People's Open Access Education Initiative: the Peoples-uni
There are massive Public Health needs in developing countries. An evidence-based approach is required to identify and help solve the problems and improve the health of these populations, and this approach requires human capacity with education to an appropriate level. An important way of meeting the education needs is through higher degrees, available either in the developing countries themselves, or in developed countries. There is insufficient local education capacity within developing countries, and the costs of higher education in developed countries is greater than can be met by most. If the education involves travel to the course overseas, the costs include the fees, costs of travel, loss of income, as well as the temporary (and potentially permanent) loss of manpower while away. Distance education can reduce these costs, although high fees remain an issue as many countries require high fees from overseas students.
Peoples-uni was conceptualised to offer a high level of education in Public Health for practitioners in developing countries at low cost. An Internet based course, using Open Educational Resources and open source delivery mechanisms, and staffed by volunteers was identified as having the potential to meet these needs and overcome the barriers identified above. The use of the Internet also unleashed the power of collaboration to develop and deliver an appropriate programme, with contributions from many settings, including both academic and service providers and those in developing countries themselves.
Teams of volunteer Public Health professionals, with IT and administrative support [100+ volunteers from more than 20 countries] have worked on the development and delivery of 17 course modules. The advent of the concept of Open Educational Resources allowed us to use educational materials that had been previously developed, without the need to develop our own. When you start to look, you find a mass of appropriate and good material - the role of Peoples-uni was to create an educational context in which these could be used. This required the identification of the Public Health competences which would be relevant to people in developing countries, a course format and structure into which the resources could be used, and a search for appropriate resources. There are a number of search engines especially developed for the identification of OER. The writing of metadata to provide a commentary and identify key issues to explore in the identified resources is then required, as is the creation of discussion questions to open discussions about the resources amongst students and online facilitators.Peoples-uni academics have created the context, with a standardise template, and open resources are uploaded onto this.
5 semesters have been run, and students can gain a Certificate, Diploma and now a Masters award in Public Health. An agreement with Manchester Metropolitan University is about to be signed so that students can gain a Master of Public Health through them, based on studies with Peoples-uni. The RSPH [] is a strategic partner and has been most helpful in our development.
Students have come from more than 30 countries, and without any form of advertising, we have nearly 200 students per semester. One advantage of the Internet base of the course is the scalability of the provision. All that limits the ability to enrol large numbers of students is the availability of tutors and administrative infrastructure. Potential tutors and module developers continue to seek to be involved, either through referral by those currently involved or having come across the existence of Peoples-uni in published papers or a web search.
We welcome all collaboration with individuals, organisations or governments who share our objectives of Public Health capacity building in developing countries.
For more information please visit http://peoples-uni.org or contact Richard Heller at rfheller@peoples-uni.org
