Yes, I agree Wayne. I think it is a good idea to seek technical support through the users. Perhaps COL could develop a course for MediaWiki administration (as well as the Learning4Content you might start Learning4AdminSupport). Most institutions allocate a small amount of money to staff members to use for professional development spending. This spending can be in the form of time, so if there was a 50 hour course on MediaWiki administration, I could put a $ value to that and use my PD allocation to free up that time..
On Jan 11, 2008 12:44 PM, mackiwg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Leigh, > > On Jan 9, 4:59 pm, "Leigh Blackall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Yes, I think it is reasonable to ask for contributions.. but some > > institutions will have difficulty with anything that looks like a > donation.. > > simply because their accounts may not have a field that makes that > possible. > > COL funds the hosting of WE -- no problems here and we're not chasing > funding for the hosting of WikiEducator. Just to be clear here > <smile>. Just a little open strategic thinking about the future -- > that is creative ways in which our community can do more in working > towards becoming a strong sustainable project. No harm in us targeting > to become the best educational wiki on the planet! > > Funding for future software developments or urgent refinements needed > for educational wikis is unlikely to be funded by COL -- its not our > core business. Also, wouldn't it be great to have one or two full time > techies dedicated to the WE project? > > I wasn't thinking about a donation system -- but rather a way for > institutions to take ownership and push the wiki development agenda > forward in education. Say for example a non-profit entity or > foundation where the members are education institutions, international > agencies etc. They form a governing body of sorts and determine > priorities, needs etc on how the collective pool of funding is spent. > Not unlike the OpenCourseware Consortium or the Sakai Partners > initiative where institutions become members of the foundation on the > basis of an annual fee. Let's call this the WE Foundation. > > I'm not sure that a WE fee for service model is appropriate for the > main site or core of the project. > > That said -- I think that corporate services around free content > should be encouraged and promoted -- for example a wikieducator.com > site where for example, publishers could offer to publish books from > free content on WE, trainers and learning designers could offer > professional development services using WE content, Mediawiki code > developers could offer their services, Authors who donate books as > free content could potentially earn royalities if the books are > published (like lulu.com) etc. This could operate on the lines of the > Moodle partners initiative. There could be a small fee, eg 10% or 15% > of revenue generated from wikieducator.com listed services -- which go > back costs of technical infrastructure. However -- I think the > commercial services model is a separate function from the WE > Foundation idea. > > Personally - I think that its important to keep the "intellectual > commons" free. It's the heart of the project -- constrain the heart -- > and the body starts to deteriorate. > > Any thoughts? > > Wayne > > > > > > -- -- Leigh Blackall +64(0)21736539 skype - leigh_blackall SL - Leroy Goalpost http://learnonline.wordpress.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
