OERu/Planning/OERu Communication technologies and protocols

Overview, openness and self-help approach
The OER Foundation maintains a number of lists and communication channels roughly grouped according to audience and purpose to facilitate the OER universitas (OERu) initiative. The OER Foundation subscribes to radical transparency as a matter of policy. All planning is conducted openly in WikiEducator and the archives of our lists are publicly accessible. (Don't post confidential information or anything you would not like read by the general public on the lists we maintain.)

General practice in managing OERu communication lists
The OER Foundation is serious about facilitating widening access to learning opportunities by working with educators and educational institutions, to help them achieve their objectives through Open Education. We welcome constructive contributions from all interested persons.

We do not moderate our lists other than reasonably accepted practice to manage spam. There is a trade-off between openness and the ability to manage "spam", unsolicited advertising etc. We apologise in advance should unwanted posts appear on the list. These will be deleted from the archive. The OERu partners have a low tolerance for trolling activities. The OER Foundation reserves the right to delete or exclude members from the list. If you don't like what we are doing or object to decisions we have taken in good faith, you have the whole public Internet to complain to.

Note: The OER Foundation deems that posts to our lists are dedicated to the public domain unless the user specifies an alternate license in the body of their post.

Technical help and support
The OER Foundation does its best to help members with technical questions. The OER Foundation has only three full-time staff members so if you require an immediate response, we recommend that you first read the self-help instructions below, or show a friend or colleague this page who could help. That is the quickest way to get resolve basic technology support questions, especially if it's an after hours request taking the New Zealand timezone into account. For information on editing in the wiki, consult our extensive list of wiki tutorials. If you are struggling with any wiki text or syntax elements, post your question on one of the OERu lists below and remember to include the url of the page in your query.

Online planning forums
The OERu initiative arranges online seminars and planning discussions from time to time. These are announced on the main the OERu lists.

Synchronous planning sessions
Synchronous planning webinars for the OERu are hosted by different institutions. These are announced on the main OERu lists.

One-to-one interactions
Many individuals from OERTen partners welcome informal discussions and interactions. Representatives from our anchor partners are welcome to list their names and contact particulars below.

Where to contribute

 * General thoughts, ideas and announcements are made on the relevant discussion lists.
 * Discussions relating to planning documents and sub-activities of the logic model are hosted in the wiki. Contributors should post all discussions relating to wiki documents using the corresponding discussion pages in the wiki. (Don't post suggestions and ideas relating to the wiki planning pages on the discussion lists. We need to keep a wiki-based record of developments.)
 * If you see a typo in the wiki, or can improve on the language used, be bold and edit the page.
 * If you want to suggest a substantive change to a wiki page or suggested an alternative which may change the original meaning or intent, first post your ideas on the corresponding discussion page in the wiki. We aim to achieve rough consensus before making substantive changes on the main wiki pages.
 * Remember that you can add individual pages in the wiki to your watch list and set your preferences to receive email notifications of changes to pages you are watching.

Finding your way around OERu pages in the wiki
WikiEducator is used as the main platform for the collaborative planning activities for the OERu. We recommend that you bookmark key pages of interest and familiarise yourself with the navigation at the top of your browser which contains the links to the main areas of the OERu wiki pages. Important OERu hubs in the wiki include:


 * The OERu homepage
 * International media archive
 * Archive of OERu meetings including links to the meeting summaries and records of participants.
 * Planning portal which contains links to all the relevant pages relating to the planning of the OERu.