Peoples-uni: Public Health Capacity-building

Public Health Capacity-building

• There is a massive need for Public Health capacitybuilding in low- to middle-income countries

Overseas students in the UK: Who benefits?

• ...students from the top 10 non-European Union countries account for more than twice the number of students from the top 10 EU countries, with 239,210 studying in a British university in the past academic year.  
• International student expenditure generates £2.4billion across the economy and more than 21,900 jobs 
• Students in Higher Education Institutions 2006-07 (Higher Education Statistics Agency)

Universities that rely on large intake from one country are vulnerable, senior figure warns. John Gill, Times Higher Education January 2008 

• …University's pro vice- chancellor for enterprise, said: "Universities are more aggressive in recruiting international students, but some are taking fairly high risks ...”  

• "China and India are the two big ones, but Nigeria is becoming very large business….”

  Can we aim at capacity-building rather than boosting UK interests? 
  

• Increasing amounts of open source educational material, as well as delivery mechanisms, are freely available through the Internet, but universities which offer open access to their materials do not offer teaching or assessment in association 

• For capacity building in low-to middle-income countries, how about trying to make open source materials available, guide students through them and assess achieved competences? 

• And do this outside the traditional university system? 

• This is the idea underpinning the ‘Peoples Open Access Education Initiative’ – Peoples-uni

  The IT Open Source revolution 
  

• Open Source: software code created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the community
• Open Educational Resources: teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. 
• Wikinomics: how mass collaboration changes everything:
  ~  'weapons of mass collaboration'
  ~  4 principles: openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally.

  

  Pilot of course module

• A pilot of a course module on Maternal Mortality ran October -December 2007
• Moodle platform, 10 weeks, five topics: – magnitude of the health problem – implementation of improved data collection and accuracy – relationship of personal and environmental factors to cause – potential evidence-based solutions to reduce the burden of illness – policy-based solutions that can be implemented
• Three assessments (one formative),
• General and content expert facilitators
• 38 students from 8 countries after limited publicity, range from clinicians wanting Public Health perspective to policy -makers and programme leads
• 22 students participated actively in discussions and/or submitted assignments 
• 19 returned evaluation survey questionnaires

  Pilot module evaluation (n=19)

                                          Definitely Probably
  

  Progress to date 

• More than 80 people from 24 different countries have agreed to take part in course module development
• 12 course modules being developed: - Foundation Sciences of Public Health - Public Health problems
• Royal Society for Public Health will offer graduate certificates and diplomas 
• Partnerships and collaborations being developed

  Peoples-uni and Africa 

•  “The trouble with the computer is there isn’t enough Africa in it” - Brian Eno
• How can we get Africa into the Peoples-uni?
• Collaboration and partnerships essential - Local relevance of education - Local credibility - Add value not compete
• Institutional - Double badge awards - Internet access centres
• Individual - Course module developers - On-line facilitators

  Mutual benefits

• Peoples-uni offers a diverse and interesting group of colleagues from many countries – learn from but also add value to local resources
• Keep up to date with advances in international Public Health issues as well as developments in information and educational technology 
• Get up to speed with the open source approach - a new way for individuals and organisations to develop collaboratively and share the products of their work

  Quality 

• Builds on previous experience with e-learning
• Focus on competences and outcomes
• Template for course development and delivery to ensure consistency
• Open Educational Resources and awards from credible organisations
• Peer review and training of facilitators 
• At the end of the day, quality will be assessed by the competences demonstrated by graduates

  Finally
  

• Peoples-uni, with its low cost and high quality approach, has the potential to scale up Public Health capacity-building in low- to middle-income countries
• All collaboration is welcome. Please join in or make suggestions
• http://peoples-uni.org
• dick.heller@manchester.ac.uk
• Omo Oaiya: omo@datasphir.com