User:Mackiwg/Temp/OERU Anchor Partner Info pack.odt

[[Image:]]OER Tertiary Education Network: Information pack for OER university Anchor Partners

The OER Tertiary Education Network (OERTen) is an international innovation partnership of accredited universities, colleges and polytechnics collaborating on the adoption of open education approaches for selected projects.

The OERTen is co-ordinated by the OER Foundation, an independent educational charity that provides leadership, international networking and support for educators and educational institutions to achieve their objectives using open education approaches. The OER university (OERu) and the WikiEducator network of educators are flagship international initiatives of the OER Foundation.

This information pack provides a brief introduction for institutions who have joined our network. The document summarises how the network functions and includes suggestions on getting the most from your membership of the OER Foundation and the OERu.

An open community model – Communication and collaboration technologies

The OER Foundation subscribes to a philosophy of “open philanthropy” which encourages transparency and international community collaboration. Project planning, processes and documentation are developed openly and transparently encouraging wide international participation and discussion on the OER university portal page in WikiEducator.

The following technologies are used to support communication and interaction.

Technology	Purpose	Details
OER university discussion group	The main community communication vehicle of the OERu for all major discussions. (Suggestions and discussions relating to the editing of specific planning documents should be posted on the relevant talk pages in the wiki. See below.)	This discussion list was established by participants of the inaugural meeting of the OER for assessment and credit for students project which established the foundations for the OERu concept. The list is hosted on Google Groups and membership continues to grow. As an open list and anyone can apply tor join. The OER Foundation will send an email invitation to key staff at your institution to join the OERu list. Anchor partners are encouraged to invite interested staff members at their institutions to join the list. The OER Foundation suggests that you nominate a representative from your institution to be allocated manager rights on the list. (Send the name and email address to wayne@oerfoundation.org). The OERu is a low-traffic list. The default setting is to receive an email notification for each post. However, list members are free to edit their membership settings regarding how they are notified or how they access the discussions. Members can also unsubscribe from the list by sending an email to: oer-university+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. This is an open public list and the content of posts is not moderated. As a professional group, self-promotion and trolling with the intention to provoke emotional responses are not appropriate. Administrators and group managers reserve the right to remove objectionable material or unsubscribe members who do not adhere to accepted standards of professionalism. As a mechanism to avoid spam, prospective members are required to request an invitation to join. Initial posts from new members are “moderated” to confirm they are legitimate discussants.
WikiEducator	Project planning, collaborative development of OERu documentation and design, development and hosting of OERu learning materials.
Personal blogs	Publishing of individual perspectives and reflections about the OERu	We encourage individuals to blog about OER university developments. The OER foundation harvests and publishes a blog feed of OERu related posts using #oeru on the portal page in WikiEducator. If individuals from your institution plan to blog about #oeru, we request that they register their blogs so that the OER Foundation can aggregate their OERu posts.
Microblogging	A stream of digital consciousness and ideas about the OERu. Micro bloggers should use the #oeru tag.	The OER Foundation recommends that the community use the identi.ca free microblog service for posting about #oeru because notes on this site are published under a default Creative Commons Attribution license. This facilitates legal reuse aligned with the OER philosophy. Due to open content licensing issues, the identi.ca site is the OER Foundation's preferred service for legally aggregating feeds from the #oeru timeline.

Useful links and resources

OER university homepage	Portal node of the OERu on WikiEducator. This is the open planning hub for the OER university concept. Planning documents are drafted and discussed in the wiki pending final decisions of the Management Committee of OERTen.
5 Things you should know about the OER university network plan	A short 2 page document which conveys the essence of the OER university network. Used for recruitment of anchor partners, internal communications and informing the international higher education community about the network.
OER University: Towards a logic model and plan for action	Detailed report documenting the context, problem and logic model for implementing the OER university.
International media and selected presentations	Archive of international media coverage and selected keynote presentations discussing the OER university.
Inaugural planning meeting for the OER for assessment and credit for students project	International planning meeting which was streamed internationally attracting +200 registered participants from 46 countries. Video recordings of the meeting highlights are available.