Community building project

Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.

Objective

To help WikiEducator achieve scaleable and sustainable growth among its high-priority stakeholder communities through community-building and appropriate messaging / communications strategies. (Lead role - Randy Fisher ~ aka wikirandy)

Activities

Community Needs Analysis - high priority Stakeholder Communities
Community Messaging
OER Workshop Design / Materials - (beginning with FLOSS4Edu Pacific Workshop, New Zealand - August 11-13, 2007])

Stakeholder Communities (high priority)

Now that we're moving towards Phase II of WikiEducator's growth and development (July 2007), there is a considerable and time-sensitive opportunity to engage high-priority Stakeholder Communities to benefit WikiEducator.

If WikiEducator is to meet its goals - of developing a free educational curriculum by 2015, then it must develop content AND engage key people, organizations and communities in an interactive and supportive way.

These high-priority Stakeholder Communities include, but are not limited to:

Interviewing - Key Stakeholders

(Editor's note: to keep the community apprised of the progress of this project, excerpts of these interviews will be available at the Interviews page. Click here to go there!

WikiEducator Advisory Board Members
- Erik Moeller
- Nicholas Kimolo
- Steve Foerster
- Brent Simpson
- Savithri Singh
Otago Polytechnic
- Leigh Blackall - DONE, AUG. 2007
College of the Rockies
- Dr. Nick Rubidge, College of the Rockies President and CEO
- Gina Bennett, College of the Rockies' eLearning Specialist and author of the learning material donated by the College - DONE, SEPT 2007
Community Portal Page
- projects - ongoing (project leaders)
- projects - dormant (project leaders)
COL Education Specialists
- Frances Ferreira - info gathering on secondary education communities (in Africa) - DONE - JUNE 11, 2007
- Joshua Mallett - DONE - AUG. 15, 2007
- Krishn Alluri - DONE - AUG. 15, 2007
- Tanyss Munro, - DONE - AUG. 15, 2007
- Other - Helena Fehr - DONE - AUG. 15, 2007
WikiAmbassadors
- Steve Foerster (also advisory board member) - DONE - AUG. 29, 2007

Free Textbook Project
** Leaders
One Laptop Per Child
- Samuel Klein
- Mel Chuo
UNESCO
- Jean Claude Dauphin
- Susan D'Antoni
- CCNC developers - module coordinator, developers

Selected participants from non-commonwealth countries
- Werner Westermann (Chile)
- Gunter Osswald (aka White Eagle) - Germany

Other Stakeholders

Groups that form around / support WikiEducator Initiatives (this also includes individuals from within the groups, who perform specific roles (i.e., Librarians / Information Science)
VUSSC
MSU Global
Otago Polytechnic

Community Relationships - OER Projects
- Wikipedia
- Wikiversity

International / National Agencies
- UNESCO, CIDA

Teachers / Educators / Tutors
- primary
- secondary (world, Africa)
- tertiary
- vocational
- student support tutors
Course Writers / Instructional Designers
Management - Open Schools
Researchers
Policy Makers
Students / Learners

Community-Building Ideas

Wikimania 2007 - Little Angel Program
Summer of Content - Ask a Question Box - on each country page
Design a Home Page & Country-specific template, including aggregation (i.e., my blogfeed, communities, etc.)
- ensure that country links on the Community Portal page & Country page, are linked to their respective countries.
- ensure that local folk from each country, update their own Country pages.
- initial design focuses on "country content"; v2-migrates to portal content
- put in copyright page, and welcome message
- use lots of tables - good way to order info, and a neat 'graphic' - re: FAQ page
Try to ensure a logical structure & linking for pages (WikiMaster)
- intuitive, navigation and linkability (re: SBeL, and others)
- Ensure appropriate contact info - this includes email (even the language to write in the subject lines), phone number(s), availability, etc.
- ~~Add Countries to main page Navigation Bar, and change Projects to Projects & Initiatives~~ - Done --Wayne Mackintosh 23:44, 17 September 2007 (CEST)
Use Rapid Development Teams (WikiAmbassador + WikiMaster) when possible (future page)
- this is akin to a "buddy system" buddy system where a new user / member is teamed (electronically) with an experienced user / member who can answer queries / deal with issues, or at least act as a first port of call.

- Image: Yin/Yang graphic - right brain / left brain, or even hands helping each other (i.e., handshake)
Make sure the right people are in the room
Leverage community of educators (i.e., global and sectoral)
Leverage collaborative creation / editing space
WikiAmbassadors - all contributions count (reference from Gunther Osswald comment)
- also - share info / support others
Images / Graphics & How-to's
- while video is a nice-to-have, how about using pix (or thumbnails) to guide the user through each step of how to get started. It can be a storyboard fashion, which linked together, can form a "movie-like" experience....When doing 'how-to's - a person can script out what s/he wants, and then go shoot some photos and upload them, to illustrate the how-to.
recruit people based on interest, and country
- ensure link to country list (in development) in ~~navigation bars~~ (Done --Wayne Mackintosh 23:50, 17 September 2007 (CEST)), and portals
development of Events Calendar - could have its own page, or have an aggregate feed under each country (TBD)
is there a Visual Mapping Resource?
User pages are important - One Laptop Per Child has an interesting template
teams - re: Climatechange
Use Videos to facilitate discussion / activities (i.e., 60 minutes, Shipbreakers, Bangladesh)
Differentiation strategy - ie How does (or should) WikiEducator differentiate itself among similar initiatives, for eg:
- WikiEducator focuses on building capacity of educators while developing free content
- WikiEducator places a high priority on quality of learning materials and develops tools to support quality processes
- We base our development processes on the research and experience derived from DE - a core COL competence
- Developing society focus
Add Partners page

To Do (WikiRandy) ~ as of Sept. 18, 2007

Complete short paras on WikiEducator roles page (collaborate with Wayne Mackintosh)- pri-1
Complete individual role pages (pri-2)
Continue stakeholder interviews + put excerpts on Interview page (pri-1)
Develop Key messages page + grid (i.e., messages + tactics (pri-1)

* Post Community Needs Analysis document

Focus on WikiEd Wishlist development (or other name) + community cluster (pri-1)

* Developing Surveys - Newbie (User);

- Supporting WhiteEagle for High School Student Survey
Case Study Development - White Eagle, Joshua Mallett - TVET
Review Curriki - strengths & Weaknesses
Ensure Progress Dashboard gets done
Check out BC Campus]