Hi Simon, Agreed on all the components you suggest for building a sustainable OER ecosystem. However, in the absence of real organisations in the formal education system committing time, resources (and real dollars) to achieving these objectives, OER will remain a peripheral activity of the OER enthusiasts and advocates.
The OER for assessment and credit for students<http://en.wikieducator.org/OER_for_Assessment_and_Credit_for_Students>project and the concept of a virtual "OER university" aims to address this gap in the current OER infrastructure. The "OER University" is essentially a directory of services around OER, but more importantly services that will lead to real credentials from tertiary education institutions working in the formal education sector. The work of the OER foundation is not restricted to any given technology and frankly OER wants to be free. By the some token the wiki model is a good technology because it is firmly rooted in collaboration. That is the chasm we need to cross in the OER world, namely from OER advocates to mainstream collaboration among institutions. Exciting times and opportunity to transform education for the better. Cheers Wayne On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 4:06 PM, simonfj <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hmmm, > > "Valley of death" eh? > > OK, WE want to take the OE(R) movement into the mainstream. So can we > forget how much content we might produce (for a sec) and think about > the infrastructure a global "300" might need to do a charge forward. > The 'mainstream' is a series of networks which .edu content sits on. > Access to them begins with a sign on to some institutional silo, which > wil sit on one of these NREN(etworks). > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_research_and_education_network > > We are seeing these networks beginning to 'federate' their services. > (wikieducator, and other OERs are 'service providers') > E.g. http://www.aaf.edu.au/index.php/services/service-catalogue/ > http://www.cuccio-cdpiuc.ca/en/canadian-access-federation/index.php > http://www.aaf.edu.au/index.php/services/international-federations/ > Incommons in the US. > > Registering wikieducator as a 'common' service provider for these > networks puts it into the mainstream of National edu networks (which > means the WE community can start talking to 'their' NRENs about the > other 'common services' they might want). > > But before WE go off and take the easy yards, can we give some thought > to the other global OERers who may not like using a wiki to co-produce > content. E.g. I'd prefer something like global plaza. > http://www.globalplaza.org/spaces/global > So I could link together OERers, and track/record/archive all the > conversations which happen when a production is taking place. > > Could we also give some thought to a directory, not of services, but > of content. Ideally we are attempting to aggregate similar content > (communities) from around the world. The idea that there are not > enough OER seems a bit silly. OERers simply haven't thought through > how customers can find similar content (communities), regardless of > language. We have this wacking huge library of amazing content called > the web, and simply no way of classifying it in such a way that a > potential contributor can find the shelf on which they should put (and > take) 'their' bits. > > WE need to bring together, not just some good National(REN) techs, but > also some good National librarians in order to provide for global, > disciplinary groups and their communities of interest. WE could also > use some very demanding WE'ers who can describe the kinds of tools > they need. > > Stephen's done this quite a few times now. But he's never addressed > the network people who might actually construct them. > > regards, > simonfj > > > > > -- > 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] > -- Wayne Mackintosh <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg>, Ph.D. Director OER Foundation <http://www.oerfoundation.org> Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator<http://www.wikieducator.org%20> Mobile +64 21 2436 380 Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/Mackiwg> | identi.ca<http://identi.ca/waynemackintosh> -- 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]
