The African Universities’ Research Approaches programme (AURA) seeks to strengthen research and teaching practices in Sub-Saharan Africa.
AURA, led by the Institute of Development Studies in partnership with the Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa and Loughborough University, will work with up to nine universities in Sub-Saharan Africa to enrich the research and teaching practices of academics working in health, agriculture and the environment. The overarching aim of the programme is to address the continent-wide goals of supporting universities to transform Africa through investments in people-centred innovations that will bring about economic prosperity and democratic and responsive governance.
AURA brings together the collective knowledge of researchers and educators based in the global south and north to co-create a context-specific educational framework that will enable academics with heavy teaching workloads to undertake research, and enhance the research capacity of their students. In doing so, the programme will respond to the need for locally generated research knowledge by skilled researchers (and graduates); and support academics to nurture effective research and information capabilities in research-led, teaching and learning environments.
AURA was funded by UKAid and implemented over two years, starting in November 2014. During that time the programme produced a teaching and learning framework that is available to download from IDS’ OpenDocs through a creative commons license as individual course packs:
Three research courses:
- Orientation to different research approaches – known as R1
- Orientation to ‘researcher-led’, analytical research approaches – known as R2
- Research communications in social media – known as R4
Two teaching courses:
- Introduction to Teaching and Learning theory – known as T1
- Introduction to technology-enhanced learning – known as T3
All of the course packs are aimed at educators in higher education institutions primarily in Africa but are also applicable to educators and other training/service providers in other parts of the world. Resources are can be re-used, adapted, or remixed (where indicated by the license) as long as the resulting materials are fully attributed.
Visit the AURA Programme Communication Channels
For more information about the project, contact the AURA Project Manager, Siobhan Duvigneau: [email protected]
