Take Inventory of Internal Expertise

Once you have determined your initial questions, you can move into the development of tools to collect data that inform those questions. Each OER project has unique people, practices and ways of communicating internally and externally. The questions below provide a way to help identify existing expertise so that you can start to develop tools for collecting data that are realistic to your project, your ways of working, and to the resources that you have available.

Which established methods of communication can be draw upon?

Some OER projects might have elaborate online content authoring platforms established for their OER communities, in which community members communicate through intranet forums or Wiki spaces. They might also use email as a means of facilitating workflow and communicating with community members. In reflecting upon your own methods of communication:

• What communication channels are typically used within your project?
• Are there communication channels in place that are not being used?
• How do distinct communities such as project leaders, funders, volunteers, teachers and learners communicate with one another?
• Are internal interactions and communication channels different from external ones?

What people and technologies can we leverage?

• Which project community members have the research skills necessary to develop our data collection tools and facilitate the case study process?
• Which technology resources can be used to help in facilitating the case study?

Pointers

• Create a complete list of your projects’ unique ways of communicating and interacting. For example, create a matrix with the categories of your stakeholders across the top (content creators, funders, project leaders, users, etc.). Under each category, list all of the methods of communicating used by each group.

• Create a list of individuals in your project, with their research and software expertise identified accordingly.