Hi SJ -- As always --- a high quality post with lots of valuable insights. Thanks :-)
I'm going to be touching base with the leadership team at WMF early in July in my role as a member of their Advisory group. This will be a great opportunity to share insights and experiences in strategy development. WMF projects and their collective experience have been an important role model in the evolution of the WE community. The power of open source communities is our ability to share for the benefit of our collective mission in building free "knowledge" for all. Thanks for the pointer to the Dutch "Wikiwijs" project -- I missed this rather important announcement on the wikimedia list :-( . What's significant here, from my perspective, is how the national authorities are getting behind a "wiki" project for free text books. My major critique is the adherence to the NC restriction --- which I think will mitigate against long term sustaiability. Nontheless -- I'm going to see if we can try and get a few good demonstrators going here in NZ with the Ministry of Education --- and being able to point to a case example in the Netherlands is always useful. Any chance our friends will join us accross the ditch in a pilot to reduce the costs of textbooks? (We promise not to talk about Rugby :-) ). Also, I'm going to see if we can get in touch with any folk @ Wikiwijs to explore opportunities for collaboration on some of the technology refinements that will inevitably be needed. I've been watchin and observing OCWC growth and their published strategies --- It seems that growth in new instutions from the "North" has slowed down considerably. Any thoughts about why this is happening? WE don't want to make the same mistakes --- Again licensing is going to be a major challenge with the majority of OCWC projects carrying the NC restriction :-(. That said, on the technology front there are opportunities for radical remixing between OCWC Educommons content and Mediawiki installs -- thanks to the work of COSL and Wiley* et al *with the Send-2-wiki extension. OCWC is now starting to work through the donar-funding dependency challenge -- i.e how do you build sustainability in the event that donor money dries up. The strategic question here is would OCWC approaches have evolved differently if they started from a clean slate designing the project for sustainability from scratch? Hindsight is an accurate science. Interesting point you've made about the WE list operating above the radar of SPAM. I don't think this is necessarily the result of us doing anything "better" than WMF -- but is more a reflection of the nature and composition of our community. 70% of our members are education professionals working in the formal sector. In this regard -- WE is a unique community. I'll need to do a little more research on Akamai before being able to make any intelligent responses. Thanks again for the post --- lots of valuable stuff to be thinking about and very timely as we're developing strategy documents, business plans etc for the OER Foundation. This week --- I should be making more progress with drafting ideas and shaping up our strategic plan for the Foundation. Feel free to bookmark this page and jump in with any suggestions and/or contributions in getting our strategy right: http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:OER_Foundation I'm holding up pretty well with the cooler weather here in Otago --- that said, I suspect moving from Vancouver has helped with the adjustment coming out of the winter up North. Had we moved from Auckland -- I bet I'd be complaining. Cheers W 2009/5/24 simonfj <simo...@cols.com.au> > > Hi Wayne, Maria, all, > > I'm just interested in the other communities WE might look to > collaborate with. You said; > > > Always interested in collobarting -- thanks for the offer re WYSIWYGnow > we're all intrested in collobarting, > > Can I just point out a few discussions in places not far away. They're > in strategy mode. > > This one is from sue at wikimedia, about strategy. > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/051636.html > > This is on the same list from Ziko, which gives an idea of what's > going on in the Nederlands. > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/051983.html > The dutch seem to be able to bring a lot of things together faster > than any other country; seems to be something in the water. > > This the participant list for OER this year. You can get an idea of > the discussions, which revolve around OCWC, by going through the > "clouds" in the OER meeting Monterey 2009 link. (an interesting > approach from the Open uni in the UK). > > You'll know different commnnites are puttin in their props to the > hewlitt foundation. NB. One thing WE has that no other community seems > to have is this discussion place, which we really ought to use to help > Wikimedia's advisory board (if no others) get their discussins above > the radar without being drowned in spam. > > I'd be interested in people's ideas about using environment like this, > which bring a few useful tools (like a wiki) together. > http://grou.ps/introduction.php > or http://www.informe.com/index.html > (please, they're just examples). > > And lastly, Wayne would you take a look at Akamai? (as a host) > http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz3.html > If we are to get serious about helping our global group, then we gotta > think globally. And this is the only network we can seriously address > OER things globally. It was born at MIT to get past the world wide > wait. And they're making so much money it would be a drop in the ocean > to host WE (and a collaborative OER consortia). > > Hope Otago isn't too cold. regards. > > > > > > editing. Let's explore this further. The FCKeditor extension for > Mediawiki > > has matured over the last couple of months --- particularly with the > > activity and contributions from Wikia. Once we've migrated to our Phase 2 > > hosting solution, the next step is to seriously research the > implementation > > of a rich text editing solution for WE -- along with the development and > > refinement in our policy guidelines for new technologies. > > > > I think WYSIWYG will potentially lower the barriers of entry for many > > educators -- there have been numerous requests for WYSIWYG editing from > our > > community -- let's see if we can respond appropriately :-). > > > > Cheers > > Wayne > > > > 2009/5/11 Maria Droujkova <droujk...@gmail.com> > > > > > > > > > > > > > Wayne, > > > > > These are all great news. I am so happy for you and WE! It's a great > > > community. > > > > > I would like to thank you for opening your proposal building process. > > > I am working on an SBIR grant for Natural Math for the Family Studies > > > supporting software I discussed on the list earlier, and your proposal > > > is quite helpful. I will be happy to share ours if you think it would > > > be of use to others. > > > > > Speaking of which, our wiki parts have a WYSIWYG editor that works > > > pretty well, including picture upload and inserting widgets (e.g. > > > youtube video). If it would help your efforts to collaborate on this > > > or other parts of your endeavors, please let me know. > > > > > On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Wayne Mackintosh > > > <mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Hi everyone, > > > > > > At last -- a long overdue update. > > > > > -- > > > Cheers, > > > MariaD > > > > > Make math your own, to make your own math. > > > > >http://www.naturalmath.comsocial math site > > >http://groups.google.com/group/naturalmathmath authoring for kids email > > > group > > >http://www.phenixsolutions.comempowering our innovations > > > > -- > > Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. > > Director, > > International Centre for Open Education, > > Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. > > Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator,www.wikieducator.org > > > -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. 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