Horner Transcript 10
From OER Commons Wiki
Interview with FHSST Founder Mark Horner
Movie 10
What’s important to know when starting an open educational resource project now?
Presumably a project online so that it's editable by people all from over the world. You must find the technology which is the simplest and easiest to use, and the one which is probably the most open for sharing.
But you should also have a focus. Instead of trying to generate a repository of all of the educational material every country needs on the whole planet, because that's impossible.
If you want to run a project, you need to have some sort of focus. Identify an area where you can make some sort of difference, where there's a need, and focus on getting that done. And then you will be successful; you will produce the material. Find something where you can have well-defined tasks, well defined objectives. Just producing a massive repository of material, how do you even know how far along you are, how close you are to finished? It’s very hard to assess progress. You need some focus. And it's also better for the community, because you produce material where there is a need.
Any other advice for people who are starting OERs?
You need to try to find good volunteers. Finding good people-- a few good people-- is better than finding many weaker people. It usually helps to try to create a social aspect around the whole project, but still with some focus. So just getting together and having pizza doesn't actually generate material. For big volunteer events like that, focused tasks made a big difference, without making the event unfriendly.
You should also spend a significant amount of time trying to identify a partner who you can work with. We made a lot of mistakes. There was technology we could have used which might have been more appropriate, and we just charged on in without doing any sort of survey or review of what was available. We learned a lot of lessons the hard way and there's no point in everybody learning all the lessons the hard way.
