Open Access Week and Dadamac October 13, 2010

Hi Nikki, John, Kelechi and everyone - including readers of my open letters

I have just realised that next week is Open Access Week OAW  - and I forgot to include it on the agenda for today's meeting - hence this email.

When we heard about OAW  a couple of weeks back we agreed it would be great to do something at KRC - but that we all have many other things we need to do. So I suggest we think how we could keep it simple but still get involved in a useful way.

The launch video

For a start let's make sure we get a plan to download the OAW launch video to show at KRC when the embargo is lifted.

Public release will take place Monday, October 18 at 9:00AM  Eastern. Request an embargoed copy at http://sparc.arl.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=34.

If the download doesn't work we'll ask Elaine if  she can help us - as with the Khan Academy download and other DVD. September 27- 2010 - Knowledge Resource Centre and Khan Academy, need for online volunteers

If the video can't be shown in OAW week perhaps it can be shown as part of Dadamac Day on November 4th.

The KRC vision video resources

Alternatively the OAW video can become part of Kelechi's video collection for teaching people the vision behind KRC (and its world wide context). It seems there is already the start of a good collection of introductory resources which can share the vision for the KRC.

Kelechi - ref video resources you have told me you have searched out the interviews with John and also Mercy's learning journey - and today you mentioned that you are already showing videos to Ladi. It will be good to know if she finds them helpful and how we can build on this for others connected with KRC. I have suggested we also need an interview with you and, from your response, I am hoping that might be possible. (I think there are others who might usefully be persuaded to do learning journey videos at some point too. Let's discuss later.)

Vision before action

Before we plan too much activity at KRC (ie lots of people coming to make use of KRC) we need to share vision so people are heading in approximately the same direction. Then people can work on their own part of the vision (learning or helping others to learn) in proactive ways without causing confusion or undermining the work of anyone else. I love the way John shares big vision for the future of FF and Attachab through the model on the veranda. Somehow we have to provide similar big vision for KRC.

So - we have some resources to start to share the vision locally - and perhaps we can use some of them to share our vision and story with the global community at some point.  What else do we have to share with the global community, especially with reference to OAW?

KRC and OERs for OAW -- my apologies - TLAs  - Three Letter Acronyms ;-)

I think we have some exciting pioneering work about Open Educational Resources (OERs) in progress already at the Knowledge Resource Centre (KRC) which may be of interest in the context of Open Access Week (OAW).  I am thinking about our discussions at the UK-Nigeria team meeting this morning about Ladi's current work on translating resources into Hausa - and the other similar work that is being done.
Maybe we should celebrate OAW week by putting OER (Open Educational Resources) at the top of the agenda for next week's Dadamac UK-Nigeria team meeting.

Reflect and celebrate

Let us all think about resources that have been developed at FF which are available for use through KRC and which we could share freely with people outside. Let us also think about what work you are doing to translate materials into other languages. Let us put a part of our meeting aside to look at these things and to realise just how much we have already done and are continuing to do in this area.

I think that because we do things in a holistic way, little by little, guided by need and opportunity, we sometimes do not realise how much has been achieved. After our meeting nest week, through Nikki's regular blog, we can celebrate OERs at KRC and share this wonderful story with others.

If we find where news about OAW is being posted we will be able to add our story to the rest of the global picture. If anyone wants to do anything else at KRC that is special and extra to mark OAW all well and good - but there is so much ongoing work to be done. I suggest we focus on celebrating OAW by this act of reflection at next week's meeting, of bringing together all that we have relevant to OERs  and then sharing the.story and the resources. 

What do you think?

Pam