News archive

February 2014
GSoC The OER Foundation has been accepted as one of the mentoring institutions for this year's Google Summer of Code. This gives added incentive for any students that are interested in contributing to the infrastructure for WikiEducator or OERu to get involved. If you know a student that is already part of the community, please encourage them to consider applying and spending the summer working on a project that improves educational futures around the world. And when you meet new contributors on the mailing list or on IRC, welcome them to the community.

October 2011
Aspiring to be higher education’s leading player in disruptive innovation, SNHU joins forces with OERu to re-envisage models using open education approaches. Read more ...

SUNY Empire State College leads the way as the first founding anchor partner of the OER university in the United States. "By joining OERu, Empire State College will join the global community of learners who contribute to and benefit from open educational resources." said Alan Davis, President of SUNY Empire State College. Read more ...

August 2011
Meet Athabasca U - Canada's first OER university. “As an open university the institutional philosophy and direction of our university is strongly aligned with the objectives of the OER Tertiary Education Network” said Dr Frits Pannekoek, President of AU on joining the OERu partnership as founding anchor partner. Read more...

New York's open university joins forces with the OERu as a gold member of the OER Foundation. "Open institutions around the world serve millions of learners" said Dr Alan Davis, President of Empire State College "and the importance of open education resources is rapidly growing". Read more...

February 2011
Towards an OER university: Free learning for all students worldwide. The OER Foundation is to host a strategic international meeting in Dunedin on 23 February to commence planning for the provision of free learning to all students worldwide. Support from UNESCO to stream the meeting will allow the participation of education leaders from around the globe. Read more ...

November 2010
Microsoft helps WikiEducators announcing the launch of an open source filter for Mediawiki text. Microsoft Word users will now be able to share teaching materials on WikiEducator by exporting documents in Mediawiki text format. Read more ...

October 2010
Open Access Week 2010 The OER Foundation scheduled a number of webinars to promote the adoption and implementation of open access resources to support teaching, learning and research in education. Recordings are available if you missed a session.

September 2010
THINKaha publishes Open Textbook tweet -- a contemporary read which explains the "what and why of open textbooks in a format that will appeal to those who love books and those who love Twitter." Support OER friendly publishers!

June 2010
 Register now  for our celebratory "WikiEducator Gives Back" free online workshop scheduled for July 21 - August 4, 2010. Let's make history together.

Creative Commons publishes an interview with WikiEducator's Wayne Mackintosh on open education and policy.

December 2009
WikiEducator leads a global education collaboration. Otago Daily Times publishes an interview with Wayne Mackintosh -- To paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi - "WE can be the change you wish to see in the world".

September 2009
The OER Foundation poised to become an international leader in open education. The Open Education Resource (OER) Foundation was officially launched on 17 September 2009 by Dr Robin Day, Chair of the board of Directors of the OER Foundation to coincide with Software Freedom Day. WikiEducators around the world joined the OER Foundation in signing the Cape Town Open Education Declaration to mark the launch of this new not-for-profit. Read more ...

Join the official launch of the OER Resource Foundation by signing the Cape Town Open Education Declaration on Software Freedom Day. Take control of your digital future on 17 September 2009, and join WikiEducators around the world who are sharing knowledge freely. Sign up now

August 2009
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, award the OER Foundation $200,000 to support WikiEducator to improve content interoperability and further support for training through the Learning4Content project.

July 2009
Live online workshop for new members of Wikieducator on July 3, 2009 at 6PM GMT.

Collaboration is a lifelong learning skill that can improve the quality of our lives.

Goals of the Workshop:
 * Demonstrate a few basic wiki skills
 * Suggestions on how to collaborate on Wikieducator



Live online workshop for new members of Wikieducator on July 3, 2009 at 6PM GMT.

June 2009
You are invited to attend a 2-hour mini workshop "Exploring OERs and How we can make them work for us?" Cast your vote and join us on 9:30 pm (PST), on June 12, 2009, or June 13, at 7:30 am Israel time, and 4:30 pm New Zealand time, to hear Dr. Wayne Mackintosh, the Founder of WikiEducator speak. Join live at WiZiQ here Check your time here

December 2008

 * [[Image:Bestwiki.png|140px|left]]Click to vote With thanks to the blogging community, WikiEducator has been nominated for best educational wiki in the 2008 Edublog awards.

