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We are finally starting to get under the hood of the foundation. We have published the first in our ‘How we work’ series on Open Licensing and have been getting some great feedback. As we know, we are not perfect, but we do have a clear policy on what we want to do and very real ideas and opportunities to get there. Every agreement we enter into, be it with a service provider or in the form of a donation ensures all material and resources are open and will remain so, they are also free from technical protection measures.
We are now wokring on deconstructing our fellowship programme – watch this space.
May 2008 was a really great month at the Foundation. We went through what seemed like a spring clean of our thoughts, processes and communications.
We spent some time going into the next phase of our theory of change and, helped by our trusty designer Eugene, have started to make real progress on how we express what we do and why. We also went through the website, and whilst all are agree that we we need a thorough re-design, to help include all the information, developments and achievements of our partners and projects, we identified some low-hanging fruit to pick.
Most excitingly, we released the first of our ‘How we work’ papers, specifically looking at how we use/protect freedoms and try to ensure our money is spent in a enduring manner through licensing. We are no where close to perfect, but we are trying to get there!
In our last quarterly trustee meeting, we had a debate about results and timing. A lot of our work does not have the satisfying feeling of tangible results. When you build a school, you see the foundations, the bricks, the fixtures and fittings and eventually, the learning that happens inside. When building the foundations for an open knowledge society, driving innovation in education and technology, the results are not always as obvious.
This month I was incredibly heartened to see some of our labour bear fruit. Due to the diligent work by Karien and Andrew, we have been part of a process of South Africa standing up for what it believes in and appealing against the ISO in the OOXML debate. We also saw UNESCO state publicly that the Cape Town Declaration Open Education was a milestone and significant contribution to OER’s.
Whilst none of these have a PR photo opportunity, I believe the placement of these foundations can and will (and in some cases already do) have a significant impact on society and people’s ability to participate in the knowledge economy.
Having Mark Surman in Cape Town from his usual Toronto haunt, always adds an extra sense of silliness and productivity. As both Mark and I are not permanently based in the office, we very proudly left our Mini-me bobble heads for the team to find on Monday morning. They have a recording device, if you want to know what we are saying, you will have to drop in!
