OERu/Strategic plan 2014 - 2017/Strategic plan 2015 - 2017/Annual report 2014/2014 operational priorities

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2014 Operational priorities

Introduction: At the November 2011 founding meeting of OERu anchor partners, we agreed a Bachelor of General Studies as the inaugural credential; and aimed to develop 3 prototype courses during 2012 / 2013 in time for the launch meeting in November 2013. Before the launch, we completed: Regional Relations in Asia and the Pacific (University of Southern Queensland), Open Content Licensing for Educators (Otago Polytechnic), Art Appreciation and Techniques (Thompson Rivers University) plus a bonus micro Open Online Course (mOOC), Scenario Planning for Educators (University of Canterbury) which we were able to run in parallel mode with full fee registered students studying with free OERu learners. In short, we achieved our initial targets.


Summary of progress on selected project activities

The OERu planning portal keeps a record of all the initiatives and activities in the logic model, including:

  • As requested by the OERu Council of CEO’s, the open strategic planning consultation progressed on on schedule.
  • Membership recruitment: To date, five new partners have confirmed joining the OERu international partnership. We are lagging a little behind our target to achieve ten new partners by the end of 2014.
  • Programme Development: To date 31 full course equivalents have been nominated. We now have two full programmes on the table. (Graduate Diploma in Tertiary Education and a Postgraduate Diploma in Disaster Risk Studies.) This means that the OERu will have two additional credentials and a foundation for streaming, for example the Bachelor of General Studies with a specialisation in Vocational Education.
  • Google Summer of Code (GsoC) peer evaluation project - the alpha release was tested and the beta version was completed by the "pencil down" date of 11 August 2014.
  • The OERu technical infrastructure for hosting courses is based entirely on open source software. This offers unique opportunities for the OERu to build a community source model for partners to contribute to technology innovation for the benefit of the network. To date, the University of Southern Queensland is the only partner contributing to our community source effort. We aim to achieve 1 FTE equivalent contribution in kind spread across the network of institutions by the end of 2014.
  • Design and development of Academic Volunteers International got off to a good start with extensive brainstorming of ideas for the design, but this project is currently stagnant.
  • OERu Management Committee and associated working groups have been established, and two series of meetings have been completed. More details are available via Quicklinks.
  • Course site design project - to develop a CSS framework for responsive design to improve the presentation layer of OERu courses on mobile devices based on the OERu website theme plus the ability for OERu partners to customise the theme for local branding. Project is on track.
  • A course sprint is planned for mid-September so partners can work together in finding out how to develop courses for OERu and to build capability in digital skills for collaborative OER development.

Conclusion: Overall, we are making good progress. The strength of the OERu network is in the rigour of our planning combined with a healthy dose of openness.

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