OERu/Planning/About working groups

Working groups comprise a group of people who engage in thoughtful discussions, planing and implementation of the OERu. OERu working groups can be established for clearly defined tasks and are dissolved once the agreed outcomes have been achieved, whereas the activities of other working groups are ongoing. Working groups can be reconstituted or merged as the needs of the OERu implementation change.

Working groups do their work openly on this wiki. Anyone can participate in the planning discussions, by posting discussions on the corresponding talk pages in the wiki. Ideally, each working group consists of four to ten core members, one or two of whom serve as the group's convener or co-conveners. The conveners of the working groups serve on the OERu Management Committee (OERuMC) who meet regularly using Google Hangouts. The OERu Management Committee meetings are broadcast live using Google Hangouts on Air in conjunction with the #OERu feed as a back channel. OERuMC meetings are recorded for those who are unable to participate synchronously and kept as a record of the discussions.

The convener is responsible for facilitating conversation, keeping the group on track, and making sure the group fulfills its responsibilities.

Working groups have the following characteristics:


 * The groups are small and work on specific deliverables (tasks and activities)
 * Determine the objectives of the working group's activities
 * Declare a time frame (a defined start and end dates) for tasks and activities
 * While working groups are expected to report on their work openly in this wiki, they may also decide to use other tools to coordinate and conduct their work. In these cases, working groups should either link directly to those tools and post summaries of the outputs in the wiki.