OpenVentures

Open Ventures Context
This wiki has been initiated for a project of the | Master's in Educational Technology course | Ventures in Learning Technology. The goal of the project is to look at venture opportunities (profit or not-for-profit) that have been sparked by Open Movement initiatives. The initial intended audience is our UBC MET course cohort, who will constructively contribute and critique the Open Ventures wiki content through their WikiEducator membership (it does take a couple hours to register new users so patience is definitely a virtue here).

Ventures with Open initiatives is a broad and deep subject. Open Ventures is a growing area, so the initial facilitators have decided to focus on only a sample of Open projects. There is lot of opportunity to contribute and fill in content and you will see some placeholders for ideas for content. Please jump in and contribute your ideas and examples of Open Ventures.

Your facilitators for this learning event are: |Noan Fesnoux|Briar Jamieson|Dominic Maggiolo|Erin Menzies|Stephen Walsh|Tomek Ziemba

Why Use WikiEducator?
Our motivation to house Open Ventures content in WikiEducator is to align our design with open principles: contribute learning content beyond our institutional boundaries, and ensure content is discoverable and remix-able by a global community. WikiEducator also allows us to create a true Open Ventures OER; this content can be retained, reused, revised, remixed and redistributed. The site is also built on one of the stalwarts of open source software: MediaWiki. This engine was originally built for Wikipedia, but has now branched to include a diverse range of open resources. WikiEducator is also an OER in itself, designed for teachers with teachers being the primary contributors. The learning curve of using a Wiki is worth it... being part of such a community can ease your acquisition of new materials while also giving you a springboard for sharing your ideas.

Let's get started
Open Everything, refers to several Open Movements, that are committed to opening access to materials, content and processes to the public domain. One of the first Open movements was the Open Source movement which has helped to define the ideological premise of 'Open'. Watch this video to familiarize yourself with what open source means and understand the broader 'Open' ideology in this 5 minute video.

Notice that the word free in relation to open source was debunked. Creating open ventures does not mean you are doing things only for the good of mankind (however, it sure does look like it). In fact, when it comes to technology many companies prefer to leverage the power of open ventures to accomplish business goals with lower development costs and leveraging a collaborative community of users and developers.

We have broken down Open Ventures into 5 categories we think have impacted education. We invite you to make this Open Venture OER even better.

Participant engagement
Video Tutorial on OpenVentures Participation - Watch this short video to give you an idea of how you can participate.

Choice and motivated self-direction are the way we have designed the content. Instead of moving through the Open Ventures wiki material in a linear fashion, we have created pathways for you to navigate to specific Open contexts that capture your fascination. In leaving participant options open and flexible we hope to encourage deeper engagement in specific areas of interest.

Open Venture Innovations
Creating a taxonomy for the tangle of inter-related open initiatives is a difficult task. We have attempted to create meaningful categories to help you explore Open Ventures deeper (pick one or more areas to contribute):

1. Open Everything
The concept of Open is often misunderstood as free Internet content or open source code. However, Open Everything, is a complex system of permissions (i.e. copyrights & licences) on creative works in order to share and/or collaborate with the global community. Open then is not necessarily free nor is Open limited to code development. This pathway provides an Introduction to the Open Movement and Open Business Models. Take this path if you need a starting point to clarify the Open movement, understand how licences play a role in Open, common Open myths, and Open Business Models.

Pathway link: Open Everything Background Portal.

2. Open Education
Open Education is a both a mindset and a collection of practices which encourage sharing of knowledge and resources. The foundation of Open Education is the belief that by sharing comes empowerment. The sharing of knowledge is a Universal Human Right. Take this path if you're interested in learning more about exploring Open Educational resources and to explore current Open Education ventures.

Pathway link: Open Education Portal

3. Open Pedagogy
Open Pedagogy are the practices that surround the creation and use of open educational resources. Open Pedagogy makes and takes open educational resources and adapts them to constructive and collaborative teaching practices. Just as Open Education is not simply free books and free courses, Open Pedagogy is more than just free ideas. It is using this emerging openness in efficient and beneficial ways for anyone who wishes to learn. Take this path if you are interested in learning more about how educators may create and use the growing abundance of open educational resources in their practice.

Pathway Link: Open Pedagogy Portal

4. Open Design
Building stuff (eg. Makerspaces) is a fast emerging trend in the future of learning. It employs the best of entrepreneurial insight, creativity, logic, and constructing your own reality. However, making something from scratch takes ages in this era of hypercomplexity. Open Design allows for a global community of creators to build on the shoulder of giants in a teamwork environment. There are two specific areas Open Design explores: Physical Objects (eg. machines, cars, robots, houses ) and Virtual Objects (eg. computer programs, VR spaces). Take this path to learn more about the origin of Open Design through Open Source Code and examples of Open Design ventures.

Pathway Link: Open Design Portal

5. Open Research
Open research is an emerging market in the "Open Everything" space. Open Research exists as a sub-section of Open Education, although it often focuses more on information sharing than resource sharing. Take this path to learn more about Open Science, Open Data, Open Journals and more!

Pathway Link: Open Research Portal

Participation Stats By the Day:
Below is a table which shows how many times the pages have been accessed we have made on the various pages on the site, with to date totals. As a contributor, you can make this number grow!

Additional Resources
There are so many more resources on Open that we have curated them on a separate page.