This guide is part of the supporting mechanism to create an Open Educational Resource (OER) that illustrates the working environment of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) Library. The OER itself was created as a website. The OER forms part of a UNESCO grant-funded project facilitated by the South African Centre for Digital Languages Resources (SADiLaR) located at North-West University (NWU). 

This project concept grew out of the UWC Work Integrated Learning (WIL) programme hosted by the UWC Library. The WIL programme exposes final year undergraduate Library and Information Science (LIS) students to a working library in a field-work exercise. The UWC Library offers LIS WIL students three to four weeks of experience of what working in an university library entails.  

A survey of OERs revealed this concept was unique and may be useful to other institutions, as well as students. It was considered appropriate to develop a document that detailed the library’s working environment more comprehensively. This way WIL participants could have a reference to refer to. Participation in the project required the team to attend workshops on the development of OERs. The development of and decision-making regarding the project included various aspects covered during the workshops. The workshops included discussions on open OER's, finding and evaluating and repurposing OERs. Further sessions included copyright and intellectual property, evaluation, localisation, multi-lingualism and quality assurance of the OER. The OER sessions also covered the selection of an appropriate platform, Creative Commons Licenses and research into the development of an OER. One of the key decisions prior to publication is the final location of the OER which will facilitate long-term access to an online multi format site.

The task team reviewed OER literature and OER repositories and found this topic to be unique and had to be developed from scratch. Students who participated in the previous Work Integrated Learning programme were requested to provide input and feedback into the development of the project. The medium of instruction at the university if English, however plans are underway to translate the final product into at least two more local languages. Google sites was selected as a flexible and accessible platform to publish and distribute the OER. The platform also allowed the task team to work collaboratively to develop the OER. 

Students participating in a WIL programme at UWC are encouraged to take the Self-Assessment Quiz after reviewing this site. 

Reviewers are also encouraged to provide feedback on the content, coverage and structure of this OER as well as provide general comments on the Feedback & Review Form as well.