OERu/Planning/OERu marketing communications and partner engagement/2015 Partner Engagement Annual Report

Executive Summary
The OERu Partner Engagement working group focuses on OERu community building and support for new OERu members and staff joining the OERu partnership.

The Partner Engagement Working Group (PEWG) met in July and August 2015. During its deliberations there was consensus to refine and simplify the PEWG’s focus.

Because of the need to orient new members, as well as provide a common baseline of information for all members during 2015-16, the PEWG will focus primarily on updated versions its first three (of six) KPIs.

These are:


 * 1) Review, refine and publish OERu partners’ and course developers’ manual.
 * 2) *Completed draft of OERu partners’ manual will be segmented to account for four types of community leadership role described in the summary report that follows this executive summary
 * 3) Refine the online course, Digital Skills for Collaborative OER Development, and deliver a pilot offering during 2015-16.
 * 4) * Initial pilot version of the course has been designed and developed (see DS4OER wiki planning page). It will need refining and role segmentation prior to delivery, and again based on any feedback collected during course delivery sessions
 * 5) Segment OERu community leadership roles and provide appropriate, high-level orientation resources for each role. The roles identified include:
 * 6) * Senior Administration, Marketing, Communications
 * 7) * Faculty, Course Developers, Learning Designers, Curriculum Developers and Media Specialists, Copyright, Librarians
 * 8) * Production, Programmers, EdTechs, LMS administrators, IT
 * 9) * Registrar, PLAR specialists

Summary of main outputs of the working group
The group has focused on a needs analysis for orientation of members. Input on barriers to participation in the OERu indicate the need for more understanding of the OERu and how to work within it. The purpose of making this a priority is that the growth of the OERu and its program will not move as quickly as it could if all the members don't have the knowledge and skills to promote and work in the OERu.

The decision was to segment the participants in to multiple audiences: represented by function not necessarily position - positions are examples only).
 * Senior Administration, Marketing, Communications
 * -GOALS: Big picture, value, business models, internal capacity building, communication tools
 * Faculty, Course Developers, Learning Designers, Curriculum Developers & Media Specialists, Copyright, Librarians
 * GOALS: Course design, development and collaboration, assessments, OER; Creative Commons, learning resources, media, OER. This group also includes Academic Departments, particularly those that are involved in the discipline of the OERu courses being developed at the institution.
 * Production, Programmers, Ed Techs, LMS administrators, IT
 * GOALS: Managing LMS, CMS, wiki building, tranclusions, Wordpress, Github, etc.
 * Registrar, PLAR specialists
 * GOALS: Assessment, credit, transfer, policy

A preliminary review was undertaken of the resources available including the following:
 * OERU Partners Manual
 * Digital Skills for Collaborative OER Development
 * actual course: Digital skills for collaborative OER development, micro course which works through the techniques of building and sharing a course, and deploying it in a WordPress instance
 * Getting Started with OERU - Induction Course
 * Synchronous (informal) sessions

A spreadsheet is here in wikieducator collecting feedback.

We are still working through final comments and then will need to determine is able to assemble/reorganize these materials.

Performance against key performance indicators
Due to time and priorities we focused on the first 3 KPIs primarily. The others should follow naturally. These are:


 * Review, refine and publish OERu partners and course development manual (incorporating critical friend review from a number of new OERu partners)


 * Complete digital skills for collaborative OER development and run pilot offering during 2015 (working towards induction programme for new OERu staff). (Shared KPI with Course approval and quality).


 * Expand OERu community leadership roles (and corresponding buddy system to mentor new community leaders.)

We anticipate completion of these KPIs by the end of 2015.

Recommendations for 2016 and the future

 * Complete orientation tools
 * Find some funding if possible to find someone to develop and deliver pilots/gather feedback
 * Implement and monitor results