November 2008

 * The India Chapter of WikiEducator will be formally launched in a function at India International Centre on the 15th November 2008 at 2:30 p.m. This function is being organised by Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) in association with GKP, OWSA and Acharya Narendra Dev College.  The India Chapter will draw on the nation's rich educational history to build resources specific to that context and in Indian languages.

September 2008

 * Nellie Deutsch, our Chief Electoral Officer declares a free and fair election. WikiEducator celebrates and congratulates the first elected members of our Open Community Council

July 2008

 * WikiEducator assists student teachers in developing Biology lessons for elementary schools. Watch this short video compiled by Declan McCabe on this innovative project.

June 2008

 * WikiEducator acknowledges Otago Polytechnic as a featured institution. Read more about their IP policy for our times, and how WikiEducator has helped advance open learning at the institution.
 * DEANZ Online Seminar - 17 June 2008. The Distance Education Association of New Zealand are hosting an online seminar, "WikiEducator: DE reincarnated or new innovation?. COL's founder, Wayne Mackintosh will reflect on our experiences with the project.

May 2008

 * A new record for our community! WikiEducator recorded 15,147 visits to our website on 7 May 2008 and we're still growing. Congratulations to our family of educators who are committed to widening access to education using free content and open networks.
 * Time to celebrate again! The MERLOT Africa Network (MAN) will pay tribute to WikiEducator at eLearning Africa as an inaugural recipient of the awards for Exemplary Open Education Resource (OER) practices. Our community are [[media:MANeLA_Wikieducator_2008.pdf|acknowledged]] for the "pioneering role of the WikiEducator project as a model of content authoring and professional development that supports the OER movement".

April 2008

 * Our [[media:WE_Survey_04262008.pdf|survey]] of new accounts reveals that half of our members are over 45 years old. The overwhelming majority of WikiEducators work in the formal sector and want to learn wiki skills and develop free content.

March 2008

 * The College of Flexible Open and Distance Learning in Port Moresby, take the lead in hosting a Learning4Content workshop in Papua New Guinea, thanks to the foresight of Ouka Lavaki, Assistant Secretary for Education and COL Focal Point, Demas Tongogo, Principal of the College and David Leeming our WikiEducator facilitator.

February 2008

 * The Solomon Islands earn the historic accolade of hosting the first Learning4Content face-to-face workshop with support from Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development and the EU funded Distance Learning Centers Project. Prominent WikiEducators, Bernard Rapasia (Chief Education Officer) and David Leeming, have taken the lead to introduce 16 educators to the WE family.
 * The pilot Learning4Content online workshop attracted 100 participants from 32 different countries! WE and the L4C project will host at least one online workshop each month. Register now for free training!

January 2008

 * The Center for Open and Sustainable Learning launches the OER handbook project. This collaborative project aims to develop a guide to help educators get started with OERs. more ...
 * WikiEducator experiments with collaborative video. This collaborative project aims to develop a guide to help educators get started with OERs.  Wikimedia Foundation, Kaltura and WikiEducator have announced a beta program to allow users to create collaborative video and other forms of rich media.
 * Sign up for free wiki skills training. The Learning4Content announces the launch of its pilot online workshop where you will receive free wiki training in return for a donation of a free content resource on WikiEducator.

December 2007

 * WikiEducator: Best educational wiki. Stephen Downes awards our community the status of best educational wiki - well done to all WikiEducators out there!
 * Wikis go printable! The Wikimedia Foundation announce that new open source technology will bring content from Wikipedia, WikiEducator and other wikis to the world of paper. Help us to test and refine the technology.
 * WikiEducator launches a soft copy discussion on the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. We welcome your views ...
 * Web conference: Leigh Blackall from Otago Polytechnic, in conjunction with Terra Incognita invite WikiEducators to join a synchronous web conference on Friday, December 7, 2007 at 12:00 noon Eastern Standard Time (or Friday December 7th at 17:00 Greenwich Mean Time or 9:00 Pacific Standard Time).

November 2007

 * The Cape Town Open Education Declaration will officially launch in January 2008. We encourage all WikiEducators to consider being listed as a signatory.
 * A prominent WikiEducator, Leigh Blackall talks about educational development at Otago Polytechnic over at Terra Incognita. The planning and scheduling of this OSS and OER series is hosted on WikiEducator.
 * WikiEducator posts a contribution on Wikipedia's fundraising blog as an active member of the free knowledge community explaining how donations to the Wikimedia Foundation can expand access to education in the developing world.
 * Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand confirms its ongoing commitment to WikiEducator. The Tour Guiding project of the Diploma of Applied Travel and Tourism, one of many projects at the Poly, has been granted further funds for salaried development work in 2008 ... more
 * The call for contributions for the The Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning closes on 30 November 2007. We encourage WikiEducators to submit a proposal for the forum which will take place in London, 13-17 July 2008.

