HI Edward, You're right -- there is not much discussion on the site yet -- its new.
Abel Caine, from the OER Programme from the Communication and Information (CI) Sector at UNESCO is taking the lead in setting up an international OER discussion community with a number of sub-community discussions. It appears that international OER discussions now have a committed home within UNESCO system and that the CI sector is serious about supporting ongoing OER discussions. Previously IIPE at UNESCO hosted a number of email-based OER forums, but they closed the discussions after each session :-(. The IIPE at UNESCO, who hosted these email discussion lists, were reluctant to migrate to a web-based platform. The old OER wiki hosted by IIPE at UNESCO has also been neglected (http://oerwiki.iiep.unesco.org) and sadly, it has been getting a fair share of spam with little community support to help monitor the problem. I'm pleased to see that UNESCO are using an OSS platform (elgg) for this new initiative. They are also committing code improvements back to the elgg community and great to see an international agency getting involved in supporting FOSS developments. The OER Foundation is keen to help and support UNESCO in building a representative international discussion place for OER. I think UNESCO is a good place to host these kinds of discussions because this avoids the issues associated with institution-based projects. We're planning to host the OER university planning discussions on the platform and will give this a try. At the moment the site doesn't support self-registration -- but the OER Foundation will assist anyone from our community who would like to participate in our relevant groups. I understand that the UNESCO team are looking at an OpenID / self-registration solution. So let's keep the pressure on UNESCO to get self-registration sorted ;-) Cheers Wayne On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 6:18 PM, Edward Cherlin <echer...@gmail.com> wrote: > Is anybody using this site? I went to look again, and I don't see any > discussion. > > On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 01:01, Wayne Mackintosh > <mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > > > UNESCO have established a social networking platform for OER community > > discussions with particular emphasis on building policy for sustainable > OER > > futures. > > > > I must compliment Abel Caine and the team at the UNESCO's Communication > and > > Information sector because: > > > > This fills an important gap in the burgeoning field of OER -- namely > focused > > international discussions on policy development for open education. > > UNESCO have listened to the feedback and comments from many OER > > practitioners around the world for a web-based environment for these open > > discussions - preferably a list which remains open and not "closed down" > > after each scheduled discussion. > > Running the platform using the popular open source elgg environement. I > > understand that UNESCO have contributed code improvements back to the > > community. Well done UNESCO! > > > > I encourage all WikiEducators with an interest in helping form and > co-design > > international policy around OERs to join the community. > > > > See: > > > > > http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/groups/14358/open-educational-resources-oer/ > > > > I look forward to sharing ideas with international colleagues via this > great > > community resource. > > > > Cheers > > Wayne > > > > > > -- > > Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. > > Director OER Foundation > > Director, International Centre for Open Education, > > Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. > > Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator > > Mobile +64 21 2436 380 > > Skype: WGMNZ1 > > Twitter | identi.ca > > > > -- > > 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 > > wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > > > > -- > Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin > Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. > The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. > http://www.earthtreasury.org/ > -- 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> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
