Outline Audience Issues
The question of where to start has come up. You can see I've started creating two sections of the handbook called "Introduction" and "Get OER." As I've been writing, its become clear that the outline is trying to hit two different audiences. For example, we have parts of the Background section (see merged outline page on the wiki) that apply to both audiences, and parts of it that would apply more towards institution-wide OER projects. From there the handbook goes to the "Get OER" section which, as outlined, is relevant for both, but mostly for micro-level development. After "Get OER" is the Publish section, which is mostly macro-level.
David Wiley has pointed out that both perspectives are needed. However, writing the handbook with the two audiences may be impractical.
This problem has seemed particularly vexing to me, and I wanted to get the wisdom of the community on this matter. Please give suggestions for how you think the handbook should take shape.
This was confusing to me as well, and it seems that the best idea, as you mentioned, would be to separate the two audiences out. If I'm a faculty wanting to share my resources then the information I need to know is going to be different than if I'm an institution wanting to start an official OpenCoruseWare project. I'm afraid if we have one handbook that covers everything, it won't be simple enough for a faculty member to wade through to find the parts that would be useful for them.
One way to do this is to have the first part of the handbook focus on the basics. Give the reader enough information so they feel comfortable gettin their information up and sharing it with the world. Then have an 'advanced' section. Once you've shared your resources, here is a way you can get your institution to share even more. Marionjensen 18:20, 31 January 2008 (CET)
Yes I agree with Marion. Start with the basics, targeting an individual.. but it makes sense to move to the organisational level for a number of reasons:
- The individual may need to argue reasons why the want to contribute OER and their reasons might need to be express to organisational management.
- The individual might be a consultant, change agent, librarian or other and again needs resources for proposing the organisation wide OER
- The individual may wish to first consider the organisational implications before adopting an OER stance individually.
And the the handbook should move completely into the organisational level with example IP Policies and copyright statements, employment contracts and other management document templates ready for use. Yes, I think that should be in the scope of the hand book, and I think it is easily achievable. You can have my organisation's policy's for a start!
So, in short:
- Basic
- Individual/independent/user/author
- Employee/academic/administrator/librarian/etc
- Organisation/department/faculty
- Institution/managers/contracts/HR/IT
- Global/consortium/multinational collaborations/etc
This seems like a natural progression from micro to macro to me...
