P2PU Community Call
23 May 2013
General Report Back

We're hanging out here: https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/161502fd4c788d03cb0f5049474c9d2fe3405b50?authuser=0&hl=en-GB Join us!
Note: I had a bit of trouble setting up this hangout - Philipp, can you check the setting for our account and see if we've disabled the "On Air" setting? PS: I had a look, and am not sure why your @p2pu.org account seems to not allow OnAir. Please also investigate on the Google Apps interface. 

Attendees:

• Bekka
• Dirk
• Philipp
• Erika_
• Chris
• Billy

• Progress (what we've been working on)
  • BK: Layout of Berlin report is done
    • Need to find a home for it
    • School of Ed & Mechanical MOOC in the works
  • Hewlett Proposal is almost done (Hewlett report as well, but not as almost done as the proposal)
    • Focus is on increasing "the sense of belonging to an intellectual community" and designing courses that get around the binary course completion metric (the only choice users have is to complete or to drop-out, but in reality many people learn in other ways) 
  • Getting started with Online/Offline MOOC (see email from Karen on community list)
  • Sent email to previous users of Python Mooc
    • had a small problem (100 users * 25 emails = %$#%)
  • User on badges can delete badge that does not have any projects
  • Other Python MOOC updates
  • Improved the unsubscribe feature (previously, users would unsubscribe  from mailgun, but would still be in our local DB / now unsubscribes  sync both)
  • We want to use http://thepeople.p2pu.org for discourse
  • We discussed feedback on courses and badges with School of Open and Karen + others
    • See email from Jane on community list with (excellent) summary
• Priorities (focus next week)
  • Hosting (/finding a place for) research papers on info.p2pu.org
  • Newsletter
  • Data whitelist / tables
  • Upgrading p2pu.org linode server
    • we are planning to have +-  3h downtime on Monday the 27th (morning South Africa time)
    • Anyone has anything important happening ? BK to communicate
  • Plan implementation of feedback from SOO & SOE
  • Investige single signon with disqus for courses
  • Grouping users for the Python MOOC in small groups
    • We need to talk with VMG, June and community about the grouping
  • Partner badge implementation
    • wireframe up at https://docs.google.com/a/p2pu.org/document/d/1gEMa7Rj9innzpjElQaHyL_mDEv0lZzUc_KyQWarsAIk/edit#
• Setup Discourse hosting
  • DNS -> http://thepeople.p2pu.org
  • [Optional] Set-up P2PU OAuth - we are going to do it
    • Getting Hewlett proposal submitted
    • Hosting Shuttleworth Foundation Gathering
• Problems (walls we ran into on the way)
  • 
    
• Process (org stuff)
  • Philipp's next two weeks are tricky (please be nice if he is late for calls/ misses calls):
    • Next week I am hosting Shuttleworth Gathering and spending a day in DC
    • The week after, I'm at Citizen Science Hackathon, and then MOOC Jury in Berlin

Ideas (on the horizon)


Discussion

UX Feedback Process for feedback from partners and other people / related: 

• Feedback from yesterday's meeting with Jane & Karen
• Process worked well. Jane and Karen aggregated feedback from organizers.
• We set up a list of criteria to help us priotize (make decisions). 
• Best way to do this -> Combination of human conversation and open process
• Next steps:
  • Move suggestions into an open Trello board that everyone can see
  • Schedule implementation for the improvements that were prioritized

Question:

• Who champions requests from people who are not in a School (who don't have a Jane or Karen)
  • Suggestion: Let everybody know how they can suggest features
  • Regular calls for UX updates
  • Then leads into open trello board
  • Possibility: Add an "open input" list to the trello board for people who need to let us know what they want, but cannot be on a call or are not in a school
  • So who is the filter?
    • Dirk is first filter, but VMG and BK will prepare for the call as well (help review/prioritize)

Virtual Teams Not feeling lost in cyberspace in a virtual team - Office Hours
It can be hard to know how to ask for help if you're feeling lost in a virtual office, and the web can be lonely
Suggestion is that we have an "office hour" twice a week where we can hang out, using a tool like hipchat or voice hangout.
Video is distracting
Billy: we used a blackboard room that we had open all the time. Could use a hangout without video, but with chat and voice 
Mondays: 4-6 (South Africa), 10 US East Coast, 3pm GMT


Hewlett Deeper Learning: http://db.tt/PF8Aueni (White Paper Academic Mindsets / PDF)

• Hewlett's Open Education funding is structured around the "deeper learning" concept
• They recently added a 6th deeper learning competency -> academic mindsets 
• It groups 4 academic mindsets, including "a sense of belonging to an intellectual community"
• This is very interesting for P2PU, because it could be a marker for the "magic" that we care about

Discourse as a new space for conversations

• We were interested in exploring an alternative to the mailing list
• Team tested discourse for a month
• We like it
• http://thepeople.p2pu.org
• Next steps:
  • Get hosting set up
  • Email / communicate to the community