[Oer-community] Mapping projects

[Paul Stacey]

Susan:

I sense within this discussion that there is a need to clarify the purpose
of an OER World Map.

Much of the discussion so far has focused on a map that depicts OER
initiatives around the world and provides progressively deeper levels of
data and information about each initiative. I thought Sara Frank Bistrow's
Week 1 summary log did a good job of defining the data and information on
each OER initiative that such a map would present.

A map that depicts OER initiatives around the world will improve the
findability of OER. There definitely is a need to make OER more
discoverable. The purpose of such a map is to connect students and teachers
to resources.

However, I sense that for some participants the value proposition this
provides is limited. There are already many efforts to catalog and expedite
searching for OER. The OER World Map, as conceived of so far, will be yet
another one - albeit perhaps a better and more comprehensive one.

I wonder if it might not be worth thinking of a different purpose for an
OER World Map. Rather than a map that emphasizes connecting people to OER
content I think there is a real need to generate an OER World Map that is
more of a social network rather than a content network. As Mary Lou Forward
says "a map can help foster new collaborations between projects around the
world". Building off Mary Lou's comment I see a stronger value proposition
for an OER World Map that focuses on connecting what currently are isolated
OER initiatives into collaborative networks. It would pool the requirements
and needs OER are intended to fulfill and distribute the development/reuse
effort more effectively across those engaged in OER development and use. An
OER World Map of this type shifts the focus from connecting people to OER
content to connecting OER users and developers into networks of
collaborative effort.

Given the limited time and resources you hint at it may be more fruitful to
focus on an OER World Map that enables OER collaborative networks.

-- 
Paul Stacey
Creative Commons
(e) pstacey at creativecommons.org
(w) http://creativecommons.org
(me) http://creativecommons.org/staff#paulstacey
(blog) http://edtechfrontier.com

On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 8:21 AM, Susan D'Antoni <susandantoni at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> As our reflection has progressed, there appears to be discussion about
> both OER initiatives - and OER (the resources themselves).
>
> We started out with reference to a world map of OER initiatives/projects.
> Mary Lou Forward articulated the focus in her early message:
>
> ********************
> "As the movement is maturing, more and more people are interested in what
> OER is, what projects are underway, who is participating and how the
> movement is growing and changing. A global OER map will provide a
> snapshot to this information - a gateway to understanding the worldwide
> dimensions of OER. ...
>
> In service to the OER community, a map can help foster new collaborations
> between projects around the world by allowing us to quickly identify
> projects we may not otherwise know about that could complement and
> strengthen our own work. As a living example of OER, this map may spur
> new cooperative efforts between those already engaged in OER and those
> interested in it."
> ********************
>
> There are numerous OER repositories to help people find specific
> resources, as well as projects working on how to improve finding resources.
> A number of you have been talking about some of this work.  Information
> about how to find could eventually be linked to a world map as a separate
> layer of information.  With time and energy and perhaps some resources,
> it could be possible to add more layers to a world map of initiatives
> later.
>
> But we might have a better chance of success in building a comprehensive
> world map of initiatives or projects if we started with a relatively
> limited amount of information on each initiative.
>
> Start big - the world, but small - the amount of information on each
> project ...
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Best,
>
> Susan
>
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>
>


-- 
Paul Stacey
Creative Commons
(e) pstacey at creativecommons.org
(w) http://creativecommons.org
(me) http://creativecommons.org/staff#paulstacey
(blog) http://edtechfrontier.com
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