October 2007

 * The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation award WikiEducator $100000 for the Learning4Content project to assist in building capacity in MediaWiki editing skills for at least 2500 educators in 53 countries of the Commonwealth.
 * WikiEducator invites expressions of interest for our first bounty project: Moodle in the Commonwealth.
 * The OliVER project joins forces with WikiEducator - COL is exploring ways to assist OLiVer with the migration and supporting this growing community.
 * WikiPasifika videos now available - Meet your WikiNeighbours and WikiAmbassadors from the Pacific.
 * Slideshow by Wayne Mackintosh providing an overview of the WikiEducator project now available.
 * More than 60 participants join the WikiPasifika Online training workshop which commenced on Tuesday, 9 October, 2007.

September 2007

 * Two keynote addresses were delivered by WikiAmbassadors, Wayne Mackintosh and Kim Tucker at the DEASA Regional Conference and Workshop in Swaziland. Sept, 14, 2007.
 * Eloquence announces the testing phase of LiquidThreads which will enable threaded discussions on our talk pages. This project was co-funded by COL and Wikia. Sept 6 3007.

August 2007

 * Polytech backs online education plan, in Otago Daily Times, August 20, 2007
 * Wiki Pacifika is launched by educators from nine Pacific Island States to promote free content development in the region as part of the FLOSS4Edu project. 13 - 15 August 2007.
 * Wayne Mackintosh, founder of WikiEducator attends the Wikimedia Foundation Board retreat as a member of the Advisory Board and participates in Wikimania 2007. August, 3-5, 2007.
 * The French Chapter of the FLOSS4Edu initiative is launched under the stewardship of Jibril Touzi of the Cameroon. August, 13 -17, 2007.
 * In working towards the vision of a free education curriculum by 2015, COL in collaboration with the New Zealand Ministry of Education is hosting a capacity building and strategy workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, from August 13-15, 2007 to launch a Pacific Chapter of the FLOSS4Edu initiative. FLOSS4Edu Pacific Chapter.

July 2007

 * Towards a free education curriculum in 2015. Our recent Tectonic Shift Thank Tank is featured in Connections.

June 2007

 * Module developers from Canada, India, New Zealand, Trinadad & Tobago and the USA gather in Vancouver to review progress on the Computer Navigator's Certificate -- A free content for free software training initiative. 27 - 29 June 2007.
 * Wayne Mackintosh challenges Australia to assist in building a free curriculum during a virtual presentation entitled WikiEducator: Turning the digital divide into digital dividends - I hope Australia can help. This was a virtual presentation at e-Trends hosted by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, Brisbane, Australia, June 20, 2007.
 * The Open Knowledge Foundation, Free Culture and WikiEducator are building an international network promoting the development of Free Textbooks. Join the Free Textbooks mailing list and keep up with developments on the Open Text Book blog. 25 June 2007.
 * Steve Foerster represented WikiEducator at the iCommons Summit in Dubrovnik, Croatia in June 2007.
 * The third VUSSC boot camp commenced on 4 June 2007 in Trinidad & Tobago. This one is focusing of Life Skills.

May 2007

 * Steve Foerster, member of the Advisory Board and WikiEducator Ambassador will speak about our project at the National Free Culture Conference @ Harvard, 26 May 2007.
 * Sir John Daniel speaks about VUSSC, WikiEducator and free content licensing at the Association for Commonwealth Studies Conference, 20-23 May 2007 - Windsor, UK.
 * WikiEducator logs 1000 registered users today -- only 16 days after our first birthday. You can make this one more by registering an account today. 16 May 2007.
 * We invite members of our community to join the Ambassadors for WikiEducator initiative.
 * WikiEducator is pleased to announce that Sir John Daniel, CEO and president of COL is now Patron of our project. Sir John says that "It would be an honour" to serve WikiEducator in response to the invitation from the Advisory Board

April 2007

 * The Tectonic Shift Think Tank meeting brings together an international group of thought leaders to COL headquarters in Vancouver from 11 to 13 April 2007, to explore future paths for Mediawiki, Free Cultural Works and eLearning for development. April 2007.
 * Wayne Mackintosh posts a piece on free content with references to WikiEducator over at Terra Incognita's OSS in Education Series. We invite the WikiEducator community to post their thoughts.

