Taking OER remix to new levels: WikiEducator, Connexions and Mediawiki

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Everyone,

With generous funding support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the OER Foundation is pleased to announce that we are able to take OER interoperability and remix potential to new levels.

Collaborating with OER projects which subscribe to licenses which meet the requirements of the free cultural works definition, WE aim to provide educators with greater freedom of choice to mix and match the best of two OER worlds, namely "producer-consumer" models with more traditional work flow approaches and commons-based peer production. This is an exciting project to build import export capability between the Connexions and WikiEducator/Mediawiki platforms.

WE need your help in building better OER futures.

1. Please visit the project planning node to find out more about the project: http://wikieducator.org/CNX-WE
2. WE extend an open invitation to all Connexions authors, WikiEducator authors, editors of the Wikimedia Foundation Projects to help us achieve success with this project.
3. WE will use the Connexions mailing list on Google Groups for our discussions -- Join the list if you're interested (http://groups.google.co.nz/group/connexions-community )
4. Visit the mini SWOT analysis page on WikiEducator and help us understand the context and remix needs of educators and OER authors (http://tinyurl.com/yakk4vm)
5. Consider joining our open planning team or list of active contributors (http://tinyurl.com/yed7erx )

Gee -- you gotta love open philanthropy! Let's make OER remix and interoperability futures happen for education.

Cheers
Wayne



--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director,
International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg

[Wong Leo]

Tks Wayne for this , does this Connexions have anything to do with OCLC ?

2009/11/18 Wayne Mackintosh <mackinto...@gmail.com>

--
Leo Wong
--------------------------------------
http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP
There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with the real teacher and real Kids

[Steve Foerster]

Wayne wrote:

> With generous funding support from the William and Flora
> Hewlett Foundation, the OER Foundation is pleased to
> announce that we are able to take OER interoperability
> and remix potential to new levels.

That's very exciting! I've been thinking about something not unrelated
to this. I hope that as a movement, that OER people and those producing
open learning mangement systems like Moodle can work more closely
together on releases of our content that can be dropped into their
systems. More about what I mean is here:

http://tinyurl.com/ydlxwgp

> Collaborating with OER projects which subscribe to licenses
> which meet the requirements of the free cultural works
> definition, WE aim to provide educators with greater
> freedom of choice to mix and match the best of two OER
> worlds, namely "producer-consumer" models with more
> traditional work flow approaches and commons-based peer
> production.

I'm glad there's an effort for producers with compatible licenses to
cooperate, although I can't help but think that it partially serves to
highlight the absurdity of needing licenses at all, especially for
educational use.

-=Steve=-

--
Stephen H. Foerster
http://hiresteve.com
http://hiresteve.com/blog
http://wikieducator.org/steve

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Steve,

Yip -- WE are thinking along the lines of better integration of WikiEducator content with LMSs (inlcuding Moodle.)

Jim has already developed a proof of concept webservice for taking a WikiEducator collection and packing this as an IMS content package / cartridge, which can be imported into Moodle. WE have a demo here:

http://wikieducator.org/WikiPublishing#How_It_Works

So it is technically feasible to achieve this goal. In addition, the OER Foundation is working on a project with the New Zealand Ministry of Education under the reusable and portable content initiative to achieve better integration with the New Zealand School secotor's approved LMS vendors. Moodle is one of the approved LMS vendors. 

I have another idea (subject to funding support), and that's to develop a script for converting Gutenberg file formats into WE formats with structured subjections, sub-pages, automatically inserting navigation templates etc. Should be doable, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some open source projects who have done some work in the this area. I haven't had a chance to research this yet. Wouldn't this be cool!

I share your sentiments about the absurdity of licenses.  Sadly, this is the reality of the formal education sector @  this juncture in the evolution of OER. In time we will see a global shift to real sharing of digital knowledge. Let's hope our work will be a catalyst for these futures.

Cheers
Wayne

2009/11/18 Steve Foerster <st...@hiresteve.com>

[Nadia El Borai]

I was just trying to add some information on my WikiEducator page in Arabic suddenly it seems that the script is all mixed up I wonder what happened. It would take hours to get it back to normal. 

http://wikieducator.org/تدريس_الايكيبانا

As I am going to be talking at the Wikimedia Conference Japan on the 22nd, to encourage content in Japanese it seems very bad timing for something like that to happen.

I hope you can let me know soon.

Rather desperate

Nadia

Nadia El Borai

http://wikieducator.org/User:Nadia_El_Borai

[Patricia Schlicht]

Nadia, Hi

 

Go to your page, click on the history page and revert by selecting the last version that was correct, click ‘edit’ and save. You are have the last version that worked

 

Cheers

Patricia

[Nadia El Borai]

Even the history seems mixed up this is why it is so strange. I asked the 2 people who helped me edit it before if they had noticed anything then just in case I am mistaken, but your answer came first.

