Dear Gina,
Thank you for this thoughtful post about OER and teaching. What struck me is that manifesting more confidence about using OER can only really come with practice and exposure. You also mention that not everyone has a good experience when contributing to Wikepedia, for example. I think that learning is about the willingness to make mistakes and to learn from those expeiences -- and with OER -- that may mean having the courage to be criticized -- deleted -- over-ridden, or ignored completely. This brings me to the qualities of couraged and diligence that online OER need to find within themselves.
A light bulb came on that said -- content is only a small part of the delivery, as is the LMS, as is the amount of technology that we gradually add to our repetoire, if we teach online. Over the past three years I have dedicated a lot of my personal time to studying various aspects of distance education, teaching (especially online), and technology. My teachers were lifelong learners who were willing to risk exposure to "I don't know, but what do others think?" I have been reading the posts on this Scope e-conference and I sense that many of the professionals taking part -- lurking or adding posts -- are willing to share what they know, help others, and teach. Not all my many teachers along my rather long educational journey, knew the benefits of sharing openly. I have read posts about copyrights and appreciate that people work hard to produce new material. However -- I think we all re-create from others -- we are not islands unto ourselves and it has been my experience that the more we share -- the more our own lives are enriched -- deeply. Thanks everybody for all the valuable contributions that you have put into this learning environment through this OER called Scope.