= For the future School of Open /about page =
Purpose
The problem: Open content, tools and processes can vastly improve access to and participation in research, education, technology, and culture, but not enough people know what "open" means or how it applies to their lives.
The solution: Peer learning on what "open" means and how to use open content, tools, and processes powered by peer mentors and learners, self-organized into courses which themselves leverage existing "open" learning materials.
The goal: Encourage everyone, including artists, educators, learners, and researchers, to improve their fields through the use of open content, tools, and processes. Provide opportunities to obtain skills and certification around open practices that result in improved access to and participation in research, education, technology and culture.
Scope
Learning opportunities and certification that focus on promoting open practices of all kinds, especially in research, education, and culture. Open practices include using the content, tools and processes shared with us, enabling others to use, share and adapt what we create, and supporting transparency in our content, tools and processes. If a course involves teaching or learning about any of these practices, either broadly or in a particular field, then it probably fits in the School of Open.
Courses must be built around tools that are accessible to any learner free of cost, free to share, and free to modify to suit their needs. Participants should also be encouraged to openly share their work. Participants are expected to openly license their work under the CC Attribution-ShareAlike, or compatible license, so that they may review, revise, and adapt each others work.
Values
As part of P2PU, the School of Open runs on the same values and principles that make up the foundation of P2PU: openness, community, peer learning. We are articulating these values in order to guide our actions, but P2PU has always been about doing, and our actions will in turn help us probe and refine these values.
P2PU is open: Open sharing and collaboration enable participation, innovation, and accountability. Our community is open so that everyone can participate. Our content is open so that everyone can use it. Our model and technology are open to enable experimentation and ongoing improvement. And our processes are open so that we are accountable to our community.
P2PU is a community: P2PU is a community-centric project and our governance model reflects that. P2PU is driven by volunteers, who are involved in all aspects of the project. As members of this community, we speak and act with civility, tolerance, and respect for other opinions, people, and perspectives. We strive for quality as a community driven process of review, feedback and revision. ?
P2PU is passionate about peer learning: P2PU is teaching and learning by peers for peers. Everyone has something to contribute and everyone has something to learn. We are all teachers and we are all learners. We take responsibility for our own and each others learning.
How to participate
= FEEDBACK =
- Add your comment, suggested change here...
- John Weitzmann, CC Germany Legal: To my impression, the philosophy should not only rest on the 2 mission parts "tell what open means" and "teach how to do that", but also rest on part 3 "show why open is better when and for whom". From years of experience around "open everything" I'd say that promoting open is not so much about telling people how to do it, but to tell them why to do it. Once they understand the Why they tend to find pleasure in teaching themselves the How. This is not about convincing by being evangelic or ideological about open, but rather about giving good S forS why open is different, where it improves what and how that relates to almost everybody's life.
- Markus Deimann: I could not agree more with John. It is very important to highlight that the commitment to openness also implies a moral value which is to promote the "true" spirit of it and prevent all forms of instrumentalisations. In the current process of commodification of education is a great danger of loosing and neglecting the spirit of openness. It can also be argued that once you opt for openness you also take responsibility to promote it.