Apology for my silence the past few days. I was out of town on a short mission encouraging Schools Boards of Trustees in New Zealand to adopt open content intellectual property policies combined with the time demands of authoring an overdue report for one of our major donors.
First, on behalf of the OER Foundation and all educators around the world who care about sharing knowledge -- I would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to Paul Stacey and BCcampus for the initiative in providing support for this SCoPE seminar. BCcampus volunteered this service and they are a testament to the power of open collaboration. Also a BIG thank you to all contributors on the list - -we have a wealth of ideas which will pave the way forward for the OER university concept. You know what they say -- you can't lead from behind and this group is making history by creating OER futures!
The way forward
We are now moving into the planning phase for the OER university -- Here is some detail on how we plan to proceed.
Venue for planning discussions for the OERU
I am pleased to announce that UNESCO have offered to provide the technology for hosting ongoing discussions for the planning the OER University on their new social networking platform. Thank you UNESCO.
We tentatively set up a google group for the OER university planning discussions and we are pleased to receive this support for hosting the discussions from UNESCO -- not too mention that they use an open source software platform :-).
The OER foundation will migrate the temporary Google discussion list to the UNESCO platform early next week. If you would like to be part of these discussions -- please make sure that you join the Google group (if you haven't joined already) before the start of your working week on Monday. This is the email list we will use to send invitations to join the UNESCO OER University planning hub.
OERU volunteers
Thank you for all the kind offers to volunteer time for the planning of the OER university -- I must still add my name :-D. Thanks to the volunteers who have set up the volunteers page in WikiEducator. If you are able to volunteer time for the planning of the OER university -- please add your name to the list.
Over next few weeks, we will start coordinating teams for the detailed planning of the different initiatives of the logic model for the OER university. We will also be looking for team leaders who can assist with the work in leading the development of each initiative.
Key priorities
- Confirm additional anchor partners for the OER university. If your institution would like to join the OER university project as an anchor partner -- please send an email to wayne@oerfoundation.org . We are an open shop, but are looking for partners who a serious about the OER university concept who can provide time and resources for realising the vision.
- Develop a succinct overview of the OER university concept and its initiatives -- i.e. a 5 - 10 page document explaining the project for the world.
- Allocate champion roles for leading and implementing the development of each of the initiatives within the logic model.
- Define the open curriculum -- i.e. what qualifications will be prioritised as the first offerings of the OER university.
Cheers
Wayne