Digital skills for collaborative OER development/Wrapup

Dear DS4OER participants

I applaud the "Class of 2015" who braved the prototype offering of the DS4OER course, especially those learners who have persevered and successfully published their own course sites reclaiming a small corner of the web for themselves. Well done! A special shout-out goes to the following participants for their courage in sharing openly:


 * Grian A. Cutanda (http://mycourse-grian333s.rhcloud.com/)
 * Viviane Vladimirschi (http://mycourse-vvladimirschi.rhcloud.com/)
 * Marc Watkins (http://mycourse-mwatkins.rhcloud.com/)

A number of DS4OER learners are still working on a completing a few additional learning challenges as evidenced by the register of completed learning challenges. As an open course, the materials will remain accessible. I will also monitor the course feed till the end of this working week.

DS4OER is a demanding course both in terms of the time commitment and new digital skills required for success. Celebrate your achievements!

A few course statistics

209 individuals signed up to receive course instructions via email. The DS4OER course site has generated +10,000 page views from 876 unique visitors for the duration of the course to date. 58% of the sessions were from returning visitors to the site. On average, each visitor spent approximately 9 minutes on the site during each visit. Approximately 20% of all site visits were from mobile devices suggesting that the OERu's efforts in promoting responsive design are important for the future.

Evaluation survey

If you were able to complete one or more of the DS4OER learning challenges, please help us by completing the short online evaluation survey.

Formal certification

A few learners have enquired about formal certification for DS4OER from Otago Polytechnic. I have your details and will be contacting you via email to provide more information. If you are interested in formal assessment for certification purposes, please email me at mackintosh.wayne@gmail.com.

Thank you

I extend a special word of thanks to Jim Tittsler and Pat Lockley who were instrumental in progressing technical solutions for learners to reclaim the web by publishing their own course sites using open source technologies they control. This is a significant step forward for our charitable work at the OERu. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the funding support we have received from the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO to progress the development of the course resources and the supporting technologies for DS4OER.

Above all, thank you for helping the OERu complete the pilot offering of this course and for your patience in helping us iron out a few teething problems. In the near future, DS4OER will assist thousands of educators around the world in building capacity for collaborative OER development. Your gift of knowledge and time to help us test components of the course and to provide constructive feedback will contribute to widening access to these open learning opportunities for all educators. Working together we can achieve far more than working alone.

Greetings from New Zealand until I see you again online.

Wayne UNESCO/COL/ICDE Chair in OER.