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Nairobi, Kenya, 3 August 2012. The African Virtual University has been nominated for the Education-Portal.com People's Choice Award in the "Most Progressive" category. Nominations related to Open Educational Resources were made by the readers and other members of the free education community.
Voting will take place online from now until Friday, August 31, 2012 and winners will be announced in early September on Education-Portal.com. To vote, please go to: http://eduport.al/PKKBf6, vote the African Virtual University under the “Most Progressive”, fill in the form, and then click submit at the bottom of the page.
The nomination demonstrates the increasing global recognition of AVU’s commitment to increase access to quality education through Open Educational Resources. Both students and academic institutions in Africa and around the globe have benefited from the AVU unique approach in developing collectively open resources across countries and language groups.
In an article which appeared in the New York Times on 22, April, 2012 titled: “Building Schools Out of Clicks, Not Bricks”, the AVU Rector Dr. Bakary Diallo described how the AVU@OER portal http://oer.avu.org/ has contributed to global knowledge. "The portal is incredibly popular in Brazil and the U.S.A,” Dr. Diallo said.
In 2011, the US-based Education-Portal.com recognized the AVU Open Education Resources http://oer.avu.org as the ''Best Emerging OCW Initiative''. In May 2012, at the African Technology Award held Johannesburg, South Africa, the AVU was named the “Technology Educator of the Year” in recognition of the institution’s efforts to use ICTs to educate, motivate and inspire students to become lifelong learners while encouraging them to pursue careers in technology.
The AVU Open Education Resources were developed in 2005 using a collaborative approach involving 12 African universities. A total of 146 authors and peer reviewers from 10 African countries in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone countries were fully involved in the process.
The AVU@OER portal was launched in January 2011 and hosts 219 text books and 91 video tutorials available in English, French, and Portuguese. More than 1,000,000 users between January 2011 and June 2012 which means that through AVU, Africa is contributing to global knowledge and is therefore not only a consumer of content from the ‘North’.
The Education-Portal.com People's Choice Awards are designed to increase awareness of these free educational resources and celebrate the efforts of those behind them. All the nominees offer free educational resources online, making it easier for lifelong learners around the globe to further their education and career aspirations.
“The AVU is humbled by this nomination and would like to thank its partners and supporters, especially the African Development Bank which is the main sponsor of the AVU OER@AVU portal,” Dr. Diallo said.
For more information, please contact: Godwin Bonge-Muhwezi, Senior Marketing and Communications Officer; Tel +254-700 395 376; e-mail: gmuhwezi@avu.org
About AVU
African Virtual University (AVU) is a Pan African Intergovernmental Organization whose aim is to significantly increase access to quality higher education and training through the innovative use of Information and Communication Technologies.
Founded in 1997, AVU has graduated 43,000 students across Africa and established the largest network of Open Distance and eLearning institutions in over 30 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. AVU works across borders and languages in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa.
In 2011 AVU received global recognition for implementation of Phase I of the Multinational Project with an award by the US-based Education-Portal.com for its open Education Resources http://oer.avu.org activities in the category of "Best Emerging OCW Initiative."
The AVU is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya with a regional office in Dakar, Senegal.
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