Hello All, A summary of the current quality initiatives within WE and a request for participation.
I have been co-facilitating a Learning4Content workshop and recently made some comments on the DAY 1 activities. I held off making any comments to let people have thier say before I voiced my opinion(s). I found the student lead discussions on open authoring and quality a very high level. It would seem the understanding of these topics is increasing across new wiki contributors. This is a great thing. The main themes I saw in the discussion were; 1) the importance of professionalism and on-going skills transfer for continuous improvement of quality. 2) open authoring does not ensure high quality content. Though quality could be encouraged through peer review and accountability. Open authoring does encourage diversity within the content. 3) The idea of peer reviews to encourage quality was offered most frequently. 4) Summative learning questionnaires were mentioned as a way for quality improvement. 5) Concerns regarding copyright, motivation to participate and payment for content created were present. What I think is important is that all of these themes are not new to the WE community and they are currently being addressed within WikiEducator (WE). This is what I am familiar with in regards to projects relating to quality within WE. If others are available please include them in this discussion. 1) The WE community has become very professional where a majority of the contributors are over 40 and experienced educators. Skills transfer is a priority as evidenced by this workshop and the growing number of WE courses within the technology and authoring subject area. WE projects are underway to encourage continuous improvement of quality. a) Featured Works http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework/Featured_Works http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_and_Review#Featured_Works Also see discussion page for background b) Conribution Levels - this is where peer reviews is being encouraged http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework/Contribution_Levels c) eLearning Maturity Model - this should provide continuous improvement to the WE infrastructure and organization http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework/eMM d) a number of options are available to continue developing WE skills http://wikieducator.org/Help:Contents http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/Developing_a_teaching_resource http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/Navigation_templates 2) Peer review and accountability is somewhat built into the wiki software via its discussion pages and associating edits with user profiles. The quality assurance initiative under developemnt aims to formalize the peer review; http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework/Contribution_Levels#Peer_reviewed_content I developed the opinion that an open authoring approach does encourage quality improvement in itself. My belief in this comes from a paper I wrote a while back; http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Prawstho/WikiQuality - any feedback / editing would be most appretiated... 3) WE agrees that the peer review is the final measure for content quality. WE is also sensitive that the idea of a peer review can be intimidating for newbie WE contributors. WE is developing contributor levels so the level of requested quality review is "somewhat" in the hands of the author; http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework/Contribution_Levels. Then of course, given the openness of the wiki environment all works are always open to comment / doscussion / review... 4) A number of learning design discussions have included the use of summative questionnaires. Look around the wiki, some of the courses have "Summary & FAQs" pages, and some of these pages include quizzes and questionnaires. 5) This theme touches upon "the philosophy" of why people contribute to wikis and OER. It's a big topic... and through time I believe everyone developes a position with it that best suits them. In the end, how a perosn sits with OER become an important personal choice. I hope this kicks off further discussion and further involvement in the QAF (http://www.wikieducator.org/ WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework) project. Sincerely, Peter --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
