[Oer-community] OER mapping - Let's eat our own dogfood

Mon Nov 19 19:42:23 MST 2012

Yes, indeed.  Sorry to be jumping in at this late date.  I think a map would be a great place to start.  But to begin, perhaps we should consider what it is we really want to know.  What information would we be looking for on this map?  Where things are happening is interesting, but is it as important as what?
Best, 
Kim

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Udas <ken.udas at gmail.com>
To: oer-community <oer-community at athabascau.ca>
Sent: Wed, Nov 14, 2012 8:45 am
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] OER mapping - Let's eat our own dogfood

Good morning - back at Ken A... I am in agreement with you as well.  I am thinking that the discussion does not have to be about geographical maps if it is about meta data/tagging.  Choosing to render data as a geographic map (rather than a heat map, or an audio presentation) is a matter of preferred presentation and need.  Years ago I worked at a relatively small software company that built data visualization, that rendered massive semi-structured data sets best analyzed through visualization.  It was originally designed to support genomic- and  proteomic-based science, but quickly grew to include all sorts of very challenging data clustering problems (drug discovery, energy discovery, etc.).  Scientists could visually render very large data sets in 14 dimensions and manipulate the presentation on each variable (dimension).  One of the options was displaying geographic data on a map.  Within seconds, the scientist could take that same data set and render it for a cluster analysis, identify a particular data point or group of data points of interest, and if appropriately formatted, the data points could be loaded into a 3-D molecular modeling tool and studied, connecting where a compound was discovered (which lab) and the structure of the compound, for example.  Now, this could only be done if the data point (object of interest) had the appropriate meta data associated with it. 

My only point here is that we can start with any type of application in mind (for example, displaying data about OER on a map) and then build from there. As long as we decide on appropriate (Open) data descriptions can adopt and build tools to make good use of the data. I think that the ability to use the data flexibly will be a key part of promoting contribution from OER producers, users policy makers, scholars, and other types of stakeholder.  I think that a good place to start this type of discussion is by creating use cases or some other way of simply describing the needs in our community.  

THis all looks like great work!!  -Cheers

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Phillip Davis <pdavis at delmar.edu> wrote:

http://www.geotechcenter.org/Upcoming-Events/eLearning-Webinar-Series2

Phillip Davis

Director, GeoTech Center
Professor, CS/IT Department
Del Mar College
101 Baldwin
Corpus Christi TX 78404
(361) 698-1476 (voice)
(361) 698-1479 (fax)
(361) 698-1475 (Kim)
(361) 698-1477 (Minerva)
(361) 698-1478 (John)

From: oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca [mailto:oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca]On Behalf Of Ken Allgood
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2012 10:04 AM
To: oer-community
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] OER mapping - Let's eat our own dogfood

I'd like to second Ken Udas' recommendation regarding an expansion of the mapping exercise to include not only the geographical relationships of initiatives and programs, but to also introduce more robust tagging approach which supports other meaningful relationships such as reuse, funding, program or specialty affiliation, etc..

This sort of visualization can support everything from funding & policy decisions to alignment and prioritization of activities. 

Excellent Idea Ken!

Ken Allgood
RDG/SemantixLab

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Ken Udas <ken.udas at gmail.com> wrote:

1.   Would a world map to visualize the global OER landscape be useful?

Hello - Yes, I believe that this would be quite useful.  I am wondering if geographical mapping is just one of many potential visualizations. That is, with appropriate tagging of projects, consumers, creators, other stakeholders, activities, and artifacts the representations could become quite adaptable and useful. For example, patterns of reuse, funding impact, and disciplinary contributions could be helpful for practitioners, policy makers, and funders.

Cheers - Ken Udas

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 6:07 AM, Tel Amiel <tel.amiel at gmail.com> wrote:
hi all -

mapping will be useful (no matter how roughly) because it opens up the OER scenario beyond the well known players and well established projects. it has been incredibly useful for us in brazil to map small and local initiatives and connecting these to larger projects. many times these projects do not gain visibility to others who most need to know of them.

i agree with martin that the meso/micro layer is more interesting. i also think that identifying projects in multiple locations (multinational/lingual project) can be fairly easy to do and will clearly demonstrate how much collaboration influences OER work.

we do need to define clearly what "fits" in the map (people? projects? repositories? initiatives?) and concurring with wayne, keep the system open to input (and mediated).

we have begun listing many projects and repositories in portuguese (http://educacaoaberta.org/wiki) both in brazil and beyond, and would be interested in contributing this material to the mapping initiative.

cheers - tel

On 13/11/2012, at 00:19, Steve Foerster wrote:

> Wayne Mackintosh wrote:
>
>> * Open data -- for example, all participants contributing to
>>  the mapping exercise should dedicate the data to the public
>>  domain.
>
>> * Open licensing of the visualisations - the outputs should
>>  be freely available with the 4R permissions.
>
>> * Open APIs and standards -- contributing data sets which
>>    adhere to open APIs and open standards to maximise reuse
>
>> * Open source -- Where possible to use visualisation
>>  technologies which would not exclude users who can't
>>  afford non-free software or choose not to sacrifice
>>  their freedoms regarding technology choices
>
>> * Open innovation -- ie where we might promote an open
>>  process for the global community to innovate multiple ways
>>  to visualise our collective data -- rather than prescribing
>>  any particular visualisation.
>
> These are excellent points.  Any output of such an initiative should
> adhere to them.
>
> -=Steve=-
>
>
> --
> Stephen H. Foerster
> steve at hiresteve.com
> http://hiresteve.com
> _______________________________________________
> Oer-community mailing list
> Oer-community at athabascau.ca
> https://deimos.cs.athabascau.ca/mailman/listinfo/oer-community

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