Nadia

Nadia El Borai

[Dilip Barad]

Dear Wayne,

With reference to what you mentioned about New Zealand government, is there any such talk or deliberations going on with the Govt. of India? The Ministry of Human Resource Development has initiated a project called ‘National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology’, where in e-Content development is prime target. I foresee chances of involving Govt. of India with  WE mission of OER on Common Creative licenses.

I have a presentation on this sat 21^st Nov in Delhi for the same. I am planning to take a project of creating e-Content on WikiEducator and Moodle (www.dilipbarad.com/tell). If they approve my project I may have to organize several workshops (Online and face-2-fae) for wiki skills. I will also discuss WikiEducator with the panel of experts in this presentation. Would you like to give me some glaring point or success stories of WikiEducator, which I may incorporate in my presentation?

Regards,

Dilip Barad, Ph.D.

Dept. of English

Bhavnagar University

Bhavnagar – Gujarat

India.

www.wikieduator.org/User:Dilipbarad

 

From: wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com [mailto:wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Wayne Mackintosh
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 6:43 AM
To: wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [WE Teacher Collaboration] Re: Taking OER remix to new levels: WikiEducator, Connexions and Mediawiki

 

Hi Steve,

[Dilip Barad]

Dear Steve,
It is indeed great to work with WikiEducator and Moodle. I have prepared
sample module on how lesson content can be pprepared on Wikieducator and
self-assesment test can be taken on moodle quiz. You can view it on
www.wikieducator.org/Literary_Criticism. Scroll down to 'Self-Assessment
questions - SAQs. And you will get what I mean to say.
Regards,
Dilip Barad

-----Original Message-----
From: wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Foerster
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 6:15 AM
To: wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com; WikiEducator
Subject: [WE Teacher Collaboration] Re: Taking OER remix to new levels:
WikiEducator, Connexions and Mediawiki

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Nadia,

Both Jim and I have checked the pages from New Zealand and the seem to be working fine here. Granted -- we don't read Arabic.

Checked the history page as well and it seems to be fine as well.

Perhaps this is a local problem with your computer. Have you tried rebooting?

Cheers
Wayne

2009/11/18 Nadia El Borai <nadiae...@mac.com>

[Nadia El Borai]

I will do that now.

Will let know when it is done.

Nadia

Nadia El Borai

[Nadia El Borai]

Oh dear, I feel very embarassed... After rebooting my computer everything was fine. SORRY! Probably the battery was low, but I have learnt an important lesson.

My profuse apologies to all.

Wayne, Jim, Peter and Patricia thank you and sorry for this disturbance.

So it was a local problem.

Next time I shall be more careful before pressing the panic button.

All the best

Nadia

Nadia El Borai

On Nov 18, 2009, at 2:24 PM, Wayne Mackintosh wrote:

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Nadia,

No need to apologise --- glad you reported your problem and we were able to source the problem and a solution.

We are here to help.

[Nadia El Borai]

I suppose it was a power problem if my battery was low the image was distorted, and it sort of got frozen although the current increased. Maybe I shouldn't try to understand and just be happy it is all resolved. 

Thank you all for your help and for being in the same time zone as well.

Sincerely

Nadia

Nadia El Borai

[Randy Fisher]

Hi Nadia,

Please do let us know how your presentation about Japanese possibilities goes!

- Randy

--
Open Education is a sustainable and renewable resource.

________________
Randy Fisher, MA, OMD
Senior Consultant & Facilitator, Intersol Group, Canada

Senior Consultant, Organization & Business Development
International Centre for Open Education / OER Foundation, New Zealand

Elected Member, WikiEducator Community Council, www.wikieducator.org
+1 613.230.6424 x144 (EST)
Skype: wikirandy
Twitter: wikirandy

* Stakeholder Engagement, Change / Transition Management & Performance
* Organization Design & Development
* Sustainable Project Implementation & Community-Building
* E-Learning, Online Collaboration & Communities of Practice
* Coaching & Facilitation
* My Bio: http://www.communitybuildingexpert.com

[Nadia El Borai]

I think there is real interest in Japan but the people who would contribute I think would be the older generation of retired but still very fit people. I tried the younger generation, students or Ph.D. candidates but it seems that they are all worried about their jobs and how it would be in conflict because of the money.

I talked to a journalist and he said he could see how his father would be interested. Lets hope for the best. I can send you the power point presentation that  I plan to use. It has already been translated into Japanese by someone from Tokyo University.

Thank you again,

[Sonia Rodríguez]

Hi eveyone,
I checked Nadia´s wikieducator blog. It "looks" perfect (I can´t read arabic, either). I am very pleased to see the first page with arabic characters in the address!!! 

Nadia, if you could be a little more specific in what is mixed up, maybe someone could help.

Another thing: does wikieducator have the history feature? With this feature one can go back to the version without changes...

