OER ACHIEVEMENTS, CHALLENGES, AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Research (NCAR). NCAR is an example of a federally funded research and development center. The OPLI initiative could be conducted primarily through a Hewlett (and others?) funder R&D center.
- Although we have been using the words grant and grantee we suggest that much of this program would be funded as what NSF calls a “cooperative agreement.” A cooperative agreement is an arrangement somewhere between a contract with clear deliverables, and a grant with no specific expectations nor much oversight from the funder. More generally, there could be funding models and experience at the NSF that might be appropriated by Hewlett.
- As Hewlett has done in OER, build a community that will interact and increasingly build common ground on the vision, approach, and opportunities for collaboration. Promote humble listening and collective action between normally competitive communities.
4.6 Why Hewlett and Why Now?
We have been looking over Hewlett’s shoulder at the OER movement now for several years and have grown increasingly enthusiastic, respectful, and excited about what the Foundation’s investments of money and leadership have accomplished.[1] The Hewlett Foundation is the recognized leader in nurturing the OER movement, and in our judgment is almost the only place to catalyze, in partnership with other private and government foundations, the next logical step from open resources to open participatory learning. Hewlett has the global network of grantees, the global reach to many others, the momentum, the entry to most any person or institutions worldwide, the flexibility, the agility, and the personal commitment of program officers. It has shown that it can attract the best to work with in this emerging field.
The primary goal of Section 3 was to address the why now question. The world is fortunate to have several major cyberinfrastructure-based, revolutionary movements under way that could now be linked for extraordinarily positive social benefit. The good news is that these are largely community-driven initiatives with a life of their own. The bad news is that without some conceptual and financial “force fields” from enlightened funders, these communities may go their separate ways with suboptimal or even balkanized outcomes. There is now an open window of time in which to act.
- ↑ Our enthusiasm is manifest in the fact that we have very willingly worked on this review and report at a level well beyond what we initially thought we had signed up for.
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