Workgroup:WikiEducator Workgroups

Charter
A proposal to the WikiEducator community in May 2009, suggested the use of workgroups "to contribute towards the collective objective of improving how we work". WikiEducator Workgroups, a workgroup to define Community Workgroups in WikiEducator, is an outcome of this suggestion. This charter documents the group's purpose and outcomes, process for accomplishing these objectives, and participants. The charter that follows is modeled on the workgroup charter boilerplate.

Alignment with core WikiEducator values
Wikieducators value:

diversity, freedom, innovation, transparency, equality, inclusivity, empowerment, human dignity, wellbeing and sustainability.

Specified outputs

 * 1) A boilerplate for future workgroups to use for developing a charter to assist with the group's planning and functioning. The charter boilerplate should be created such that it is relevant for use by any WikiEducator working group.
 * 2) A policy and supporting guidelines for the establishment and support of Community Workgroups whose mission is to create policy, guidelines, tools, processes, etc that impact the whole WikiEducator community. The guidelines will
 * 3) * define a simple process for the establishment of Community Workgroups, including endorsement by the WikiEducator Community Council
 * 4) * encourage the creation of Community Workgroups
 * 5) * encourage the participation of WikiEducator members in Community Workgroups
 * 6) * include support mechanisms to help sustain Community Workgroups once they are established
 * 7) * not deter other kinds of working groups from self-organizing for their own purposes
 * 8) * be drafted at Workgroup:WikiEducator_Workgroups/Guidelines

Leadership style
WikiEducator Workgroups has assigned a convenor and co-convenor with the following responsibilities:
 * Convene and facilitate workgroup discussions
 * Ensure the development of a charter in accordance with the guidelines and recommended criteria
 * Take responsibility for regular updates on the main list
 * Take proactive initiative to ensure that volunteers are kept up to date (e.g., personal email, reminders of deadlines, etc.)
 * Prepare final submission of WikiEducator Workgroups' outputs for approval by the WikiEducator Community Council.

Required Workgroup skills and experience
To achieve its objectives, WikiEducator Workgroups requires the following skills and experience of its participants, taken as a group:
 * At least two members of the WikiEducator Community Council: to help with consideration of what role the Council will have in forming and supporting Community Workgroups
 * General management and leadership experience
 * Leadership experience in open wiki communities with reference to developing guidelines, polices etc.
 * Members with experience of working and developing educational content in WikiEducator
 * Editing experience
 * Geographic spread

Workgroup participants
Any registered member of WikiEducator may join WikiEducator Workgroups by including a link to their userpage and a brief description of their relevant skills and knowledge in the member section below, In addition, any member is welcome to contribute on an ad hoc basis.

Note: This charter applies to all members participating in this WikiEducator Workgroups (whether or not they appear in the member section).

Member responsibilities
Members of WikiEducator Workgroups agree to:
 * Regularly visit the group's pages, both main and talk pages.
 * Contribute to discussions and draft reviews of WikiEducator Workgroups' outputs.
 * Aim to achieve consensus on relevant items.

Members and signatures

 * Wayne Mackintosh, convenor
 * Founder of WikiEducator, elected member of Council with governance, senior level management and leadership experience. Active WikiEducator member/Ambassador with extensive content contributions, training support, strategy and policy development.


 * Location: Pacific, New Zealand: No. of WikiEducator edits: >15,600


 * Alison Snieckus, co-convenor
 * Relatively new member of WikiEducator, experience working on process design, technical writing experience, corporate and community face-to-face management/leadership experience.


 * Location: North America, USA; No. of WikiEducator edts: > 1000


 * Nellie Deutsch
 * Nominated member of Wikieducator Council, Educational leader specializing in curriculum and instruction, experienced online facilitator, experience in organizing collaborative online projects, PAIRS relationship and marriage training skills, conflict resolution, and English as a foreign language teacher.


 * Location: Middle East, Israel; No. of WikiEducator edits: 16,432


 * Patricia Schlicht
 * Active WikiEducator member, grassroot practitioner and experienced online facilitator with emphasis on community building (some face-to-face experiences); active team member working with and for the founder of WikiEducator since inception of WikiEducator, excellent project management, - coordination and - organisational skills, wiki statistics, strong leadership and collaboration skills working with the community.


 * Location: North America, Canada; No. of WikiEducator edits: 14,104


 * Peter Rawsthorne
 * Nominated member of Wikieducator Council, Senior level technology consultant with specialties in governance, solutions architecture, project portfolio management, quality assurance and open and agile approaches. Experienced online and face-to-face teacher / facilitator, numerous online community developments with focus on open data and community engagement. Open source software developer...


 * Location: North America, Canada; No. of WikiEducator edits: > 4400


 * Gladys Gahona
 * Active WE member, Researcher of Advanced Mediawiki Features, HTML & CSS, TeX Markup languages. Experience in Online Facilitation, Project Managing, Instructional Design, Community Engagement. Experienced F2F Academic Conselour on Test Taking, Study Strategies, Private Teacher and Tutor in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry for over 30 years.


