One third of the world lacks internet access (ITU 2023), with greater disparity in poor countries. Even in developed regions such as British Columbia, areas north of population centers include significant numbers of people unable to connect online to the BCcampus Open Collection.
While print-based versions of their Pressbooks published open textbooks provide most of the content that can be accessed anywhere,, any interactive exercise or embedded media is rendered as a text box with a web address, that is of no use without internet connectivity.
This workshop will share a direct experience with a current project to make more than 80 open textbooks not only available in Learning Equality’s offline-first open source teaching and learning system, Kolibri (Learning Equality, 2024).
A number of solutions exist for offline-access to online content (Offline Internet Consortium, 2024), ranging from internet-in-a-box approaches to more advanced capabilities using local servers with near range wireless transmitters to run even learning management systems (e.g. MoodleBox). Kolibri is an important solution as it is one that does not require advanced technical expertises to operate. It also provides advanced features of syncing learner progress from remote devices or even between locations.
For BCcampus, Kolibri offers more than a content delivery platform, but a means to make content available without connectivity, including interactive H5P practice exercises, video, and audio. Kolibri also includes support tools for custom content organization, learner cohorts, and basic performance tracking.
We have presented the project concept (Friedman and Levine, 2024) but the purpose of this workshop is to allow participants to directly experience BCcampus content delivered from a local, offline device, and appreciate that challenges remain to provide the potential of the fully online learning materials.
We seek suggestions for other scenarios of application and strategies for implementing in different settings.
This is everybody’s business to make as much of the rich experience of online learning materials available to that one third of the world left out.
Included in
[Session 7D]: Global Access and Equity (workshop)ReferencesInternational Telecommunications Union (2023), “Facts and Figures 2023”, accessed online (May 14, 2024)
https://www.itu.int/itu-d/reports/statistics/facts-figures-2023/Offline Internet Consortium (2024), accessed online (May 12, 2024)
https://www.offline-internet.org/Learning Equality (2024), “Kolibri” accessed online (May 14, 2024)
https://learningequality.org/kolibri/Friedman, Harper and Levine, Alan (2024), “An Online Presentation About Online OER: The BCcampus Open Collection Meets Kolibri”, presentation for the 2024 Open Education Conference
https://bit.ly/bccampus-kolibri-opened24Author Keywordsoffline learning, open source, accessibility
