OERu/Planning/Designing academic volunteers international

Aims of the activity (longer term)
To develop a financially sustainable and scalable system for Academic Volunteers international (AVI)

Narrative description of what the AVI design activity will do
The activity of designing "Academic Volunteers International" is to develop a sustainable and scalable community ecosytem for proving a pyramid of volunteer support starting from:
 * Frequently asked questions (the 80% of questions which typically are asked during each iteration of a course) and corresponding solutions to help OERu learners find the answers they are looking for;
 * Scalable systems of peer-to-peer learner support which focuses on the design of courses and solutions for OERu learners to connect with each other.
 * AVI facilitation which could include both generic learning support as well as content specific expertise.
 * "Guru" AV's who through have achieved the highest levels of status within the AVI community and are the experts for resolving the remaining 20% of issues which are not addressed through the lower levels in the pyramid.

The AVI design activity will also:


 * Develop strategies for recruiting initial volunteers for the OERu 2012 prototype courses.
 * Design solutions for recruitment, how a self-selection model could operate and corresponding capacity building for digital literacies and e-moderation.
 * Develop guidelines for the design of OERu courses to promote effective integration of the AVI subsystem within the learning experience.
 * Commence work on infrastructure and technology support by developing usecase scenarios to assist with selecting open source software solutions and existing Internet infrastructure to support the AVI subsystem.
 * Prepare the inputs and documentation necessary for prospective funding proposals to assist with addressing strategic gaps for operationalising the AVI
 * Trial and early version of the AVI model/system in parallel with the OERu 2012 protoype(s) to assist with generating data for further design and refinement of the system.

Existing inputs

 * OERu 2011.11 meeting outputs for AVI
 * Coordination team to develop a framework proposal: Vasi Doncheva, Coordinator (NorthTec); with support from Wayne Mackintosh (OER Foundation), Graham Bell (NMIT), Herbert Thomas (University of Canterbury).

Required inputs

 * Staff and volunteer time for design and development of the model
 * Funding for strategic development of support technologies