 * Location: North America, Mexico; No. of WikiEducator edits: 7,696


 * Gita Mathur
 * Nominated member of the WikiEducator-India Interim Advisory Board. Main Page Featured WE for December 2008 UPE. India Page Featured WE June 2009. Associate Professor of Botany. Strong believer in Open Sources and OER's. Facilitated both F2F and Online L4C workshops at WE.


 * Location: Asia, India; No. of WikiEducator edits: 5002.


 * Anil Prasad
 * Nominated member of the WikiEducator Community Council, Open Free Educational Content Developer, Volunteer Researcher of Online ODL Systems, Trainer.


 * Location: Asia, India; No. of WikiEducator edits: 6,453.

Additional workgroup roles
Additional workgroup roles are not anticipated.

Resources to achieve Workgroup objectives

 * 1) Does this Workgroup require financial resources? No
 * 2) Are there any legal issues that might be of concern? No
 * 3) Does this Workgroup impact on community governance issues? Yes, WikiEducator Workgroups will determine a process for the initiation of Community Workgroups. We expect that the proposed process will require WikiEdcuator Community Council's review and approval of the Workgroup's outputs. Four council members are participants of WikiEducator Workgroups to help with consideration of what role the WikiEducator Community Council will have in forming and supporting Community Workgroups.
 * 4) Are there any security risks or technological dependencies which might be difficult to support? No

Boundaries
The current focus of this effort is to develop a "Policy for Community Workgroups" to include a developed process for the initiation of Community Workgroups. The policy will be tabled at the September meeting of the WikiEducator Community Council. Following the Council meeting, WikiEducator Workgroups will likely move to a second phase of work (of undetermined timeframe) to shepherd the implementation of the policy, if endorsed by the WikiEducator Community Council, and to revise and augment the policy as needed given direct feedback from active Community Workgroups.

The first phase of work will conclude on 5 Sept 2009. The second phase of work will be determined following the September meeting of the WikiEducator Community Council.

WikiEducator Workgroups will meet asynchronously so that members are free to contribute to the development of the policy as their schedules allow.

Meetings

 * When and where will the workgroup meet?
 * What technologies will be used in order to meet?
 * What happens if a member cannot be at a meeting but has not finished an assignment due?
 * What are expectations regarding participation in meetings?

WikiEducator Workgroups meets asynchronously in a continuous effort to meet the deliverables as specified in the project plan. No specific meetings are planned. Announcements and substantive discussions will be carried out on the various project-related talk pages, via email (for ensuring members are kept up to date), and to the main WE Google group as specified in the project plan.

If a member is not able to complete an assignment, the group collectively will carry out such assignments.

Editing
When editing content pages for this group, we ask participants to
 * freely edit the project pages, being sure to enter a substantive summary in the summary box for each revision,
 * create a new thread on the discussion page to introduce a topic or issue for discussion,
 * add suggestions, notes, or reminders to the main content page in a color other than black or using the template; include a signature.

Communication
The members will communicate chiefly through the discussion sections on WikiEducator Workgroups project pages, with occasional email and WE Google group notifications.

Decision-making
WikiEducator Workgroups uses a consensus approach for all decision-making. The workgroup members are encouraged (but, not required) to participate in editing content and to voice their views in discussions. Note that silence indicates consent. In addition, the larger WE community will be asked to review and comment on various drafts of the "Policy for Community Workgroups". All suggestions and feedback will be used to refine the project pages. Minority opinions will be discussed until participants agree to a resolution.

Evaluating workgroup success
The following benchmarks will be used to evaluate the success of WikiEducator Workgroups:
 * On-time completion of project tasks as specified in the project plan
 * Creation of the outputs as specified in the project plan
 * Wide community participation in reviewing the "Policy for Community Workgroups"
 * Resolution of all minority opinions and general consensus of all participants on the resulting "Policy for Community Workgroups"
 * Endorsement by the WikiEducator Community Council.

Progress in reaching these benchmarks will be discussed in WikiEducator Workgroups' final report.

Approval of charter
The WikiEducator Workgroups charter was shared with the wider WE community as part of the 2nd community update.

The participants shall indicate their approval by signing under the Charter vote section below by 5 August 2009, [due to member time constraints, the charter approval due date has been extended]. Members who disapprove or have further concerns should create a new discussion topic on the talk page. Consensus approval will occur when at least 6 (out of the 8) members, listed as participants above, have indicated approval and no issues have been raised in the talk pages.

Charter vote
Voting opens 5 Aug 2009.

By including your signature below you indicate your approval of this charter. Any disagreements, excepting minor edits, should be noted in a new discussion thread on the talk page.


 * Wayne Mackintosh 01:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Anil Prasad 06:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Alison Snieckus 15:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Patricia Schlicht 23:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Gita Mathur 02:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Gladys Gahona 19:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Peter Rawsthorne 21:44, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Nellie Deutsch 23:26, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * VIvek Sharma--Viv 10:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)