The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) launched the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Practitioner Researcher Mentorship Programme in 2023 for early-career researchers in higher education. Research plays a vital role in advancing COL’s mission of assisting governments, institutions and organisations in enhancing the scale, efficiency, and quality of learning through appropriate open, distance and technology-based approaches. This programme was created to encourage and support practitioner research within the ODL sector, thereby promoting high-quality educational research in higher education.

Dr Jako Olivier, COL Adviser: Higher Education, observed, “The programme not only supports capacity building of academics researching ODL, but it also provides an ideal opportunity to create scholarly networks across institutions and countries. An example is the ongoing collaboration between the mentor, Professor Norm Vaughan (Mount Royal University, Canada) and the assigned mentee, Associate Professor Mpho-Entle Modise (University of South Africa), which has now extended beyond the end of the first cohort’s mentorship duration.

Their collaboration has been extensive, including joint research projects, co-presentations at conferences and seminars, and developing a strong mentee-mentor relationship. It serves as a testament to the power of mentorship in advancing research and professional development in the ODL field. Their joint efforts have already resulted in an article accepted for the Canadian Journal of Teacher Education special issue in 2024, titled ‘ePortfolios: A 360-degree approach to assessment in teacher education’. They are currently working on a second article and have presented on various ePortfolio-related topics at the National Open University of Nigeria and the UNESCO Chair of ODL at the University of South Africa.

Despite the programme’s reliance on technology for communication between mentors and mentees, Professors Vaughan and Modise were eager to meet in person and had the opportunity when their paper was accepted for presentation at the eLearning Africa conference in Kigali, Rwanda, in May 2024.

Dr Olivier notes that a second cohort of 36 mentees from 15 different countries started the programme earlier this year, building on the success of the 2023 programme in creating networks of thought leaders in ODL across the Commonwealth.

Image caption (L-R): Associate Professor Mpho-Entle Modise and Professor Norm Vaughan.