5 September 2025
The NWU is pleased to announce the successful candidates for two prestigious open education programmes: the 2025 NWU Open Educational Resources (OER) Fellowship and the 2025 South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) Digital Humanities OER Champions initiative
Both programmes are presented by the UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and Open Educational Resources, under the guidance of Prof Dorothy Laubscher, hosted at the Faculty of Education at the NWU and supported by the Research Unit for Self-Directed Learning. These initiatives contribute to the NWU’s strategic commitment to educational transformation and align with UNESCO’s 2019 definition of OER as openly licensed, adaptable and accessible learning materials that promote inclusive and equitable quality education.
Participants in both programmes will receive funding, training and mentorship to support the development or localisation of curriculum-aligned OER and the advancement of open educational research. They will engage in capacity-building workshops led by national and international experts, including:
- Prof Daniel Burgos, UNESCO Chair on eLearning, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), Spain
- Prof Rory McGreal, UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources, Athabasca University, Canada
- Prof Glenda Cox, UNESCO Chair in Open Education and Social Justice, University of Cape Town
- Paul West, Global Council representative, Creative Commons South Africa Chapter
- Prof Karen Ferreira-Meyers, University of Eswatini
- Dr Tony Lelliott, OER Africa
NWU OER Fellowship (internal NWU programme)
This 18-month fellowship empowers NWU staff to create, adapt and research OER that foster contextualised, inclusive learning. Fellows receive:
- R45 000 in project funding
- R8 000 for international online conference participation
- Mentorship from experts in OER from the UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and the OER executive committee, and the opportunity to co-author a book chapter
Congratulations to the 2025 NWU OER fellows. Please note that staff members are participating in group projects and some of them are involved in more than one group:
Faculty of Education
- Dr Dolly Dlavane
- Dr Melody Mtimkulu
- Dr Matome Mabiletja
- Dr Emmanuel Ngwenya
- Nomsa Roseline Mohosho
- Shadikgolo Mokoena
- Hopolang Khanye
- Thapelo Ntanzi
- Mathai Monyakane
Faculty of Humanities
- Prof Ewie Erasmus
- Prof Janelize Morelli
Faculty of Health Sciences
- Prof Anitia Lubbe
- Prof Marius Brits
- Prof Yolande Heymans
- Prof Louise Wyma
Centre for Teaching and Learning
- Naldo Oberholzer
SADiLaR
- Deon du Plessis
SADiLaR Digital Humanities OER Champions (national programme)
This national 12-month capacity-building and research fellowship supports academics, researchers, postgraduates and digital scholars from South African universities to advance openness and scholarship in the Digital Humanities. The champions will receive:
- R37 000 in funding
- Mentorship from experts in OER from the UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and the OER executive committee
- Access to a national Digital Humanities OER network
Congratulations to the 11 2025 SADiLaR OER champions from Rhodes University, the University of Cape Town, the University of Fort Hare, the University of the Free State, the University of Venda, the University of Zululand and the Walter Sisulu University.
About SADiLaR
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) is a national centre supported by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) as part of the new South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR).
Hosted at the NWU, SADiLaR has an enabling function, with a focus on all official languages of South Africa, supporting research and development in the domains of language technologies and language-related studies in the humanities and social sciences. The centre supports the creation, management and distribution of digital language resources, as well as applicable software, which are freely available for research purposes through the Language Resource Catalogue.
We look forward to the innovative contributions and impact of the 2025 fellows and champions.
Prof Linda du Plessis
Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Teaching and Learning