By Ikhili Monday EBALU, Benin city
The Edo University, Iyamho once again has made history by being the first State University to be ranked first among State Universities and third University in Nigeria in the first ever Open Educational Resources (OER) conducted by National Universities Commission (NUC) Institutional repository.
The ranking which was first of its kind was initiated by the NUC Executive Secretary, Professor Abubakar Adam Rasheed for the application in Nigeria Universities system.
The exercise showed that with 12, 070 qualities OER holding presented by 50 Universities for the inaugural exercise, Nigerian Universities were among the best in Africa in OER.
It was gathered that with the full release of the OER holdings, and participation by all Universities, the number may quadruple in the next two years, making the Nigeria University system the richest in OER in Africa.
In the OER, 160 Nigerian Universities, both public and private were ranked, with Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), coming first, Mountain-Top University, Makogi Obu, Ogun State and Edo University Iyamho came second and third respectively.
According to the ranking, the Universities of Lagos, Ibadan and Covenant University camep up in the fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively.
The OER are teaching, learning and research materials in nay medium, digital or otherwise those resides in public domain or have been released under an open access licence that permits no-cost access use, adaptation and redistribution by others, with little or no restrictions.
The ranking was conducted by a 12-member National Experts Group on OER Ranking (NEGOR) and a four-person team of external experts from outside Nigeria.
Reacting to the development, the Vice Chancellor Prof. Emmanuel Aluyor said it is a good development for the young university saying that it is a reward for the hard work that have put in thus far. “It shows that Edo University Iyamho as an institution is heading in the right direction”
Prof. Aluyor however commended the NUC for her forthrightness in declaring the result as it is. Don’t forget that we are just about two years old as an institution. Consequently the result is contrary to the expectations of many people who may not know the quality of personnel that we have engaged in Edo University Iyamho. Remember that quality is not necessarily in age”, he stated.
With this feet recorded, the young university is said to compete favourably with older universities in the country and little wonder the Edo university is world class.
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