Wikieducator Roles

The WikiEducator initiative is a family comprising many self-organising teams. There are a wide variety of roles in the community and you are invited to join a team(s) or even start a new one.

Building on best practice in the development of distance education materials, WikiEducator adopts a team approach. The design and development of quality materials requires the inputs from a range of skilled people including, for example: subject matter experts, learning designers, multimedia and language professionals.

This page introduces the range of roles to assist you in choosing where your own interests and experience can help WikiEducator in its mission to widening access to high quality, free content for education.

WikiEducator Ambassador
A WikiEducator Ambassador is a person who believes in the value of WikiEducator, and promotes WikiEducator as a platform for free educational resources, collaborative development and global network-building. They can be connected to an institution, their community, peers, or even within their own country. It is a person who shows leadership behaviour, but does not necessarily have to be in a formal leadership position. More...

WikiEducator Neighbour
WikiNeighbours are people who take the initiative to introduce themselves to new neighbours. They help orient new people and others to our neighbourhood. WikiNeighbours inform others about the latest news and events and support other people in the WikiEducator community: whether it be with technical tips, finding content, or simply extending a warm WikiEducator Welcome!! More...

WikiEducator Facilitator
A WikiEducator Facilitator is a person who promotes dialogue and interaction within our community - helping people to identify new resources, find new ways of doing things and / or connecting with others.

Educators
Educators come in many shapes and sizes - we're making a distinction in terms of two roles: formal educators and informal educators.

Formal Educators
An individual who is responsible for designing and / or delivering educational materials in a professional setting. This individual may hold a degree in education and/or a specific subject area (i.e., mathematics, physics).

Informal Educators
An individual who is responsible for designing and / or delivering educational materials. This individual typically has a passion for a specific subject matter and wants to teach others, or help them to learn more about a given area. This person may or may not hold a degree, or formal training as an educator.

National WikiEducator Convenor
(This is an important role to that enables citizens to connect and communicate with each other on WikiEducator projects.)

A national convenor is a person who takes initiative to convene, coordinate and promote WikiEducator activities at the country level. They update their country page on a regular basis. They encourage citizens to join existing projects and facilitate the establishment of new country-based projects - on WikiEducator.

WikiEducator Trainer
A WikiEducator Trainer takes the initiative to support fellow WikiEducators in developing their skills: for new, intermediate and advanced WikiEducators. They facilitate face-to-face and online training sessions in how to use the wiki, including developing high-quality educational content using our training materials; and the vast range of tools and templates available. A WikiEducator Trainer also takes responsibility for supporting a new account holder (i.e., a "Newbie").

Policy Makers (Education)
A Policy Maker is responsible for developing and recommending (education) policy changes to decision makers, including representatives within the Prime Ministor's Office, legislators and their staff, representatives from within the country's education systems, and those from other government agencies. S/he supervises complex research studies in the areas of: program and facility review; education accountability systems; the affordability and cost of education; the impact of technology on education; and learner system quality.

Instructional / Learning Designers
These individuals assist with curriculum development by validating and improving the quality of learning activities. They are also influential champions of new and innovative ways of thinking and doing things, on behalf of their internal and external clients and / or institutions. For example, WikiEducator has benefited from the leadership of the instructional design team and the President of BC's College of the Rockies, which donated its unused math and English lessons.

Technical / Wiki Experts
These individuals are highly-skilled in working with technical applications and technologies. For WikiEducator, they convert draft curricula into a format suitable for the wiki - (perhaps using the online html-2-wiki converter).

User Interface Designers
These individuals work closely with WikiEducator team members, instructional designers, project managers, development teams and other internal stakeholders to build storyboards, proof-of-concept mockups, demos and prototypes of proposed and planned applications, web pages and features. You will collaborate in the definition of user interface standards for WikiEducator applications to ensure ease-of-use and navigation and an integrated and consistent presentation. You will also collaborate with other team members in conducting ongoing research into best practices and web-based interface and application development. Finally, you will be expected to consider different look-and-feel standards that respect various cultures, particularly those in the developing world, and the developed world.

Multimedia Designers
These people often work as part of a team to create rich web sites, CD-ROMs, DVDs or exhibition materials. Regardless of the medium they work in, they should be familiar with a variety of story telling tools, such as graphics, sound, video and animation. Some Multimedia Designer positions include creating interactive learning modules, games, advertising campaigns, marketing materials, online communities and intranet systems. Strong creative skills combined with extensive knowledge of design software and programming languages such as ActionScript and dynamic (D) HTML are essential.

Editors
These individuals provide editing expertise so that the lesson plans, tutorials and supplementary materials are communicated clearly and effectively.

WikiEducator Reporter
These people keep the the WikiEducator News page up to date. It could be a journalism or PR student, graduate or professional who believes in what we are doing!

WikiEd Users
These individuals validate the accuracy and quality of the tutorial material - and give us feedback so we can improve!

Learners
This is You!! - the end-user of WikiEducator learning materials. We welcome your input and feedback on the appropriateness of learning materials.

And when you volunteer
If you are thinking about helping out on a project (which of course we strongly encourage) it is sometimes helpful to yourself and the project team that you describe the level of commitment you intend on making to the project. This becomes particularly useful when a project is starting and a request for volunteers goes out. By giving some heartfelt thought to your level of commitment will set the expectations for all the project team members. We suggest three types of volunteers; Remember WikiEducator has many projects, so you may be a contributor in one project while a reviewer in another and due to an expertise an approver for another.
 * Contibutors - someone who is active in moving the project forward
 * Reviewers - someone who watches and reads the project and occassionally adds suggestions, makes comments, etc...
 * Approvers - someone who has credability in the projects subject area who endorses the project deliverables