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

In order to obtain a fair ‘OER picture’ for the Global South a large-scale study has been carried out for a seriesof countries, including Kenya. In this paper we report on the Kenya study, run at four universities that havebeen selected with randomly sampled students and lecturers. Empirical data have been generated by theuse of a student and a lecturer questionnaire to which in total 798 students and 43 lecturers have responded.Selected from the very rich source two major outcomes are: (i) there is a significant digital differentiation amonglecturers and students at urban versus rural 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 actualprocessing by respondents of educational resources (not necessarily open) a ‘preparedness for openness’ canbe derived that promises well for the future.