Greetings form Costa Rica,

Sonia

[Steve Foerster]

Dilip wrote:

> It is indeed great to work with WikiEducator and Moodle. I
> have prepared sample module on how lesson content can be
> pprepared on Wikieducator and self-assesment test can be
> taken on moodle quiz. You can view it on
> www.wikieducator.org/Literary_Criticism. Scroll down to
> 'Self-Assessment questions - SAQs. And you will get what I
> mean to say.

Oh, neat! Yes, I see what you mean.

What I was referring to, though, was a link to a Moodle archive so that
those who wanted to use the course on their own LMS could do so easily.

What would also be nice (although probably a lot harder) would be a
"Download as Moodle course" option in the toolbox. I suppose it would
be very difficult, though, in that often multiple pages would comprise a
course.

[Jim Tittsler]

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 05:28, Steve Foerster <st...@hiresteve.com> wrote:
> What would also be nice (although probably a lot harder) would be a
> "Download as Moodle course" option in the toolbox.  I suppose it would
> be very difficult, though, in that often multiple pages would comprise a
> course.

That is why I built the packaging tool that Wayne mentioned atop the
"Collection" extension, so that a collection of pages can be exported
in IMS Content Package or IMS Common Cartridge format.
http://edu.onnz.net/wikieducator/package/

[john stampe]

Hi, Wayne

>I have another idea (subject to funding support), and that's to develop a script for converting >Gutenberg file formats into WE formats with structured subjections, sub-pages, automatically >inserting navigation templates etc. Should be doable, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some >open source projects who have done some work in the this area. I haven't had a chance to research >this yet. Wouldn't this be cool!

An even more ambitious plan would be a converter for all the different file formats. Chemistry has something like that for called openbabel for different formats for describing chemical structure. Of course, it would require more funding and development time. (Do we know all the different formats available?)

Yes, that would be cool!

John
 
http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS
http://johnsearth.blogspot.com

---

From: Wayne Mackintosh <mackinto...@gmail.com>
To: wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, November 18, 2009 8:12:41 AM

Subject: [WE Teacher Collaboration] Re: Taking OER remix to new levels: WikiEducator, Connexions and Mediawiki

[Nadia El Borai]

I would like to be clear about 2 things.

1) WE is funded by the Commonwealth of Learning and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. What about the OER Foundation?

2) WE copyright licenses are under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA) which means that whatever is used from WE should be attributed to it. And the other copyright license is CC-BY

Please correct me if I have misunderstood. 

For 2) If one uses CC-BY-SA material,  the derivative work should also be CC-BY-SA

but in the case of derivative work from CC-BY it can be something else?

Just need some clarification if possible.

Nadia

Nadia El Borai

http://wikieducator.org/User:Nadia_El_Borai

[Steve Foerster]

Nadia wrote:

> 2) WE copyright licenses are under Creative Commons
> Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA) which means that
> whatever is used from WE should be attributed to it.
> And the other copyright license is CC-BY

CC-BY-SA is the default license in WE, but content can also be released
in WE that doesn't have either the SA or BY restrictions. CC-BY is one
possibility, as is a CC0 waiver, as is a public domain dedication, which
means entirely free.

When starting a new page, one can add the {{pd}} template to it if that
page is to remain in the public domain. Obviously, one couldn't do this
to pages where others had already worked on them.

[Wayne Mackintosh]

Hi Nadia,

I see that Steve has covered your questions regarding licensing.

As of 1 July 2009, WE is funded by the OER Foundation -- and independant non-profit entity. The OER Foundation pays for the hosting of servers, our two full-time staff members and consultants, for example the lead facilitators who assist with our free training workshops. For example, under the Commonwealth of Learning, it would not have been possible to install a localisation for Japanese.

The OER Foundation receives funding from:

• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
• A financial contribution from the Commonwealth of Learning contributing towards the hosting costs of the WE servers
• Contract work, for example the OERNZ project helping the Ministry of Education in New Zealand build a national commons in support for reusable and portable content for New Zealand Schools.
• Donations in kind, for example the contribution from Athabasaca University in Canada who will be hosting the WE servers.
  

The balance of our funding will include voluntary membership contributions from tertiary education institutions, corporate sponsorships and voluntary donations from around the world.

Here are a few FAQ's with reference to why WE is run by an independent non-profit entity.

http://wikieducator.org/OERF:FAQs/Background

Cheers
Wayne

2009/11/21 Nadia El Borai <nadiae...@mac.com>

[Nadia El Borai]

Thank you Steve and thank you Wayne for the information. I want to go into the meeting well equipped in case there are questions.

Nadia

Nadia El Borai

http://wikieducator.org/User:Nadia_El_Borai

[Wayne Mackintosh]

No worries --

I can see that you're extremely well prepared for the meeting. You're a true Wikiambassador :-).  If there are any questions you are unable to answer -- remember that everyone is free to join our WE discussion list.  Our community is here to help.

Good luck with your meeting / presentation. Let us know how it went.