March 2007

 * 12 March marks series launch by an international group of practitioners on the impact of open source software on education. Contributions to the series will appear in Terra Incognita with summaries of discussions reformatted as OERs on WikiEducator. ...more
 * World campus joins the Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate development, a prime example of internationalisation through participation.
 * The Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate has been selected for a round table discussion at the Commonwealth Connects, International [[media:CWConnects_summit.pdf|e-Partnership Summit]]. This event will bring together ICT Ministers from around the Commonwealth, and other senior people from ICT world and civil society.

February 2007

 * 37 Teacher educators from 30 different institutions in India gather for an OER and eLearning workshop hosted by the Central Institute of Education at the University of Delhi. The workshop has launched an Indian Chapter of the FLOSS4Edu project and participants plan to work collaboratively on a number of projects. Feb 2007.
 * A group committed to the intellectual and cultural commons has released Version 1.0 of the Definition of Free Cultural Works, This definition is endorsed by the WikiEducator community. Feb 2007. ...more
 * |The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand starts work on the Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate, an international initiative with participating institutions from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean,  North America and the Pacific.
 * COL launches pilot testing phase of the Newbie tutorials on wiki editing for review. You're most welcome to join us for this pilot testing phase. Feb 2007
 * The MOSEP project, funded by the European Commission has joined WikiEducator to develop free content materials on the use of ePortfolios. Feb 2007.
 * VUSSC team leaders met in Vancouver recently to commence planning for the Singapore Bootcamp. Daily reports were filed by the team and considerable progress was made on drafting a proposed Agenda. In attendance were Tauvaga Vaai, Samoa; Philip Serracino Inglott, Malta; Patricia Benn, Antigua; Shokahle Dlamini, Swaziland and Lim Wei Ying, Singapore.

January 2007

 * COL in collaboration with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is using WikiEducator to develop free content, and to promote skills and literacy using social software technologies. African educators are working with a free content donation from the College of the Rockies, British Columbia, Canada to localise for the African context at a workshop hosted by the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.
 * Nicholas Kimolo of fuTuriStic in Nairobi Kenya has completed the report on the proceedings of the FLOSS4Edu workshop. FLOSS4Edu is an African initiative aimed at building a community of free content developers using free software.
 * Jibril Touzi of the Cameroon offers to coordinate the development of a French version of WikiEducator as part of the FLOSS4Edu project for Francophone Africa.

December 2006

 * Wayne Mackintosh (Education Specialist, eLearning and ICT Policy at COL) visits the World Campus at Penn State Univeristy to talk about the role of free content and WikiEducator for digital futures in higher education. See text interview available on Terra Incognita. Dec 2006.

October 2006

 * WikiEducator brochure available for download (899KB), 25 October 2006.
 * Sir John Daniel announces the release of COL's Science, Technology and Mathematics Programme (STAMP) materials under a CC-BY-SA license. The 18 general education modules provide in-service skills training for upper primary and junior secondary teachers. 20 October, 2006. more ....
 * What is WikiEducator? - your questions answered, 16 October 2006.
 * "Virtual University develops learning content" - Feature article in Connections, 16 October 2006. more ...

September 2006

 * Sir John Daniel announces the Commonwealth Computer Navigator's Certificate to coincide with | Software Freedom Day, 12 September 2006. more ...
 * Commonwealth Secretariat says that Virtual University will become a reality, 7 September 2006.

August 2006

 * Seychelles' lead role in establishing the VUSSC recognised, 31 August 2006
 * Sir John Daniel identifies free content as a new miracle for education and comments on the difficulties of the non-commercial (NC) restriction of the Creative Commons license, 23 August, 2006 more ...,
 * Mauritian Ministers welcome VUSCC, 7 August 2006.
 * Online community creates learning content for small states. Educators from 14 countries will be meeting in Mauritius from 7 to 25 August 2006 for a bootcamp, under the auspices of the new Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC), which was set up by the Commonwealth’s education ministers. The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is helping to make this collaborative network a reality. more ....

WikiEducator in the blogosphere
An archive of selected postings


 * Cogdogblog, March 16 2007 - Alan Levine
 * Learning online, March 15 2007, Leigh Blackall
 * abject learning, March 14, 2007 - Brian Lamb
 * Terra Incognita blog entry by WikiEducator instigator Wayne Mackintosh.