About WikiEducator

As the Culture Wiki is part of WikiEducator, please refer to the following for more information, in order to understand what we are trying to do and how to find innovative ways and approaches to implement these ideas:


 * download the WikiEducator brochure (899KB).
 * view a Slideshow by Wayne Mackintosh providing an overview of the WikiEducator project (broadband connection is recommended).
 * Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

Introduction
WikiEducator is a community project working collaboratively with the Free Culture Movement towards a free version of the education curriculum by 2015. Driven by the learning for development agenda we focus on:


 * building capacity in the use of Mediawiki and related free software technologies for mass-collaboration in the authoring of free content;
 * developing free content for use in schools, polytechnics, universities, vocational education institutions and informal education settings;
 * facilitating the establishment of community networks and collaboration with existing free content initiatives in education;
 * fostering new technologies that will widen access, improve quality and reduce the cost associated with providing education, primarily through the use of free content.

Sir John Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning is the patron of WikiEducator. The project has adopted a community governance model which is coordinated by the Interim International Advisory Board. Ambassadors for WikiEducator promote the project around the globe, and our technology roadmap helps us make the future happen.

WikiEducator's technical infrastructure is supported by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL). COL is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. COL has invested considerable resources from its programme budget in building capacity for free content development, most notably through the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) initiative.

Strategy
The Culture Wiki aims to build a thriving and self sustainable global community dedicated to the design, development and delivery of free content for learning in the area of culture, to bridge the gap of misunderstandings, and to create education resources in the area of culture, in recognition of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

In realisation of this vision, the Culture Wiki strategy will focus on:


 * Building the capacity and skills of the culture community to engage meaningfully in the mass-collaboration required for the design and development of high quality learning resources, for example capacity building workshops.
 * Developing free content and knowledge to support the development of open communities and free content developers so that resources can be reused in multiple contexts, for example the Newbie Tutorials.
 * Ensuring smart connections through appropriate networks, ecosystems and the smart implementation of free software solutions to fill the gaps between existing mainstream technologies and the unique requirements of asynchronous learning thus widening the reach and access of free content in the developing world. This is achieved through community nodes on the Culture Wiki.

The strategy is divided into three distinct phases. 

Phase 1: Establishing foundations (January 2008 - December 2008)
This phase involves setting up the processes to facilitate community development for free content in the area of culture. This is achieved by:


 * building capacity to participate;
 * developing free content on how to develop free content for culture;
 * through a process of self organisation, providing the community the freedom to determine the kinds of projects, structures and communication mechanisms for the Culture Wiki;
 * establishing a democratic governance model from the community for Culture Wiki;
 * collaborative and democratic development of community policies that support and promote the values of the Culture Wiki community;
 * strategic relationships networking to ensure the right connections for a sustainable culture community.

Phase 2: Scaling up free content development (Jan 2009 - Dec 2009)
The prime purpose of Phase 2, is to scale up the rate and quality of free content development building on the foundations established during Phase 1. Phase 2 will be realised through ongoing community development with special emphasis on scalable capacity development with emphasis on culture, including for example:


 * The name to come project which aims to provide xxx
 * Establishing clear pathways for a wide range of skilled individuals to contribute to the Culture Wiki projects by:
 * Developing a one stop "portal" which clearly communicates which projects need help and support;
 * Differentiating and communicating the skills requirements for individual projects, for example learning design, content design, multimedia and visual design, linguistic design, research and technical design;
 * Policy and practice guidelines for the design and development of learning content drawing on the research and experience of distance education, for example the Learning Design project.
 * Establish quality assurance mechanisms appropriate for educational content, for example implementation and refinement of the FlaggedRevs initiative.
 * Development and implementation of a fund raising strategy for the Culture Wiki community.
 * Seeding the establishment of regional and national chapters of mainstream the Culture Wiki initiatives.
 * Ongoing refinements to existing technologies and the search for free software solutions to scale up the rate of free content production.

Phase 3: Sustainable implementation of free content in the area of culture education (Jan 2010 - )
The purpose of this phase is to prioritise activities which implement free content into mainstream educational activities. The success of the free content movement in the area of culture education will be measured when real students enroll in real programmes using free content.

The flagship project will be the name to come to collect evidence on the merits and value proposition of free content in real educational contexts.

Quick facts and highlights
The Culture Wiki is part of WikiEducator which was established as a collaborative authoring environment to initially support VUSSC, and COL's eLearning initiative. A review of WikiEducator's early history shows exponential growth with numerous free content initiatives emerging around the world, which we hope we will be able to do for culture as well.

