respondents of educational resources (not necessarily open) there is a preparedness for openness for the future.