So here's the question (I'm typing it in here so I don't have to flick back and forth to it!):
Imagine you are advising a funding organisation that wishes to promote activity and research in the area of open education. Set out the three main priorities they should address, explaining each one and providing a justification for your list.

And here's my answer....

Dear Funding Organisation,

You have taken on a challenging but noble mission! There are a number of recommended actions which you should take in order to fulfil your remit of promoting activity and research in the area of open education. The top three priorities are:

1. Make sure your venture has legs. Consider how long you want to undertake the funding of this initiative, and what might replace your funding should you decide to re-focus on other areas. Otherwise you risk starting an initiative which you can't finish, earning nothing but animosity from the educational community in the process.
2. Network, network, network. Open education is all about learning from peers as well as from educators, and about collaborating to achieve educational outcomes. You must model this approach in your organisation, building a network of connections with the educational community. Feedback from this network will help to determine your funding priorities, and the network will be an invaluable sounding board as you move forward.
3. Be open. As with networking, you must model the key aspects of open education in the way in which you approach the educational community. Share information such as research findings with them openly, and ask for input and commentary. Only by modelling these values will you earn the respect of the community, and only by earning their respect will you be able to work with the key researchers and most active contributors in this space.

Good luck!

Key concepts of openness

I think it will become clear now that creating graphical representations isn't my thing. I'm more of a bullet point girl. But here's my effort to create a graphic representing the key concepts of openness:

Let's face it though, it's essentially a bullet point list inside some bubbles....maybe I need a MOOC in graphic design!

MOOC newbie

Well, here I am. MOOCing. Is MOOC a verb? Is the course I'm doing a MOOC at all?

Let's back up a bit. I've just started an online course from the Open University on Open Education. Rather more technically, it's called H817, but that sounds so impersonal. And the first task is to set up a blog (check), write my first post (nearly done), and tag it with H817. Unclear how to do that at the moment, but working on it.

Let's back up a bit more. Who am I, and why am I doing an online course? It's all connected to my job - I'm an analyst at a boutique research and advisory firm working with the information industry. I specialise in education, so I work mostly with educational publishers and other bodies interested in what they're doing, like banks, industry associations, and technology companies. And one of the areas I cover as part of my analysis is open education - hence my choice of course. I've also just done a report on MOOCs, and felt I needed to get more of a student perspective on what it's like to do a MOOC. Even though Martin Weller felt compelled to question whether this was a MOOC. I guess we'll see depending on the number of students.

So, that's me, and that's why I'm here. Now, off to learn more about tagging a blog post.....will labels do the trick? Sigh.....