This paper reports on work-in-progress as part of a multi-year collaboration between Open Educational Resources Africa (OER Africa) and Africa Nazarene University (ANU). ANU experienced significant growth in demand for non-traditional provision of higher education and had accordingly migrated towards more resource-based and decentralised approaches for opening access to higher education opportunities, including integration of OER. Following a participatory action research process, the project is exploring the ways in which adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) can support curriculum transformation and the challenges and opportunities that arise from seeking to mainstream the use of OER in this process. A core team of ANU staff, with support from OER Africa, collaboratively developed a three-year action plan, and monitored and reviewed it as necessary, as well as publishing the lessons of experience in appropriate fora. There was need to document the process for posterity and it was agreed that the researcher could undertake this in the form of a doctoral study. However, the researcher was an active participant and leader in the reform process and not an impartial observer. Therefore the research reporting pursued an interpretivist, qualitative, autoethnographic approach informed primarily through the twin lenses of hermeneutics and systems theory. The paper reports on the questions explored, the methods adopted, the outputs of the engagement and the results of a collaborative critical reflection process in directing activities for the future.
