[Oer-community] A reflection

[Zaid Alsagoff]

Dear Susan & Colleagues,

Trying to keep track with all the great ideas and might be repeating what has been said with this:

It would be great if the global OER map had multiple layers (different views) to meet multiple needs to promote awareness and empower us to find what we want (if there).

A great learning organization or community don't search for something that has already been found :)

 If the OER map functioned as a wiki, means that at least members (approved) can update it, and that would help (but we would need some rules (metadata) to ensure some quality standards).

However, for the OER map to be self-sustaining it should be organic and self-updating, meaning it should support RSS feeds from all OER projects (where possible), and Having a Twitter hashtag to support the discussion would be great.

Finally, it would be great if we could sometimes to conduct polls in this discussion to get some patterns of agreement or disagreement, besides people replying just on yes or no (with no further understanding overall).

For example Linkedin or Facebook Groups/Pages have polls that empower you to suggest new ideas, while being able to vote for the good ideas at the same time. Simple polls would also do (e.g. Polldaddy). 

Overall, we have great discussions in this group, but we hardly ever get the overall opinions in an organized manner in this awesome OER group, and by doing it in such a manner is to me not constructive enough to move forward in a more effective and efficient manner. Sometimes, it feels like everyone is trying to make his or her points, but only strong opinion leaders are being read or approved. The current format is good already, but personally I think we need some innovations to get more involvement by the lesser 'names' here.

Just sharing my honest thoughts.

Thanks and warm regards,

 
Zaid Ali Alsagoff
E-Learning Manager
International Medical University   
No. 126, Jln Jalil Perkasa 19, Bukit Jalil,57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
DID: +603 2731 7327 


Thanks and warm regards,

Zaid

Sent from my iPad

On 15 Nov 2012, at 01:10, Susan D'Antoni <susandantoni at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
> 
>  
> 
> This has been a most energetic start to our discussion of mapping the landscape of OER initiatives.  To see this OER community spring into action again is such a pleasure after being in contact with many of you since 2005.
> 
>  
> 
> And like our colleague, Saul Fisher, I too was at the 2002 meeting at UNESCO when the Term Open Educational Resources came into being and like him “find the progress in OER over the decade "beyond my wildest hopes". 
> 
>  
> 
> Maps are "powerful representations for creating, representing and visualizing open knowledge” (Ale Okada) but no, there has been no decision taken anywhere that we will create an OER world map (Sandra Schosn concern).
> 
>  
> 
> In the discussion so far, there have been a number of points made about the potential benefits of a visual map of the OER landscape – such as –
> 
>  
> 
> *   serve as a gateway
> 
> *   make more initiatives visible beyond the well-known ones
> 
> *   identify initiatives operating in different languages
> 
> *   help find OER
> 
> *   identify the OER community
> 
> *   foster new collaboration and cooperative efforts
> 
>  
> 
> But there have been some concerns expressed – such as –
> 
>  
> 
> *   it is a big task so it needs to be a simple map
> 
> *   it needs to be self sustaining
> 
> *   It is tempting to collect too much data
> 
> *   it needs to be carefully structured and organized
> 
> *   we need to define or classify initiatives
> 
>  
> 
> The point about sustainability and the need to keep it simple are good points to bear in mind.  I had the privilege (because I was not trained as a statistician) of working at Statistics Canada, a fine statistical agency.  I learned a lot, but one thing that stuck with me was the extremely high cost of collecting information and the importance of “essential” data, not "nice to have".  It truly is a temptation to want more and morre information.  But if we aimed to describe the global OER landscape, then the amount of information to begin building an OER world map might best be what we consider absolutely essential.  Discipline!
> 
>  
> 
> Let’s keep the two lists of pros and concerns in mind as we continue this train of discussion.  Then let's move on to considering what essential information might be for an initial mapping exercise.
> 
>  
> 
> Lovely conversation,
> 
>  
> 
> Susan
> 
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