OERu/Open technology infrastructure

Issues, questions and suggestions

• still a digital divide
  • connectivity issues, for example Internet penetration of only 4% in the Pacific
  • mobile 3G penetration
• community access
  • telecenters for shared access
  • what business model?
  • subsidies?
• seamless provision of resources
  • institutional controls (ex: video: forms required, particular formats)
• identity and access management
  • across resources
  • across assessments?
• avoid falling into trap of computerizing existing manual processes
• cost
• offline copies
  • lack of engagement
  • problems with interactivity
• security concerns?
• versioning
  • branches
  • quality assured versions
• formats
  • staying "current"
• freshness of resources, culling outdated
• communications technologies
  • mailing lists
  • synchronous... video, conferences
  • connectivity problems across systems

• leverage existing infrastructure and practices where practicable
  • eg UCLA's Public/Private patch to selectively make some Moodle resources and activities open while keeping others private. Gently moves teachers to open practice http://slidesha.re/f5ecqW

Activities

Three First Steps

• Promote and encourage universal access schemes
• Identity/authentication/access mechanisms
  • institution
  • learner
• Format neutrality
  • ideal resources available across a range of delivery
  • degrade gracefully
  • support mobile
  • support offline (CD, paper, etc.)

Other Activities

• improve capacity
  • professional development for teachers
  • make learners aware of options and their actions online
• author guideline for managing online footprint
• promote competition in telecom sector
• encourage and submit telecenters
• OLPC
  • development
  • deployment
  • teacher buy-in
• protection policies around personal data

Outputs

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