WikiEducator and the OER Foundation

[Wayne]

At last -- a long overdue update, and apologies for my silence on this
list. The WE teacher collaboration forum is a great initiative and as
founder of the WikiEducator project, I'm embarrassed that I could not
get to this sooner :-)

Moving country with my family, starting a new job and setting up the
OER Foundation (a new independent non-profit entity) have kept me away
from active posting on our community lists. Dealing with the
withdrawal symptoms
of active participation on our lists hasn't been easy ;-). I've also
been pretty busy working on our first funding proposal to the William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation under a general operating support bid.
We'll hold thumbs for a successful outcome.

The good news is that I will now be working full time in open
education supporting WikiEducator in achieving its strategic
objectives.

Apology for the long post -- but lots of news to update the WE family.

EXCITING FUTURES FOR WIKIEDUCATOR

The growth of WikiEducator has far outstripped reasonable expectations
and our strategic plans for the initiative. Our success is driven by a
large and growing number of educators around the world who spend hours
volunteering
time in support of the core value of education -- namely to share
knowledge freely. This commitment has enabled WE to claim the accolade
of spearheading the world's largest wiki training project in education
under Learning4Content, not to mention hundreds of exemplary projects
hosted on the WE site!

As a result, WE have outgrown our founding home at the Commonwealth of
Learning (COL) and will now be moving forward as an independent
initiative. This is a significant milestone and confirmation of our
collective work.

APPLAUDING COL"S SUPPORT FOR WIKIEDUCATOR

On behalf of our community -- I would like to express our public
thanks to the Commonwealth of Learning for the foresight and
commitment from an international agency in supporting a bold and
progressive project. Notwithstanding the international success of WE,
COL has remained true to its commitment to ensure a community
governance model for the project. There are few organisations in the
world who measure performance by the successful projects they allow to
leave the nest and mature in their own right! This attests to COL's
commitment to learning for development.

Moreover, COL has confirmed a financial contribution to the OER
Foundation to support WikiEducator's technical infrastructure
(hardware and software) for the next three years. Our collective
success would not have been
possible without COL's ongoing support.

MY NEW ROLE - STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF OER PIONEERS

As of 1 May 2009, I have taken up a new role as founding Director of
the International Centre for Open Education based at Otago
Polytechnic in New Zealand which we announced back in September 2008
at the Open Education Conference in Utah. See: http://tinyurl.com/or4xqv

Otago Polytechnic is a global leader in the OER movement as evidenced
by an OER friendly intellectual property
policy (see: http://tinyurl.com/5fndlk )

The pioneering work of our WE Community Council Members, Leigh
Blackhall and Bronwyn Hegarty, with support from Terry Marler at the
Education Development Centre has been instrumental in establishing
Otago
Polytechnic's leadership in open education and supporting a large
number of early adopters among teaching staff at our institution.
(See: http://tinyurl.com/rynlgo ).

While the major focus of my new role will be external, that is,
building sustainable OER futures for WikiEducator -- I look forward
to learning from the wealth of experience from our open education
mentors based here at the Polytechnic.

THE OER FOUNDATION

The OER Foundation Limited is a new non-profit entity established to
support WikiEducator and open education. The OER Foundation is
registered as a non-profit company and will be the legal entity for
raising and administering funds to support our projects. The vision of
the OER Foundation is to foster the development of a sustainable open
education
ecosystem --- after all, OER is a sustainable and renewable resource!

The activities of the OER Foundation are restricted to charitable
education purposes and the Foundation will be subscribing to the
practices of "open philanthropy" (See:
http://commonspace.typepad.com/commonspace/2007/09/what-is-open-ph.htm
).
.

In practical terms, this means that our planning documentation,
funding proposals etc will be developed openly and transparently. In
this regard, I've set up a page node for the OER Foundation on WE.
You're not going to find much content there yet -- that's the point --
we'll be developing this as we go along. Over the next few day's, I'll
start populating these pages so you can watch as we go along and if
you have the time --- I'd welcome your help and support in moving this
process forward.

Bookmark the OER_Foundation planning page or add this to your watch
lists if you want to keep up to speed with what's happening:

http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:OER_Foundation

SUMMARY

* Wayne Mackintosh (Founder of WikiEducator) joins the International
Centre for Open Education at Otago Polytechnic.
* OER Foundation Limited, a new non-profit has been registered to
support the achievement of WikiEducator's objectives.
* COL confirms it's financial contribution to support WE's technical
infrastructure.
* The OER Foundation has prepared and submitted a grant proposal for
funding to the Hewlett Foundation See:http://tinyurl.com/dekzu2 )

Again -- apology for the relative silence on the list these past
weeks. As you'll appreciate, I've have had a lot on my plate but its
great to be back again in full force! If there are any questions or
suggestions -- please feel free to post these to the list, and we'll
do our best to answer them.

Take care,

Wayne