The innovative curriculum and materials development process used in Guyana involved the following:
- The existing curriculum was reviewed, which involved examining the ICT in education curriculum at CPCE and UG. It was recognised that the curriculum and associated materials should be designed to work within the national context and mirror the conditions that teachers will find on the ground.
- A curriculum programme was mapped ahead of any development phases. This was based on the UNESCO ICT-CFT and included high-level objectives as well as specific unit outcomes, proposed content, and teaching methodology. This process allowed writers to weigh the different focus areas and determine the number of hours a student should spend working on the materials.
- Guided by the curriculum map, a four-person, part-time development team conducted an Internet search for potential resources relevant to the subject matter. In addition to locating OER and free resources that were closely aligned to the course direction identified by the curriculum map, the developers also determined the quality and suitability of each resource found, as well as the amount of repurposing required. Resources that required little repurposing were selected as far as possible.
- The development team constructed a set of simple user guides to lay out the recommended learning pathway through the selected resources. In addition to identifying the sequence of learning events, the team also suggested a set of student activities so that the learning process was not merely didactic but would call on students to engage
critically with the sourced OER. In addition, teaching guidelines and a list of further reading and references for the lecturers were assembled. - The content was piloted with stakeholders in Guyana to test the development team’s assumptions. Various units of the course were deployed at CPCE, where staff reported a mostly positive experience. Initial feedback from CPCE staff, as well as comments and suggestions from UG staff, were all collected and collated to inform revisions to the course materials. During 2012, the Knowledge Deepening course is being integrated into the UG degree programme.
- A revision phase followed so that the collected user feedback informed changes to the course. This included less emphasis on the teacher facilitation notes, so that they were aimed directly at the students rather than at the lecturing staff and hence became teaching materials rather than guides. In addition, the OER and free resources were downloaded onto a CD-ROM. An electronic version of the course was developed so that staff and students could choose between using the paper-based versions or the electronic CD-ROM. The latter was deemed important to eliminate the need for connectivity.
The overall cost of the development team is reflected in Table 1.
| Development Team | Time (Days) | Cost (US$) |
| Educational consultant/instructional designer/graphic and Web designer/editor | 32 | 16,624 |
| Instructional designer 2 | 17 | 6,684 |
| Instructional designer 3 | 19 | 7,290 |
| Graphic and Web designer | 7 | 1,453 |
| Total | 76 | 32,051 |
- Time and costs of developing OER (the case of the Guyana ICT in education programme)
