Congrats guys, Yu really are doing wonderful stuff.
Can I bring up this one about the "technology required to make the OER vision a reality". I wish i could talk about the physical infrastructure/distribution meaningfully but this is beyond me. I've set myself up an impossible enough task by attempting to get the content creators, many of whom are OERers, and the infrastructure guys, to collaborate. Or at least gain some understanding of what each community is doing. Their ends do coincide, if not their language and agendas. Most of the global infrastructure developments in the edu/research/gov domains can be seen through this euro centric portal. http://global.dante.net/ So far as the language in this technical space is concerned, the main language revolves around what is called "Middleware"; the software layer that helps apps talk to one another and sits above different operating systems. The apps are what content creators just want access to. We need a user name & password, usually issued by single institution to their version of an app and content = duplicate ad infinatum. This is something the OER Foundation is addressing fundamentally. At the moment, throughout the (mainly developed) world, there is a push on by all NREN to create federations. Rather than going into great detail, let me just point you at this Aussie initiative. Take for granted with a bit of work i could point at a similar initiative in your country. http://www.aaf.edu.au/index.php/services/ Long story short, we are getting to the point whare the NREN are reconfiguring to support global groups (taskforces/ committees) rather than national institutions. All the groups tend to be subject specific in their interests and the bandwidth, apps - in short, the 'network services' - which their global community will want to use. The middleware guys in each NREN understand that the only way they can satisfy these disparate needs is to try and talk to each community, which is a bit like herding cats on a global basis = impossible So we have a catch 22. Communities like wikipedia and wikiedicator. i.e. passionate people who prefer to use one tool to produce open content often duplicate wonderful stuff in their attempts to acheive their related visions. Rarely do they have an opportunity to contemplate what other ICT services may be identified which could be shared between communities. (I noticed the Connexions Google group as another duplication) Meanwhile, the Middleware guys who must allocate resources, and try and figure out what service may be demanded and when, are simply bamboozled. OK. That the rave. I'm sorry for it. I'm sitting in Manila after talking to their preginet, after taking for years with the likes of aarnet, karen, internet2 (do a google search on NREN if yu want the list), and it seems like the right time and place to start looking at this. Let me bring it down to something concrete. If you're in the APac region, this is the hub of the geekly get together. http://www.apan.net/meetings/Sydney2010/schedule.php My interest is in the e-culture thread, cause the WP community has it, and APAN members have a clue but no experience of it. I'll be be talking to terena's taskforces who look at this convergence and be pushing to have a VC link up between Euro sites and Sydney. It would be great if we could get the ice broken here to run, not just for a singular event, but a series of get togethers which might help welcome a few nearsiders to the e-culture fold, and give us an opportunity to see which basic tools (services) many global OER communities could share. regards, PS Randy, How about Canada (canarie)? On Nov 28, 10:35 am, Wayne Mackintosh <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Edward, > > Always interested in talking about the learning infrastructure needed > to make OER happen globally :-) > > > Are you interested in discussing the infrastructure needed to make > > this happen globally? -- 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 [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
